science : telephones - I Used To Believe

Show most recent or highest rated first.

page 5 of 8

< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >

when I was little, I thought that the phone was a gigantic series of tuubes that went everywhere to each house, like really long straws. So then, I believed that you could send stuff through the tubes. I remember telling my best friend over the phone, that I was going to send spagghetti through the phone to my brother in college:P

Anon

I believed that telephone operators were in the telephone poles, and I thought that you had to be really skinny to be a telephone operator.

Anon

As a kid I believed that the dial tone on your phone was the operator going *oooooooo* all day long. I used to pick up the phone to see if I could catch her not doing it, like on a break or lunch.

Heidi

I used to believe that "caller i.d." was actually "caller idea" becuase you would have an IDEA about who was calling you.

Lauryn

Before I had my own mobile phone (cellphone) I used to think that if you phoned one, you would hear their ringtone in your reciever!

Aidan

wen i was rilly little i knew that u couldnt shove food through the phone, but i thought that because spegetti was shaped like the little holes in the phone i could send spegetti throught the phone to the person i was talking to. im not sure how i ever found out the truth because i dont remember ever trying it.....

anon

When I was about four or five (early '70s) and telephones had these things on them called "dials"... well, you know how a phone number is written "555-6792"? I thought that since there was no dash ("-") on the dial, that the dash must mean that you had to pause for a couple of seconds. So, when I called my friend I'd dial the first three numbers (this was about 25 years before the whole 10-digit-dialing nonsense), and pause for a few seconds then dial the remaining four digits. Since it worked, I kept doing it.

(later, when I was first introduced to a TouchTone (push-button) phone I was told by the owner that I had to dial slowly -- that if I punched the buttons too quickly the call wouldn't go through. So go figure.)

strawberry

I can remember misdialing a phone number as a small child and hearing a pre-recorded voice. The voice said, "If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator." I used to think it said "Bend down your operator." I couldn't figure out how making a telephone operator bend down was supposed to help you make a call...

Maeghan Jade

When I was younger, I tried many times to dial the telephone number of my own house to see if I could hear myself talking. When my parents explained that I couldn't get an answer from the number because it was our own house, I tried taking the cordless phone outside and calling from the backyard, thinking that one of the other phones in the house would ring.
To this day, my father swears that when he was a boy (and phones were more primative) it was possible to call your own number and get a ring. I'm still not sure if I believe this.

Maeghan Jade

I used to think that someone's house number was their telephone number, so I used to try and ring the people who lived opposite by dialling 143.

Clarabel

I used to think that to call my nana, you just had to pick the phone up, and wait (my nana's special like that!). I used to have very long conversations with the recording saying 'please replace the handset, and try again'. I remember i got really upset one time, when the siren noise (to let you know that you've left the phone off the hook) at the other end started, i thought she was mad at me!

James

I used to think that everyone had a little person just like them that all lived in the telephone.

Jenni

when i was little my mum told me that our neighbours had an answering machine, and I thought this was a human like robot that came out of the closet next to the phone and tell the people who called that there was no one homo

Anon

i used to think that people's phone numbers were 1-800 and then their name. i'd always be trying to call 1-800-bigbird or something like that. because, yeah, i thought big bird was real too.

Anon

When you call someone on the phone, the ring you hear on the receiver is exactly how that someone's phone sounds like as they hear it ring before they pick it up.

MD Caruso

When I was little, I had went to call my grandma on the phone in my mom's bedroom, but had forgot the number. I left the phone off the hook to go ask my mom for the number. When I came back, the recording was on the phone that says "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and dial again". I picked up the phone, hearing the voice, and thought someone was actually on the other end of the phone talking to me. I sat there for hours talking to the recording, finally my mom came into the room and asked if I was talking to grandma. Excitedly I looked at my mom and said "Nope! I've been talking to the dial lady, she's been saying the same thing for a long time... I think her memory isn't very good, but she is a good listener! She even plays music that sounds like beeping noises when she doesn't talk!"

Ooper

When I was a kid, I thought my mother and a neighbor frequently gave each other rings (rings like one wears on one's finger). I watched to see them wearing all those new rings, but I never did. I didn't realize yet that when they said, "I'll give you a ring", they were talking about making phone calls to each other.

Greg

When my mother used to try to make phone calls and 'it was busy.' I always wondered how the phone knew the people were busy.

Heather C.

When I was little, my mom called my grandmother on the phone. She let me listen for her to pick up and answer. I heard the busy signal and handed the phone back to my mom rather confused. She listened and then told me that "the lion was busy." In shock and horror I imagined that this was the sound you heard when someone (like my grandmother)was being killed and eaten by a lion.

Ary

page 5 of 8

< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >