As kids, we’re pretty much clueless (a state most of us maintain through adulthood, but whatever.) Anyway, I thought you could get pregnant by just kissing someone and that everyone could pretty much use their grandma’s bra as a hammock.
In other words, until we’re told the actual facts–and in the case of the birds and the bees, wishing we never knew–we just operate on assumptions.
Where am I going with this? I have to peruse Reddit for work, and there was a thread about misconceptions people had as kids. It’s funny, so I’m sharing some of the gems below.
Your mission–should you choose to accept it–is to add your own in the comments. Entertain me, people.
I thought new words came about by important people in suits sitting in some kind of board room adding new words to the dictionary everyday, much like people pitching product ideas to a board.
I thought that signs that said “End Construction” were placed there by a group of people who were generally opposed to road construction.
I believed that maps only showed half of the Earth- the “front half”- and that there was an entirely different “back half” that you weren’t taught until you were older. I thought that’s where places like Oz and Neverland were located.
I used to think that “up yours” was a compliment, in much the same way as “upvote” or “thumbs up” is.
I thought that there were gnomes living in every single traffic light that were in charge of controlling it. Logically, one gnome wore a red hat, the other wore a yellow hat, and the last one wore a green hat. They had a little stepladder for the red gnome because he wasn’t tall enough to reach.
I didn’t discover that Alaska was not adjacent to Hawaii until I was twenty four. I thought you could practically swim from one to the other, and I couldn’t understand why their temperatures were so different.
I thought dogs and cats were the same species, just that dogs were male and cats were female.
I use to think my mom could “stop the rain”. When she was driving and it was raining, she would say “Rain, stop in 3..2..1.. NOW.” (Now would be right when we would go under a bridge in the freeway) and then say “GO!” when we were coming out from under the bridge.
Milk came from the white cows and chocolate milk came from the brown/darker cows.
I thought the signs that said “Do Not Pass” meant that you can’t go any further. I always got scared that we’d get pulled over whenever we went past one of those.
I was told moths ate clothing. I took this at its most literal meaning—that if a moth landed on me it would eat the clothes right off of my back. For years, I would run out of the room in fear if I saw a moth anywhere near me.
Thanks to the Alphabet Song, I thought “elemeno” was a letter.
The advertisements for pads and tampons confused me till I was 13. I thought they made you better at sports or helped woman be better at sports.
I was convinced because of black and white films that the “olden days” had no color in them and it was a 20th century thing. I often wondered who the first person was to make colored clothes.
I thought a mustache was created by growing long nose hairs and carefully combing them outward, away from the nose and above the lips.
I thought there was a black Michael Jackson and a white Michael Jackson.
When I heard people say, “I don’t drink,” I thought they meant they literally didn’t drink anything. When I saw a special on koalas and heard they rarely needed to drink because they ate leaves, I also just figured these people must eat lots of leaves and that’s how they never got thirsty.
I thought that each person only had a certain number of words they got to say in a life time and that if you talked a lot you’d use up all your words and run out.
I thought the “Don’t Drink and Drive” campaign incorporated all drinking, so I would spaz out when my dad drank water during long road trips.
In movies where they show a kid, and then flashed forward to him as an adult, I thought they waited all those years for the kid to grow up to film the rest of the movie.
I thought that prostitute was another word for businesswoman. My parents got called in after career day.
Because I heard, “Elvis is the king” so often I thought he was king of the world. I was just like, “Yeah, sure. Someone has got to be, right?”
I thought ‘potty training’ was an actual train.
I thought that you could only have one child per state. I was born in Illinois, my first sister in Ohio, and my next sister in Michigan. I wanted a brother so I started bugging my parents to move again. I just kept bringing up other states and it took my months to figure out why I wanted to move.
I used to think that a doctor determined whether a baby was a boy or girl by whether or not he cut the umbilical cord all the way off.
That the bank allowed adults access to unlimited amounts of money. So when my mom would say she couldn’t afford something, I’d chime in and tell her to just go to bank.
I thought clowns were a race of people just like any other.
I thought that going to a baby shower meant going to a literal shower and just washing babies. I was always very confused why other women would go to watch a baby take a shower.
I thought God had a wife named Gosh.
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