in the street

when I was a kid I saw signs occasional on windows of houses that said tolet and couldn't understand why they were advertising they had a toilet.

anon

I used to believe streets that were first names, that's where everybody of that name lived. For example, on James Street, that's where all the James' in my class lived.

Irish

When i was little(in the 70s/80s) the rag & bone man used to come around the streets on his cart shouting 'RAGS, BONES' I believed he was collecting corpses. Everytime i heard him outside i'd lock myself in the bathroom.

Michelle Freebury, Cwmbran Gwent

When I was little, our Chicago address was on North Keystone Avenue. I thought the people across the street lived on South Keystone Avenue.

Karen

Every morning at Breakfast mum gave my sisters and I a little taste of history. When I was 6 yo, she was telling us that millions of years ago Dinasaurs roamed the earth. I asked if that was why there were so many cracks in the pavements. As they all laughed I thought it was true and told all my friends whenever we were walking on the pavements. I believed it for years!

LD

I used to think that the signs outside peoples doors that said "No Soliciting" meant the same as "No Socializing," so the people who lived in those houses were mean and didn't want friends.

Rachel

You know those "Maximum Occupancy ###" signs in buildings? I used to believe that when a building reached it's maximum occupancy, if just one more person stepped inside, the whole building would collapse. For the longest time I would, to my great frustration, try to count the people in any building I went into.

Jong

when i was little i used to belive that the queen lived in my towns town hall, i would always look up to the windows and wave to see if she would wave back

kat

I used to believe that if you wanted to move to another house, you had to find someone who would be willing to trade houses with you. And whoever was going to be moving into the better house, would have to give the other homeowner one dollar (I was very young, so I thought one dollar was a LOT of money!).

Anon

when I was little, and on road trips. My mom used to say that the telephone poles were full of spaghetti sauce and the wires were spaghetti and the metal can shaped things attached to the top were full of cheese. and when people were hungry and short on cash they could have spaghetti.

whitney stillwell

My mam used to tell me that the colourful patterns that were left in the middle of the road when it rained was fairies washing (it was actually oil). She said that if we walked over it they would have to wash it again. It wasn't till i got older that i realised it was just coz she didn't want us trailing it in the house.

Laura

I used to wonder why signs on buildings said "Off Ice", because there was only ice sometimes during the winter. I thought they were mean for not taking the signs down.

BobbieMac

I used to believe that houses walked about at night. When you were asleep your houses walked about and talked to other houses. This is why I thought they had to put nails in floorboards to stop them walking about. I still believe this and I'm now 42.

The old man from the sea in a walking house

There was a burn outside of the house I used to live at as a child. Me, and a friend of mine at the time believed that if we dug at the side of the burn, we would find gold, and we spent all of our time digging for gold.

Yes, I had a strange childhood :)

Magnus

My mum's dad used to tell her that there were gnomes on top of buildings that pulled up lifts by long ropes

Steph

I grew up in Southern California. Where there are palm trees planted all over the place. Many streets are lined with palm trees on both sides for miles. I believed for years that if you followed any of these streets that you would end up at the beach. No matter what.

Marisol Torres, UT

you know how there are warning signs on fences saying "beware of dog"? well, when i was little and i saw a Long Fence sign on someones fence, i thought it meant "beware, this is a very long fence"

Shannon

I thought the "To Let" signs on buildings meant they were public toilets.

Scottish Laddie

When my brother was little, he believed that the lights on top of bridges and tall chimmneys when illuminated at night, were Gods car lights. How cute is that!

Lucy

In the neigborhood where I grew up, there was a dead-end street with a big yellow sign saying "NO OUTLET". I always wondered who would want to live in the houses on this street, if they couldn't plug anything in.

romulus