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I Used To Believe newsletter: January 2013

Hi,

Happy new year from I Used To Believe!

Kid-logic is responsible for a lot of beliefs, and it's easy to see how they come about. What's more amazing is that the kid who worked out that fruits were produced by a morphing together of bees and flowers was still willing to eat them!

Have fun,

Mat.

I thought that 911 was the number you called for fire/emergency because that was the temperature fire burned at (i.e 911 degrees Fahrenheit)
Tesseract

For obvious reasons, I thought "car pooling" meant riding in a car that was able to go underwater. This made perfect sense to me - since roads could not be built over lakes, having a car that could just cut through the lake would reduce the amount of time spent traveling. So when our teacher asked my class to vote on if we wanted to "use car pooling" for our first grade field trip, I enthusiastically raised my hand. I remember asking the chaperone (a classmate's mom) when we were going to go underwater several times. I think I spent at least a half hour staring out the window, looking for any nearby bodies of water.
Anon

This one time when I was a kid I came into the living room and saw my dad watching some old movie depicting slaves rowing on a slave ship. I asked my dad why they had to do that and he said they sometimes made people do it as punishment, sometimes for just a few years but other times for life. He forgot to mention however that THEY DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE! So some time shortly after my mom got a ticket for speeding or something and I was terrified she would be sold into slavery!
Praevus

I used to believe Amsterdam was a dam made out of hamsters.
Anon

My sister and I used to believe that you could drink petrol because every time we stopped at a petrol station, our Mum would say "I'm just going to give the car a little drink of petrol because its getting a bit thirsty".
ali

I used to believe that fruits were actually a hybrid of the flower of the fruit tree and of the bees/wasps that pollinated them. I believed this because I asked my dad, an avid gardener, how grapefruit grew on our tree. Right when I asked, a bee landed inside one of the flowers. My dad pointed out the bee and told me that the bee enters the flower, which causes the grapefruit to grow, but he left out the part about the bee leaving the flower. So being an imaginative 7-year old, I concluded that because the bee never left, that must mean that it became the fruit. For years, before I bit into any fruit, I would say a little prayer for the bees that gave up their lives to become those yummy apples, pears, and oranges that I so enjoyed.
Anon

I used to believe that doctors couldn't get sick because it was their job to fight sickness. To me, it seemed as logical as police officers not committing crimes because it was their job to fight crime. When my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I proudly proclaimed, "Doctor!" When she asked why, I said, "So I can never get sick again!" She laughed and cleared things up for me. I was quite peeved to find out that doctors getting sick and (somewhat later) police officers committing crimes were not uncommon occurrences.
Anon

I used to believe that when you put bills into a vending machine, it shredded them. (Because of the noise.) What stymied me though, was when you hit the change return it GAVE THE BILL BACK. I couldn't figure out how the machine put the pieces back together so seamlessly. And it WAS the same bill, cuz I tested it by writing down the serial number. :|
Anon

My grandfather told me that when he was little, he thought that if you stood on an electric cord, it would block the flow of electricity.
Kim

I thought that swear words were called square words and that they looked like a square when you wrote them down.
ali

When I was little, I was told that people become shorter when they are old. My goal was to live to be 300 years old so I could fit into my doll house and go down water pipes like waterslides.
Anon

I thought it was illegal for women to use Just For Men hair coloring.
Brainhead

I thought that big people are necessarily smarter because there brains would be bigger.
Quatsch

I used to believe that if you let the rev counter in a car reach the red section, the car would explode. My Dad used to have great fun terrifying me!
Aberdeen, Scotland

I used to believe that 'heavy metal' meant the musical instruments were literally heavier than usual because they were made of steel or something.
Bloopy

I used to believe that the crusties that appear in the corner of your eyes after you sleep came from a little duck walking across your face in the middle of the night that would poop in the corners of your eyes. I used to try to stay up as late as I could to try and catch it in the the act.
Tracey

When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me that if you ever got sent to jail, the only thing they would let you eat would be birdseed and Coca-Cola. I believed this for years and was terrified that I would get sent to jail if I was bad in any way, and I would sit and contemplate how they could possibly make people survive on just birdseed and Coke! I believed it for a long time until I finally found out the truth. Although I am proud to say I've never been arrested for anything :)
Anita H. - gullible child!

When I was a kid I thought that there was only a small number (fewer than 100) bad people in the whole world, If only it were true...
Tesseract

When I was younger I asked my dad where the stuff in the toilet went after you flushed it, and he told me the sewer plant. But I thought of a giant venous fly trap and for the longest time I was terrified it would come up out of the toilet and grab me.
Anon

When I was little, I heard my parents talking about having to do the budget. But I misheard. One day, I asked when we could do the budgie!
Kim

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