Approximately from 3rd to 4th grade, I suspected some sort of secret society existed in the area where I lived. I gradually began to notice that large groups of people, such as in a restaurant or crowded streets, they would occasionally signal each other.

If you were in such a crowd long enough, you might hear a tiny electronic *beep*, sometimes it might a double *beep-beep*. A few minutes later, a beep answers from somewhere else. These little beeps are hard to localize so you can't really tell who its coming from. This signaling would slowing build up, then fade away. I didn't think they were exchanging information, more of a "I'm here, too" reassurance to each other.

I couldn't figure out who these people were or what their organization was about; the groups of people that signaled each other seemed random and there were no other clues i could discern.

Later I realized it was digital watches beeping on the hour.

HermitCrab (from neighbourhood : in the street)

My grandmother and I were watching my baby sister play on the floor. My grandmother said, "she is priceless, isn't she?" I thought my grandmother meant that my baby sister wasn't worth anything.

Vicki J. (from language : speaking)

When I was little I thought that reincarnation meant that you turned into a walking and talking carnation if you weren't succesfull in life.

Rachel D. (from nature : plants)

My brother and I thought that Grandma lived at the airport because that's where we always went to get her. Then when we were tired of her, we took her back.

Susan (from grown-ups : family)

When I was younger I used to believe that the sparkly sidewalks, instead of having something added to the concrete to make them sparkly, was actually millions of tiny ant paparazzi. I would hide my face as I walked over it.

Jason (from neighbourhood : in the street)

When I was little, I thought that the "viewer discretion is advised" warnings before television programs meant that you weren't supposed to talk about what you saw.

Rin (from media : tv)

As a child I was totally floored by the fact that my dad owned a monkey wrench. We had never had any monkeys that needed to be taken apart and I could never figure out which part of a monkey it would fit on even if we had.

Gif (from animals : general)

As a 3 year old, I always believed that the little "no right turn" signs on traffic islands meant "no boomerangs". Being from Australia, this seemed perfectly logical until I was about five or six and my dad explained what they really meant.

Jem, Melbourne (from transport : road signs)

When I was about 4 or 5, I had (and for some reason loved) a children's book about Louis Pasteur, which had illustrations of rabid dogs with white foam all around their mouths. One day, a family friend served me some blueberry pancakes with blueberries for eyes and a whipped cream smile, and I FLIPPED OUT. I cried softly at the table and when everyone asked me what was wrong, I told them that I couldn't eat my pancakes because they had rabies.

hyperchondriac child (from food : dangerous food)

when i was little i used to always want to buy ice cream from the ice cream man, and sometimes my mom would give me money. but one time, when i asked for money she got fed up and said, "oh, that's the knife sharpening man! he comes around and sharpens peoples' knives to use to kill little kids who ask him for ice cream! please, whatever you do, DONT ASK HIM FOR ICE CREAM!" from then on, i was horrified at the knife sharpening man, aka the ice cream man. :P

amanda (from neighbourhood : ice cream vans)

my dad used to tell me that if you pointed at things, you were poking holes in the air and the fairies/birds would trip over them.

i'm still hesitant to poke holes..

kylie-o (from science : physics)

I used to believe that any royal people like kings or queens used a brand new spoon for every bite of food and never ever re-used silverware. I would count how many bites I took at dinner and try to calculate how many spoons the Queen would need to eat dinner. And then how many spoons she would use in a day! I still am not totally positive this isn't true.

Anon (from body functions : eating)

I was raised Catholic, and had the idea of "inviting Jesus into your heart" doa little confused. Apparently, he knocked all the time, and when you answered, he could come inside & be inside your heart. The symbolism of this was somewhat lost on me though - I routinely used to kick Jesus out of my heart before I did bad things. I would tell him to leave, and once the evil deed was done, I would say, "Okay Jesus, you can come back in now." This went on for years.

Amberjane (from religion : characters)

I used to believe that there was a magical ingredient in birthday cakes that allowed you to age another year, and that's why you had to eat it.

Sean (from people : birthdays)

In the early 50's when I was in the early elementary school years we had bomb drills in school where we closed the blinds and got under our desks - I thought we closed the blinds so the bombers would think no one was there and hid under the desks in case they came in just to make sure no one was there.

Madriene (from the past : wars)

At one point growing up, I became convinvced that the world would end on February 29, 1997. I have no idea how I came by this belief, but there it was: it didn't matter what I did, what I achieved, or how I lived my life, because come February 29, 1997, the whole world would blow up and utterly extinguish all life on earth.

I believed this until one day, when I realized that 1997 wasn't going to be a leap year...

romulus (from time : general)

I used to think that vanilla was the absence of chocolate, not its own flavor.

Gen (from food : general)

I used to believe that my parents relied on me to make the traffic lights green. I would do this by absorbing the green from trees and grass with my eyes and beam it into the traffic lights. If i was given enough time i had a 100% success rate.

Jeff F (from transport : traffic lights)

Once, when I was 8, I told my Mom about this weird experience I had where the exact same thing happened to me twice. She explained that it hadn't happened twice, but that I had déjà vu. The next day at school, I told all of my friends that I had this weird French disease that made me get stuck in time and repeat things I'd already done.

Annie (from body functions : special powers)

When I was a kid, I was very afraid of chicken pot pies, and wondered why anyone would ever eat any such thing. It was probably because I wasn't yet clearly hearing a distinction between "chicken pot" and "chicken pox". So I must have been thinking of them as "chicken pox pies".

Jennifer (from food : dangerous food)