When I first arrived in Australia in 1973 and my parents and I made our first visit to Queensland's famous Gold Coast beaches, we were warned to "Watch out for the stinging bluebotles" as they can be fatal. - We spent the whole day anxiously looking upwards for huge flies with killer stings. It wasn't until later that we learned that the stinging bluebottles were actually a rather nasty kind of jellyfish!
animals
3,621 beliefs in this area
I used to think that people were supposed to cover their mouths when they yawned to keep spiders from crawling in. This only applied at night for some reason... and I was always afraid that if I forgot to cover my mouth, a spider would hang down from the ceiling and drop into my mouth.
I used to believe that all cats were girls and that all dogs were boys and that when the cats and dogs got married they had either girl kittens or boy puppies.
When I was about 5, my favorite uncle (who had 2 horses) told me that he also had a green horse named "Old Green." (One of his other horses was named "Old Red"). At first I did not believe him, but then he explained to me that the reason I never saw Old Green was that he was shy and stayed at the far end of the pasture all the time. He had me totally convinced. Later, I was telling my Dad about Old Green. My Dad told me that Uncle A was just teasing me. And I told him, "Well, maybe Uncle A knows something you don't!"
When I was a little girl, I believed that all cats were girls and all dogs were boys. :)
pick of the bunch
i used to believe that dogs were born in the sky and would fall from a paracheute.
-Dante-
My older cousin told me that the average person swallowed 7 spiders per month from sleeping with their mouths open (so the spider would crawl in). It took years to realize that couldn't be true.
pick of the bunch
My dad used to tell me that "smoked" bacon came from pigs that had been fed on a diet of kippers !!!
pick of the bunch
In my youth,I was always convinced that my chocolate easter eggs came from my uncles chicken farm!
Whenever we would squish spiders in the house my brother and I would flush them down the toilet and he always said to be careful when I sat down to go to the bathroom cuz they might be coming back up to get me. Sometimes at night when I wake up and go I think about that and it still gives me the creeps.
As a kid I was always very impressed with people in Quebec who had such well trained dogs. After all, it has to be doubly difficult to teach a dog to obey commands in a foreign language such as French. I was also a bit jealous that the dogs understood more French than I did. (I was about 11 when I figured that one out.)
When I was about 5 years old, I thought that grasshoppers liked to live in water. Needless to say, all of my captured grasshoppers ended up dead until I learned otherwise.
I was always told that if you feed pigeons bicarbonate of soda the would explode...And I've never done it (just in case)
pick of the bunch
As a child, I was told that if I were to kill a group of ants, it would start to rain. Still to this day I watch where I step if I don't want it to rain.
When I was Little I believed that my pets, being smaller than humans, felt pain more. In fact I had a vague concept that pain increased exponentially the smaller a creature was. Therefore if I flicked the cat in the nose it was the equivalent of a grown man being hit in the face with a brick. So I became very gentle with animals.
All the males I knew were loud and played rough while females were quiter and alot more gentle. Since dogs had rough hair, barked loudly and seemed to be aggresive. All cats had soft smooth fur and they were quiet and gentle. So I thought all dogs were males while all cats were females.
I used to believe…
whenever I spotted a dock spider or leach up at the cottage (these are both large to begin with) I used to imagine that there must have been a mother to each of these creatures that was at least the size of me! Believing these giant mother insects might be residing under the dock, we also avoided stepping on the cracks between the dock planks so she wouldn't know we were there.
As a kid, I used to believe that technology would advance rapidly and creat a machine that would enable us to watch our dogs thoughts and memories on a monitor like a movie. I was really worried my parents would find out about all the "bad" things I had done when they weren't there (but the dog was...)
I used to believe in unicorns. I thought if I sat really still in the woods with a pure heart, one would come to me and be my best friend ever.
The problem was I also believed if my heart wasn't pure it would kill me with its horn. So I never tried to find one, for fear my heart wouldn't be pure enough.
i used to believe that if a lizard's tail drops into your ears you'll become deaf