in the street

When I was eight, my sister tried convincing me there were lions in the streets and the field behind my house. Now I know that she was just trying to get me away from her and her friends when they were outside, but I believed her. I didn't leave the yard alone until I was eleven, and even then I took a baseball bat.

Elizabeth

I thought that the postman sits inside the postbox and waits with his letter bag and packed lunch waiting for enough letters to be posted through and when his bag got full he'd call the other postman to let him out and then they'd swap over.

Finn

Unable to Imagine how they built anything that high, and misinformed by my Dad, I used to think tall brick chimneys were 'grown' rather than built - simplay lay 3 courses and water regularly.

andymac

When i was little i thought that one particulary large telephone pole was the eiffel tower, and that there were two since i knew we weren't in france.

Emily

When I was growing up across from my house there was this old run-down building. I used to think that that building was where they invented words. I thought that they had meetings every Thursday night, and the members consisted of a group of 30 old men that raised their hands when they thought of a new word.

berg

I used to believe that war memorials were 'warmer morials', and they were meeting places outside where you stood around to keep warm with your friends on a particularly cold Winter's day

lu

My mom told me the man who lived on the corner was robbed blind while mowing the lawn. I felt horrible because who would rob a blind man, but then I was confused about how a blind man could mow the lawn.

Kelly

When I was little, I always thought handicapped parking places were wheelchair parking only--I actually thought people would park their wheelchairs there, then get up and walk into the building. I could never understand why those spots were never used like that.

Anon

i used to think that when you put cans into the recycling machine to get paid... i thought the quarters that came out were made out of the cans by the machine.

emily

i asked my dad who turned on the street lights at night and he told me it was the man at parramatta. all through my childhood i believed that a man sitting in a room at parramatta would turn on all the light switches every night.

cara

I used to believe that inhaling the smell of tar from roadworks was good for you, my mother used to take me around roadworks because she said it cleared your airways out!!

Anon

When I was little I thought that a pair of smoke stacks (which were part of a factory a few miles away) was actually Cinderella's castle. I could never quite understand why my parents would never take me there if we were so close.

Shannon S.

When I saw a sign that said "Open 7 days", I used to get confused, because I knew the place had been open for longer than one week.

Justin

When I was five, I asked my mum how the street lamps came on on their own. My mum looked at me then she looked up at a lamp and said "You see those little knobs on the top of each one, well, as it's getting dark the birds come along and peck those knobs which are the light switches". I believed the seagulls turned on all street lamps until I was nearly twelve, when I asked "how do the birds know when to turn the lights off again?" As soon as I said it the penny dropped! She'll never let me forget it.

Fiona smillie (15) Bristol

I used to believe that the street lights around the country were all operated on one switch, and that when dusk came, Princess Diana would flick the switch and make all the street lights come on.

creepylesbo

As a kid, I thought "No Outlet" signs meant the houses past that point didn't have any electrical outlets.

Julie

I used to know a girl at school who'd been told when she was very young that cats eyes in the road were gnomes under the road with torches who had to run along and shine their torches through the holes as you drive along.

Anon

You know the stickers on mailboxes that say "Strictly no leaflets"? I used to believe that meant they didn't want little leaves in their yard, so I'd pick up a bunch off the footpath, and throw them over the fence, then walk off quickly!! I could also never work out why they didn't get rid of all the leaves already in their yard :-)

Jake, Brisbane Australia

k, so you could get to my house 2 ways. you could go by the Clark gas station or go by the Shell. Well, i thoughyt the gas stations swiched places depending on the day. I never relized, for a long time, that i could go home 2 ways.

BB

I used to believe that the highway signs reading "No Littering up to $100 fine" meant that if you found some litter and turned it in, you could get up to $100....even though it was "fine" and not "found" or "if found"... I assured myself this was a mere grammatical error...and always kept my eyes peeled for trash.

Jessica