When I was little, my mum was telling me about speeding fines. I asked her what would happen if you didn't pay it, and she said you got into a lot of trouble and you might go to jail. I was really scared because I thought that meant that if you tried to buy something and then found you couldn't pay, you would go to jail. I was really scared and even had a dream where my dad was sent to jail when he couldn't pay some bank bill.

Katrina

I usted to believe that J walking was gay walking

Ashley Allan

When I was about 8 I started "playing doctor" with the boy next door. A few years later I heard the term child molestor and when I found out what it meant I was terrified. I thought that "playing doctor" made me a child molestor and the police would find out my dirty secret and come drag me off to jail. I didn't realize that you have to be an adult in order to qualify.

erin

When I was a little kid,about 3 or 4,if I started to get rowdy in public,my mom would always say "Do you want that man to get you?" and pointed to the nearest able bodied male.
Thus,I believed that all men where child abductors until I got lost in the mall when I was 5 and a guy tried to help my find my mother,but I punched him,kicked him,and ran off into the clothing department to hide in the clothes rack.Of course,I ran off everytime a male shopkeeper asked me where my mom was.

After a female clerk finally found me and took me to my mom,my mom yelled at me for running all over the mall.I shouted,"BUT EVERYONE WAS TRYING TO GET ME,MOMMY!There are a bunch of kidnappers in this store!I can tell,if they're a boy and they're not related to me or a police officer with a badge,they're a kidnapper!"

She never used that threat again.

Charly

I used to believe a burglar was some kind of non-human creature, so I once filled up a bucket with water, sawdust, and some other ingredients, which the burglar would inevitably eat and die from if he broke into the house. (I must have imagined that burglars were kind of like rats, which would be drawn to an appropriate poison.)

Andres Cabezas

When I first heard the term "Yardie", I thought the name derived from the fact that they ran their criminal business from their front yard.

This would have been perfectly understandable if I was 8 or 9, but I was about 18.

Jim, UK

Once, when i was little, i thought that going to jail was something that lmost every man did. I used to picture my dad in a 1 man cell

Pieguy

When I was probably around the age of 5 or 6, I had a nightmare about getting abducted. For the next almost 2 years, I was so scared everywhere I went with my family that I was being followed and that I would get kidnapped. I wouldn't even go outside for fear of someone watching me. All of this because of a silly nightmare.

Anon

I learned what an execution was when I was six, and the one I learned about was the beheading one. About three years later, I heard something about an execution on the news. I turned to my dad and said, "They still cut people's heads off? I thought that only happened in the olden days!" He then explained that most people just get a shot to make them die.

Tiffany

One time when I was little I thought that I heard people in the house. I also thought that if I barked real loud like a big bad dog, they would go away!!! Go figure:)

Woo

I used to think that the FBI were able to find out if I copied a copyrighted video tape by some special connection through the ppower cord in my VHS player.

Miguel Concepcion

I used to think that signs that said "shoplifters will be prosecuted" meant that shoplifters would be executed! And no, I grew up in the USA, not Saudi Arabia where this belief would have made sense! And, no, this belief oddly did not stop me from taking little candies from the brac's pick a mix at the grocery store:)

M of Wiscsonsin

When I was 7, on family road trips, we would stop in a town called Wallace, to fuel-up and get ice-cream. Once I overheard my parents comment about the prostitutes in Wallace. I thought by "prostitute" they meant "prosecutor", and my vision of a prosecutor was a very large man with black pants, muscular chest, a drooping black head mask, and a giant curved axe for cutting heads off. A cartoon executioner, in other words. I thought Wallace must be full of them. Why hadn't I ever seen them? That's probably for the best!

Snee

I used to believe that a life sentece was for when you stay in jail for your whole entire life.

Sara

when i was 5-9 yrs old i thought everytime i saw a white van the person drvingg it was a child rapist, killer. just because they were driving a "white van" .... weird.

melissa

When i was 4, and had just started school, I learnt that people could breath through their noses (it never clicked in my head before!)
When i went to bed at night, I was always scared of being robbed and attacked, so I thought that if I lay perfectly still and breathed through my nose, a burglar would believe that I was already dead. I thought that all burglars were thick and that they didnt know you could breath through your nose! To this day, out of habit, the only way I can sleep is if I concerntrate on staying still in bed.

22 year old still sleeper

Our family lives in Douglas County, in Colorado, where there is this one correctional building. when i was in the second grade a boy in my class told me that that building healed all the pregnant criminal women, and when there babies were born the women could leave but the babies had to take their place in the correctional place.

i'm a second grade joke

i used to believe from the ages of 5-12 that if you put too much toothpaste on your toothbrush that you would be sent to this all boys camp (whether you were male or female) where they would teach you the correct ammount of toothpaste to puton your toothbrush. i was only informed two years ago that it was a fake place that my mom made up just so we wouldn't go broke from me using too much toothpaste.

hygenic child