at home

When I was a kid I'd look for places to hide before I go to bed, because I believe that strange men will attack me while I'm asleep.

You can never be too sure.

I used to believe that my grandma's spare room was haunted because my brother and sister played a prank on me. I was scared to go into the spare room by myself, and i still am now!

My mum told me not to lick a knife. I, naturally, asked why, and she replied that I might cut my tongue otherwise. And still to this day, whenever I lick knives, I never lick the cutting edge, only the side. Only much later did I learn it was apparently bad manners to do so regardless of which side you lick. Obviously she should have explained it that way instead of trying to be clever ;)

I used to believe that there was a little man, like an elf or something, that lived in the refrigerator to turn the light on and off. I believed this same thing about car doors that locked/unlocked automatically.

There was a laundry shute on the 2nd floor across the hall from my bedroom. I would throw my dirty clothes down the shute and it would land in a basket at the end of the chute in the basement. I truly believed that the chute magically cleaned my clothes and somehow all the laundry would appear folded on my bed several hours later!

I was always scared to take a shower because I thought a shark lived just below the drain. I could never close my eyes, I would watch for movement througth the holes in the drain, waiting for the shark to burst through.

I used to believe that if robbers or kidnappers would break into the house, they would hide out under my bed. So if I had to use the bathroom during the night, I would stand in the middle of my room and jump to my bed. (I never thought about getting out of bed quickly.) I did this until I found out that one of my grandparents' neighbors did this, too, when he hit the bedpost in the middle of the night and was rushed to the ER for stitches.

I would help my mom with cooking when I was little, and I thought when you put things in the bowl, you were really creating a little world. The ingredients represented weather, so for example, when you put eggs in, it was sunny. Flour was snow, water was obviosly rain, sugar was an ice storm, and chocolate was a mudslide. I always felt horrible for mixing it all up and making them have a tornado! Then when you baked it, the mini world had its apocalypse and was no more. :(

My older brother and I lived in the 3rd floor apartment of a house until I was 4 (he was 6). I thought the best part of moving was that I could take longer baths. My Mom had told us we couldn't stay in the tub too long because our landlord needed to take a bath too and wouldn't have any water until ours went down the drain into his tub. In our own house, I figured we wouldn't have to share!

I used to believe that as long as every part of me was covered in bed, I would be safe from whatever was hiding under the bed that would try to reach out and grab me. When this wasn't feasible, I made up amended rules like that as long as part of me was touching my blankie or even if any part of me had ever touched my blankie I would be safe. I lived in mortal fear of my foot being grabbed if it was out from under my covers!

My daughter had been raised in a rural area with water from our well. If there was no electricity to run the pumps, there was no running water in the house. She never made the connection that this was a "mountain thing" until she went to UCLA. There was a power outage on campus, and she remarked, "Oh darn, I wanted to take a shower".

I used to think that wood stoves I read about in books were made out of wood. I even developed a theory that it was made out of very hard wood that burned at higher temperatures so it didn't catch on fire like the logs inside it.

One time, when I was about nine, my best friend and I said the exact same word at the exact same time. My mother told us that when that happens you are supposed to say "You Owe me a Coke" but I mis herd her and thought that we two people said the same word at the same time an old man would die (I think I got this idea from peterpan when he tells wendy that saying not beliving in fairies makes causes a fairy to die) SO the next time we both said a word at the same time i shouted out Old man is gonna croke!

When I was in grade school I never wanted to use the school bathroom stall with an air vent above it. I thought the janitor hid up there and watched me while I peed

I used to believe there was a lion in my closet at night. I wouldnt go to sleep till my dad came in my room, took the lion by his mane, and shoved him in the bathroom down the hall and locked it up.

We were always told not to go into the water for at least an hour after eating but never told why. I thought that also applied to a bath or shower as well as swimming. My older sister (1 year older) told me if you go into the water to soon, you will shrink up and fall down the drain. While I longed to shrink up enough to live in my doll house, I was afraid no one would get me out in time and I would fall down the drain. This fear kept me safe and somewhat unwashed.