Sloppy Science Category: When I was quite young (It probably lasted until I was 6!), I noticed that if I leaned on the bumper of a car, the whole vehicle would bounce up & down. Conclusion: I was stronger than a car. I actually believed that, if faced with a car bearing down on me, I could simply reach out with my hand and stop it. No superhuman strength --- it just seemed logical, given that I could make a supposedly heavy car bounce. Thank God I never tested my theory! Fortunately, Mom & Dad watched a TV series called "UFO" that contained an episode in which a child is struck & killed by a car. LOTS of blood, too. I found it to be a sobering revelation.

Nicholas Dollak

I used to believe that gas station attendants (circa the 1960's) were all men named "Ethel" -- as in, "Fill it up, Ethyl," which is what my dad told the snappily uniformed gas station dude everytime we went to a gas station. (And if you don't know, "Ethyl" was what Premium was called back then!)

Kate

When I was a little girl, I used to think my car had a brain and knew where we were going. I never saw my father use the turning signals so I assumed that the car was doing it on its own. Kind of like a GPS, I thought it was telling my dad when to turn.

Natalie

When I was a kid, I believed that gas stations were set up where they struck oil, like in cartoons: "Eureka! there's oil in them thar hills!" And they would quickly build a gas station. The truth was told to me when I remarked to my parents on a 4-gas station New Jersey intersection: "They sure discovered a lot of oil around here."

anon

I used to believe that the way they paint the lines on the road was to have 2 men (one with white paint, the other with yellow) hanging upside-down from thier knees on the back of a truck. I still think that's a better way than with machinery.

Patty, NY

every time we went to the car wash i would scream and cry as we entered the jaws of a gigantic monster. i would squeel as the soapy flaps beat against our car as we were being digested. when we emerged on the other side we entered a brand new world. a whole world comprised of all the buildings and roads and people who, like myself, had fallen victim to the appitite of this beast.

amanda

When I was a little kid the "Put on your seatbelt" light came on in the car and I asked my dad what it was and it looked like a bench so my dad said it would come on when the car wanted him to take me to the park. I totally believed him!

Meghan G.

When I was younger my mother told me and my siblings that the emergancy light button in the car was really a button that would explode the car if you pushed it. One day my mom left us all in the car while she went into the gas station. My mom had told my little brother that the button really didn't do that (but the rest of us didn't know that) and he pushed the button. We all jumped out of the car and started crying until our mom came back. We told her what had happend and she had to sit on the sidewalk from laughing so hard.

Nadhia

I used to believe that if you went over the speed limit in a car it would beep three times then explode. My dad used to do this to me and keep revving up all the time and I'd scream and cry.

Romy

When I was 4 years old my parents bought a new car one day, and I thought the old one had just lifted into the sky and floated away.

Morgaine

when i was little i thaught the mirrors on car doors were actually little tvs ans we all had a special movie to watch.
sometimes whan i was bored of my "movie" i tried to watch other peoples "movies" as they drowe past

teneille iz cool

When I was young, I thought the blind people's cars had, instead of headlights, a white cane, to try the ground for bumps, holes and stuff

Anon

Whenever we drove under an overpass, I would wonder how the cars on it got up so high. I finally asked my dad and he told me that cars would wait in line and a crane would lift them up onto it. I spent months waiting for it to happen to us, but I figured I just missed it every time and was horribly frustrated.

Why was the concept of an incline so hard for me?

Elizabeth

I always thought that the cruise control actually DROVE the car for you. Steering and all! I always wondered why my parents were "pretending to drive" even when they put the cruise on.

singer

I used to think that cars were powered by their exhaust pipes - kind of like a jet engine.

I could never figure out why they didn't need another one on the other side to stop them going around in circles!

Tim

I used to think that the engine in a car was only to create a noise to warn others of its arrival

mudspanker

i used to think that "NO PARKING ANYTIME; FINE $50" meant that it was ok to park there if you paid a policeman $50.

Anon

When I was little I use to play with little cars and drive them around on this map. So I thought that when we went anywhere in a car that a giant hand was driving us around on the road.

Anon

when my daughter was young we told her our car was born at the dealership we bought it from and it was happy when it passed where it was born. We would honk the horn and she thought it was saying hi to its mother.

Anon

When she was very young (maybe four or so) my sister thought that the white stripe dotted lane markers were "loaves of bread going to market." The road was the conveyor belt that took them there.

Anylion