in the street

I believed for many years if I was caught taking the shortcut to school I would be glued to the ground. I was in grade one when the older kid told me this. I thought I would turn into a statue with birds nesting on my shoulders.

Anon

I used to believe that the Fire Station was where all fires occurred.

Anon

Our church had a charity drive to collect clothing for the poor. My mother bought a pair of mittens to donate. I asked her, "But what if the person who gets them lives somewhere where it's not cold enough to need mittens?" She explained that these clothes were all for people right there in our town! I had no idea that there were poor people so close to us - I thought they all lived in faraway countries, like on the "Save the Children" commercials.

Katrin

i used to believe that if you walked in the path of a stangers footsteps you would adopt their fortune or miss fortune as the case may be.... how mad is that!

sha from wales

We lived one block from a fire station until I was 2-1/2 years old. I heard the sirens and would always run to the window to watch the trucks drive by. My father once carried me outside to watch. As they drove by, I asked him where they were going. He explained they were going to put out a fire at someone's house. I wondered WHY anyone would want to set fire to their house, just to have the fire trucks visit them. I never asked this question out loud, just pondered over it. Still ponder 'humanity' questions at age 62.

Janet

I used to believe that the gas station was the bank, because when my mom pulled up to the tank, she'd say, "Give me 20."

Jen O.

I used to believe the older boy next door would chase me down and kill me with a chef's knife if I went over there or look at his house. I still think that, even though they moved away long ago.

blnkfrnk

In the alley behind our house, up on the telephone wires, was a rectangular box a foot or so long.
I believed that I saw it slide back and forth along the line between the poles, its purpose- to knock the snow off.
Now I know that it was just an (immobile) weatherproof connector for the wires, and my seeing it move must've been a dream.

Rick

used to tink that you could get the sparkly balls that fall to the ground after fireworks and they would still glow. I always wanted to get some

matt

I used to believe that the storm water pipe, that disappeared under the ground, at the end of our road was a tunnel to the devil and hell.

Anon

We lived in Fort Davis, Panama, when I was 4 yrs old. Mom commented, probably to a visiting neighbour, that "it's so hot you can fry an egg on the sidewalk!"

... It didn't work.

Enid

At night, if you look up at tramlines, the light from car headlights etc reflects on them - my son used to think that this was the electricity flowing through to our homes!

Rozy

I never stepped on cracks on the footpath and always tried to take only one step between the divisions - don't know why - I was too scared not to do so!

Rozy

I used to think that my grans house was just over the hill i could see from my bedroom window. I couldnt understand when we visited that it took so long to get there. I asked my dad why he didnt just drive over the hill, and he said it was because the farmer would get mad. I walked up there with a friend years later and was disappointed to see miles and miles of fields!

Pauliboy

I watched a documntary with my parents discussing "sludge" that aired on 60 minutes. Throughout the program they showed footage of large trucks pushing the sludge around. For whatever reason, throughout the program these trucks were backing up to push the sludge around. Well, when big trucks back-up, an identifyable alarm sounds to alert anyone behind truck . . . "beep, beep, beep." I was convinced that this sound was the "sludge alarm" (like a tornado alarm) and that you had to run away or be buried by sludge.

Kathy

When I was a little girl, I used to believe that a body shop was where you went when you were severely injured...like you could get a new arm or leg there.

Robin Crowtalker

When I was a child in the car with my folks and we would pass by a building that said "body shop" I did not realize it was for car body repair and thought it was for people.

Rhonda

When I was little, my parents would drive by open fields and point to those round hay bales and say "Look! Joe Barrets!" So, for the LONGEST time my sister and I believed that round hay bales were called "Joe Barrets." As it turns out, my dad had worked with a man who made the machines that make the bales round, a certain "Joe Barret." My parents were just joking around when they called hay bales "Joe Barrets" and never expected that we did not understand their little joke. I was well into my high school years when I figured this out.

simple simple in DC