telephones

I used to believe that if you thought really hard about who you wanted to phone and pressed the pound button, it would automatically call the number you were concentrating on. I couldn't understand why anyone would ever use any other method. I swear it worked for me until someone told me that it wasn't possible.

tami

When i was younger and i would talk on the phone, i always thought that there was a little person inside it, and i could never understand how he got in there, or how they could live in the phone...Elayna

ImAqtpie013181

I used to think that when you called "information" that they could really give you "information". I asked the operator once :How many people there were in Brooklyn". She was not amused. I also used to call them at Christmas time and sing carols for the operators. Sometimes they enjoyed it...sometimes not.

Shiloh

When I was little, I used to believe that when u talked on the phone, the other person's head would shrink and be inside your phone... I know... I had a really wild imagination when I was young. lol

Kayla Ann

In the US, the phone company used to be known as the Bell System. And each region had its own Bell Telephone Company. Since my family lived in Tennessee, our phone company was South Central Bell. I easily convinced my sister that Taco Bell (the name of a fast food chain) was also the name of the Telephone Company in Mexico.

Zeke

I used to think that all telephones were wireless, but you had to plug them into the wall because they needed a special sort of electricity (that's why the cable port was different). And I thought cell phones were special only because they had batteries.

Alfie

When I was younger, I tried many times to dial the telephone number of my own house to see if I could hear myself talking. When my parents explained that I couldn't get an answer from the number because it was our own house, I tried taking the cordless phone outside and calling from the backyard, thinking that one of the other phones in the house would ring.
To this day, my father swears that when he was a boy (and phones were more primative) it was possible to call your own number and get a ring. I'm still not sure if I believe this.

Maeghan Jade

i once called my dad's office and the message said to press 0 before 5 if you needed to reach someone. after 5, it went to an telephone operator. i accidently pressed 0 one day after 5 and it went to the operator's number and i hung up really quickly because i thought i had connected to 911 and was going to reach a surgeon (operator).

anne

I used to think that when they invented phone numers, the first person to ever have a phone number had 1. Then the second person had 2. And then another preson had 3. Then they just added 1 to every phone number in the world. I started wondering if somebody already got a million for a phone number.

My phone number is 306-8842. I thought that 306-8841 people got a phone number before us.

Lecia

I used to think that when you dialed a telephone number with letters in it, that the phone actually KNEW which letters you were dialing. I would always ask my dad "How does the phone know which letter you want to dial when there are three letters on each number?"

Mia

once, when i was little, i always believed that an answering machine automatically knew what you wanted to say...

Anon

When I was about four or five (early '70s) and telephones had these things on them called "dials"... well, you know how a phone number is written "555-6792"? I thought that since there was no dash ("-") on the dial, that the dash must mean that you had to pause for a couple of seconds. So, when I called my friend I'd dial the first three numbers (this was about 25 years before the whole 10-digit-dialing nonsense), and pause for a few seconds then dial the remaining four digits. Since it worked, I kept doing it.

(later, when I was first introduced to a TouchTone (push-button) phone I was told by the owner that I had to dial slowly -- that if I punched the buttons too quickly the call wouldn't go through. So go figure.)

strawberry

When i was young, i moved from New york back to brisbane, and i gave a new friend my fone number. Little did i know that your number changed when you move, and i gave him our number from America.

Scott

When I was about 5, my father was on the phone with someone and laughing quite a bit. Although I could only hear one side of the conversation, I had recently learned the secret to hearing both sides of it. So I climbed up onto his lap and put my ear firmly against his ear (the one opposite from his phone ear) and listened closely until he asked what I was doing. I explained that I was hoping the other person's words would go in out ear and out the other.

Anon

I used to believe that each U.S. state's local phone company was named after the state the company was located. (This was in the late 1980s, after AT&T was split up.) I believed this because I knew that Indiana's phone company was "Indiana Bell" and Illinois had "Illinois Bell," so naturally I thought there was a "Florida Bell," a "New York Bell," and a "California Bell."

Matt Thiel

i used to think that when commercials told u to call 1-800-(name of the company), that the letters on the buttons on the phone dialed a different thing, like each number dials a different thing...anyway, i always wondered how the phone knew which letter people wanted to dial, afterall, there is more than one letter on each button...

jackie!

I used to think you could dial your own telephone and speak to yourself - I could never work out why it was always engaged!

Cold Caller

When i first heard of fax machines i used to believe that there was an invisible line in the sky that it would transfer the page and papers would "move" around the sky...

Anon

I used to believe that you could pass things down the telephone.

Anon

I used to believe that "caller i.d." was actually "caller idea" becuase you would have an IDEA about who was calling you.

Lauryn