when i was little in my town there is an auto repair place and it had the words "new brakes" written on a neon sign outside the letters b and r were out though (so it said ake) for some reason i always thought it said "new cakes" i could never figure out why men who fix cars had a sign for cake outside i thought it said new cakes til i was maybe 9

Anon (from language : reading)

I used to believe that "testicles" and "intestines" were the same thing. So once when my dad had me pinned down with his leg so he could tickle my feet, I started to scream, "Move your leg you're squishing my testicles!"

Oh ya, I'm female, and yes my parents STILL laugh about that day.

Shel (from language : speaking)

When I was little, I was told that we all have seven layers of skin. I thought those layers were all I was going to have for the rest of my life, and if I were to lose them all, my insides would be exposed! Every time I got a cut or a scrap, I was terrified that I would run out of layers of skin before I got old :)

Christina (from body parts : skin)

My mother used to tell us that if we incessantly rang the doorbell, it would make the house burn down in a fire.

Katie Bonk (from at home : around the house)

I used to hit golf balls out into the field behind my house when I was about 4. I hit a ball so hard once that when me and my dad went out to look for it he secretly picked it up and threw it in the air, called my name and said look, and then proceeded to catch the golf ball. I believed that I had hit the ball so hard that it stayed in the air for the full 5 minuets.

When I went to tell my mother she called me stupid. =(

Brady (from grown-ups : family)

I used to believe that the mole in my belly button was a poppy seed from a muffin I ate.

Anon (from body parts : belly buttons)

my mom told me that if i didnt rinse the soap from my underarms completly, that i would get a fever, so I would put soap under my arms hoping i would, so that i wouldnt have to go to school the next day. i still think about it when im taking a shower.

Anon (from body functions : being ill)

When I was little my dad used to travel to Hong Kong a lot for his job, and for the longest time I thought it was pronounced "Honk Honk" because it was a large city with a lot of traffic.

Emily (from language : speaking)

On a dangerous rural road in Texas there are lots of crosses that people leave for their loved ones who have died on the road. I thought they were to ward off vampires.

Sarah (from make-believe : vampires)

When I was 12 or 13, my parents opened a checking account for me to help me learn about financial responsibility. They told me if I wrote a bad check, the sheriff would come to our house and take me to jail. Of course, the sheriff only arrests habitual bad check writers, but they sort of glazed over that part. When I was 22, I bounced a check, and I told my boyfriend I was terrified to go home because the sheriff might be waiting there to take me to jail. He said, "WHAT?" After I explained, he said, "Well, I hate to tell you this, but Santa Claus isn't real, either."

Sofia T (from the world : money)

Up until I was nine my uncle told me that the round bales of hay were cow eggs.

Fred (from nature : landscape)

In an attempt to get me to stop sucking my thumb, my parents told me that they passed a new law, and it was now illegal to suck your thumb. They went as far as inviting a cop friend over to the house to scare me. I was so terrified of being arrested and taken to jail, that i quit the next day. I didnt find out until a few years later that it was all a joke.

Anon (from bad habits : sucking my thumb)

When I was 8 years old we had a really hot summer (I lived in Oklahoma), and I walked home from school and I thought I was having a stroke. I was just dehydrated. Anyway, I started drinking water really fast. My brother walked over to me and said "Careful, you'll hydrate yourself."
Until about two months ago (I'm 19), I thought hydrating yourself meant killing yourself.

Rob (from language : speaking)

When I was young, but old enough to make my own lunch, I thought that if I wanted something warm at lunchtime, all I had to do was heat it up in the morning; If I closed the container fast enough, it would still be warm at lunchtime. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for me to figure that wasn't quite how it worked.

Alice (from food : general)

I used to believe when I was younger that if you got hurt and you started bleeding, you would turn into a monster. So when my brother accidentally cut his thumb open with a knife, I started crying and screaming, "Mom! I don't want him to turn into a werewolf!"

The Werewolf's Sister (from make-believe : monsters)

When I was about 2 or 3, the shop across the street from my house sold these flavoured bubblegum fthings like banana to even chocolate milkshake, i think it was about 42 flavours they had and the greatest of all it was each one of them had a different colour wrap, depending on the flavour. So with a bit of help from the nanny me would go to the shop and id get at least 3 gums a day and of course id end up swallowing it - just because it tasted SO GOOD that i couldnt resist myself to do it -. Thing is though, my 2 older sisters (9 and 18 years old) would tell me the gum was gonna get stuck in my stomach and that i would get such a big belly that my parents were gonna find out i had been eaten gum all day. So the ONLY and MARVELOUS solution -according to my "caring" sisters was to take a tablespoon of cooking oil to "grease it all down" and "release" the stuck bubblegum from my sytem.

This carried on for about 3 weeks - and i agreed to it just because i loved bubblegum so much - until i told the nanny my stomach hurt and that i kept having diarrheas, both my sisters were grounded and forced to eat something nasty like broccoli everyday for 3 weeks.

PS: i still swallow gum... and im 23

Pilar (from food : chewing gum)

this belief is not mine but my sisters (she is 5) when she discovered that our mom was cooking lasagna,she said "yuck, im not eating cat food!" when asked why she reffered to a Garfield movie she had watched !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brother of a silly sis (from media : cartoons)

I told everyone at work, that "Ireland" was really supposed to be "Ourland", because with the Irish accent, it just sounds like "Ireland". They believed it.

Anon (from language : speaking)

When I was little, my grandmother always said "those who sing before breakfast will cry before evening". I believed that this was true for years, until I learned that it was my grandmother`s way of assuring herself of quiet mornings when I visited.

Daria (from grown-ups : family)

When I was a kid, my mom didn't want me to get burnt by hot water so she told me "always turn on cold water first, never hot water first!"
So I asked her: "Will it explode if I turn on hot water first?"
And she answered - probably absentmindedly- "yes!"

I never ever ever ever ever turned on the hot water tap first! XD Even now - I'm 22 - I would feel strange doing so!

But I never got burnt anyway so thank you mom!

Audrey (from at home : bathrooms)