I used to think that there was day only so we could have light at night. See, there must have been this big box inside my wall that would suck up the light during the day. At night, when the light outside went away, the light would stay inside the little box in my wall. When you flipped on the light switch a shutter would open in the box and the light would filter through tubes that went through the wall to the ceiling to the light bulb. When you turned off the switch the shutters would close. That was my theory on electricity and day and night.

Riannon Showers

when i was little i used to believe that when a person was going to burn a cd they actually set it on fire. so when my friend asked me if i wanted her dad to burn my favorite cd for her i said no.

Anon

I thought a Walkman (tape-version of the Discman) only worked if you were walking and when you stopped it would go off automatically. I always begged my brother to let me try it, but he said that if little kids used them then they'd go deaf and end up like those people who walked around carrying boomboxes on their shoulders. That was the only way they heard music. It was like some punishment- you used a walkman too early so you're partialy deaf and you have to carry a bigger radio. What a dork I was.

Meg

I used to think that when you sent a fax, the paper went through the wires.

em

When I was a kid, I thought that when I turned off the computer, the characters from the computer games gathered around a bonfire and talked to each other about what I did to them the whole day.

Anon

One of my very first memories is of the time my mother took me to have my picture taken at JC Pennys. I was two years old. There were all these pictures of children all over the walls and I thought that when my picture was taken I would be forever stuck in that picture. I couldn't understand why my mother would leave me there in that picture. She didn't end up leaving me so I thought she changed her mind. It seemed like it was a long time before I understood what having my picture taken really meant.

Ula

My father had me beleving that in every electronic device, such as televisions and keypads. Lived a little Japanese man who controlled everything in that particular device. And made things happen depending on what button you pressed.

Christian

I used to think that when I moved the mouse around on the mouse pad, I was giving the computer a massage.

anon

i used to think that shtml stood for
"sh*tmail".

anonymous

When i was little, about 3 or 4, I believed that if you started taping a TV show on the VCR, it didn't matter where you started recording it, you could always rewind it back to the beginning.
Whenever I missed the start of a program I wanted to watch I would ask my Dad to tape it and he would say 'there's no point, you've already missed some of it' and I would reply 'no Daddy, tape it and then wind it back to the start!'. Then he would say I couldn't, and I would shout 'YES DADDY, WIND IT!'
I was an odd child. Mind you, I haven't really changed, but now I am quite good with computer, DVD players etc.!

Know-it-all Micky

in the early 1970's my parents had a digital clock radio. the numbers flipped over to change. i thought there was a very tiny monkey inside who painted each number. it took him exactly 60 seconds to paint each number, except when the hour changed and he had to rush to paint all the new numbers in time.

scoop

'Mole machines' is what me and my brother used to call them. You see them in Thunderbirds, any film about Victorians tunnelling trying to find the core of the Earth, and lots of cartoons. They're basically cylinders with giant screws on the front and they burrow through soil, rock, or the white-hot core of the planet at about fifteen miles an hour.

I knew not everything you saw on TV existed in real life, but I saw these things on too many different shows and films for it to be a coincidence. So Mole Machines must be real, I deduced, and I hoped fervently to ride in one when I was a grown up. Big disappointment.

I was delighted to see a Mole Machine pop up in The Incredibles. Maybe a whole new generation of kids will see them as a viable transport option.

Andy R

I used to seeing modem used for internet connection in my home early from my days of childhood.I used to believe(nope I should correct it as "I used to wonder)how my dad used to browse the web by simply connecting the modem a "white bulky box" ... n' to add to it he was able to do this even when there was no power supply!!!

iNtRuDeR

This one is about my sister. She is 22 and I am 20. Last year I started working at an office so I had access to all the cool office things like copiers and fax machines. My sister had never used a fax machine before since we never had access to one. One day she needed to fill out paper work for her job and send it to them. My mom suggested she fax it instead of sending it so she came to my work so I could fax it for her. Before I faxed it I mentioned that since it was an important document they might need the real copy. My sister looked at me blankly and said,

"Why won't they get the real copy."

That's when I realised that my sister was under the impression that a fax machine was like a transporter. I couldn't stop laughing as I explained to her how they really worked. I think she was dissapointed.

Midget

I grew up in a household that was rather behind-the-times, technologically. When I was in 7th grade (1995-96), the only computer we owned was a hopelessly obsolete old MacIntosh.

So one day in Social Studies class, the teacher asked, "Do any of you know who the richest person in the world is?"

A boy answered, "Bill Gates. He's got, like, fifty billion dollars."

"And who is Bill Gates?"

"The guy who invented Windows."

The guy who invented windows. My first thought was, "Wow! No wonder he's so rich-- I've never seen a house without windows."

My second (slightly more intelligent) thought was, "Wait... The guy who invented windows is still alive? How OLD must he be?!"

I forget how long it took me to realize they were talking about the operating system. I'm glad I didn't say anything out loud-- otherwise they never would've let me move up to 8th grade.

Katherine

You know that sort of windy noise in the telephone, like if you had a bad connection, or you'd hear it after you hung up? I used to think it was caused by the wind blowing through the telephone wires.

Marlene

I used to believe that if you splashed water on an electrical outlet or on a light switch sparks would fly out. I got this idea from being told never to turn on or off a light switch with wet hands. I used to shake my hands off in the direction of the light switch anyway before drying them with a towel, because I thought it would be cool if sparks did come out.

queeneve

I used to think that giant electricity generating windmills were actually giant propellers that kept the earth spinning in the right direction.

Confused

i used to believe that when you faxed, the paper would shrink and go through the telerhone wires to the other fax machine.

jackie

I used to believe that photocopy machines contained special rubber stamps with every possible text or image they might ever need to reproduce, so it was just a simple matter of the machine picking the right stamp.

K.H.