around the house

I live in the Deep South, and for many years, I thought there was a whale buried in my grandfather's yard, right next to the house. And just the top was showing out of the ground. Growing up, I learned this could not possibly be the case, but when I confronted my family about it, was assured over and over that it was true.

I eventually worked it out on my own that it was an unused, cement covered WELL.

Anon

I used to believe that in a microwave the heat vents were actually people who work a drive through window at mcdonalds so my sister and i would always put our heads in and say an order!

Duffdog

As a child for some reason I mistakenly thought that a bungalow was a rabbit hole. So when my teacher told me she lived in one..with the lovely flowers growing around you can imagine how shocked i was that she fit!

Anon

I used to believe that switching the light on and off was morse code to burglars

Anon

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!

Rae

I used to believe that everyone in pictures could see me so i turned all of the pictures in my house backwards

Anon

When I was much younger (possibly 4-7 years old) I used to spend my play time running around the the hot Houston sun - video games... nope. All summer long I scoured the backyard with my cousins imagining ourselves in some sort of beautiful and wilderness filled jungle. We had quite an imagination... amongst the "jungle" of a backyard, there were scattered *tree support rods* (Spelling*) used to help the healthy growth of young trees. Of course, we did not know this at our tender age of naievity.

Now, to give you a bit of a visual, the rods are described as followed: Rusty old rods about 5 - 5 1/2 feet tall. They are at most 4 centimeteres in diameter. Furthermore, at the foot of the rods, there was a triangle shaped design (another rusted piece of copper that was welded on). The edges were sharp and stuck out about 4 inches on either side of the rod. This was where a gardner would press down with his/her feet to dig and secure the rod into the ground.

Much to our dismay, we were way off on what exactly these "rods" were and what they may have been used for. My eldest cousin, at the time, was maybe 7 or so years old... He used to tell us and believed it himself likewise that these rods were the devil's unused canes growing out of hell - unused because of old age. The fact that they were rusted and "burnt looking" and sticking out of the ground - leaving the sharp edged triangle unexposed until completely yanked out of the ground - made this fabricated story seem so REAL and true. Now, we never feared the rods and merely respected their space and went on with our expeditions without dismay.

Kids... they say and think the darnest things.

Alberto

I used to believe that when you moved houses, you traded homes with the person whose house you're moving into.

Anon

When I was young, just after the dinosaurs died, our TV repairman had two hooks because his hands had been amputated (war injury, perhaps, as it was just after Korea?). He also was the repairman for everyone in the neighborhood. I came to the conclusion, that in order to become a TV repairman, you had to have your hands replaced by hooks, steep price to pay for an occupation.

finaldx

When i was little we used to have a small red table in the kitchen, and as i was the youngest, i sat at the seat with its back to the door. Until we got rid of it i was convinced Freddy Krueger would jump out of the fridge if i was left on my own

Chris

When I was about 10, my best friend at the time told me about her older brother's biggest fear. He was terrified of his door handle(!) He called it 'Skin' and thought it was going to kill him.
I found this incredibly funny, which was pretty insensitive of me, looking back!

Siya

When I was about 6 or so my neighbor told me that his grandma had a can of invisible paint at her house. I never found out if he had misunderstood something the grown-ups had said, or if he was BS'ing me. But, for a long time afterward, I sure did want to get my hands on that can of paint...

Jeff

Growing up watching Disney, I used to have a sneaking belief that the inanimate things around me really were alive. I used to apologize to things I'd bumped or kicked accidentally. "The Brave Little Toaster" was the worst. To this day I feel guilty when I throw out an appliance!

Pam

Thought about this when I saw the thing about shag carpet on the ceiling. My mother always vacuumed the ceiling when she did the floor. I was in the 30's before I discovered most of the world didn't do this!

Anita T

My mother always used to get mad at us for leaving the freazer open (which is in the garage) so she told us that freazer animals would get inside if we left it open! Naturaly, being the loving person I was (haha) I left it open so they could come in.

...now my food's gone bad

When my brother and I were 4 and 6, we used to hear the furnace running at night. We called it "the noises" and we thought that if we didn't fall asleep quickly, "the noises" would come upstairs and get us.

Anon

When I was little, my big sister told me that there were secret passages in the walls of the house. She said there was a secret entrance, and the passages went all over the house. She wouldn't tell me how to get in because I was too young. I would spend hours looking for the secret entrance, pressing my ear to the walls and knocking, looking for hallow spots. I never did find it. Hmmph.

Little Sis

When I was very young, I used to believe that when you went to the trash room (we lived in a high-rise apartment house) and the sign on the door said "REFUSE," it meant that the room was all full of trash and there wasn't space for any more.

Well, my mom asked me to take out the trash one day. When I returned to the apartment with the bag of trash still in my hand, she looked puzzled and asked me why I didn't put the trash out.

I took her with me to the trash room, pointed to the sign on the door, and said, "See? It says REFUSE. It's all full! It refuses to take any more!"

She then explained (after laughing hysterically) that the word "REFUSE" had two meanings -- and one of them meant trash!

Duuuuuuuhhhhhhh...

Did I mention that I'm now a professional writer/editor???

Mel

I believed that my pillow had feelings. Before putting my head onto it I apologized to it for having to hurt it and then I lay my head down very gently.

Roslyn

I found an analog stopwatch on the kitchen table and pressed a button on it. I started freaking out when it started ticking, thinking that it was a ticking time bomb. I went to my mother and asked, "Mom, are there any bombs in Oklahoma?" She said that there might be somewhere. "Are there any in this house?!" Man, I was so relieved that she said no, because I thought we all were dead for sure!

Jennifer Volz