xkcd

by **Rippy** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:56 am UTC

When I was a kid, I thought garbage day was the same day of the week for everyone, and never really wondered why or why not. I also thought that "dutch" and "holland" were not related, presumably thinking there was a Dutchland. Oh yeah, and for a while I didn't have any idea sex involved thrusting: I figured the penis was inserted, and then it just stayed in there until the business was done.

What were you gloriously wrong about during your childhood?

by **Chocceh** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:06 am UTC

The sex part reminded me of mine. So I get hold of an anatomy book. Roughly at the same time, I learn the birds and the bees from my father. (This is at about second grade. My sex ed is a completely different topic, but still funny.) The anatomy book had drawings of all the necessary parts in the reproduction section, and I just looked through them like I looked through all the other sections.

The problem was when I saw that the sperm was drawn the same size as the baby. I didn't make the connection that they used different scales - for months I believed that I would have to destroy my lower parts having this gigantic THING move through it.

Scared the living shit out of me.

by **Habanero** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:07 am UTC

Other than the notion that mortality did not apply to me?

Well, let's see:
If I could break it, Dad could fix it. He could fix anything.
Mom could make any hurt feel better.
The world is a safe place and I needn't worry about anything, anywhere.

I'll think of some others that are more humorous but that was a very, very long time ago.

by **podbaydoor** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:12 am UTC

SomethingAwful's Comedy Goldmine on the same subject: MSPaint your illogical childhood notions. Some pretty funny ones in there.

As for myself - it wasn't until my late teens that I realized the strange capital G-treble clef hybrid on the Disney logo was actually a capital D.

by **Nightshade** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:13 am UTC

The sex misconception was mine too. My parents told me that babies were made in the mother's tummy by the daddy 'putting' his penor in there (or them 'putting their stuff together'), so that much I knew... But one time I was playing outside and happened to peek through my parents' window - and saw my dad's bare butt bouncing up and down on top of my mom. It was weird. I later asked "why do they go up-and-down when they mate?" and my dad turned all red and asked me how I knew that... I said I'd heard it from a friend...

LOL

by **SecondTalon** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:25 am UTC

At an early age, I could fairly easily locate a rough approximation of my location on a map/globe. I knew Kentucky, I knew what shape Kentucky was, and I knew more or less where I was in Kentucky (Out on the west end of the state).

However, my grandparents had a swimming pool that was kinda round shaped. So, looking at a globe/map, I confidently knew I could see my grandparent's swimming pool. Something I later (7? 8?) learned was The Florida Everglades

Map demonstrating what I'm talking about

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:26 am UTC

I can't tell if that was a worthwhile first post, or... just creepy.

MJs Childhood Misconception: The bullies will not be successful adults.

by **Nightshade** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:34 am UTC

Mighty Jalapeno wrote:MJs Childhood Misconception: The bullies will not be successful adults.

Hmmmmm..... that has a strong basis in reality. Karma favors bullies in success, but not happiness... necessarily...

by **Verator** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:36 am UTC

Seven wrote:
Mighty Jalapeno wrote:I can't tell if that was a worthwhile first post, or... just creepy.

MJs Childhood Misconception: The bullies will not be successful adults.

Hmmmmm..... that has a strong basis in reality. Karma favors bullies in success, but not happiness... necessarily...

Alright, you, fora rules and intro thread now. Afterwards, you can contribute. GO!!!

It is totally unneccessary for you to police the fora. Please be nice to the new people. A lot of new members get their feelings hurt by pointlessly harsh posts like this.

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:37 am UTC

Also, I dreamed that if I threw a ball at just the right speed and angle, it would bounce around the room, and the overlapping complementary / sympathetic patterns of sound waves would be able to replicate speech to a person standing in just the right spot.

I was a messed up 4 year old.

by **Insignificant Deifaction** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:48 am UTC

Killjoy:

I was inferior to boys in some fashion.

If I tried hard enough, one day I'd be able to talk like everyone else.

More humorous:

Mirrors were made of ice. Then I quickly wised up to the properties of mirrors before the rest of my friends had figured out why exactly everything in a mirror is... well... mirrored.

Physics was subjective. (Surprisingly enough though, this posed no problems to understanding theory)

I'll think of more later, I must depart.

by **Nightshade** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:02 am UTC

Verator wrote:Alright, you, fora rules and intro thread now. Afterwards, you can contribute. GO!!!

*salutes, scurries off and reads/posts* ...oh, my... oh, dear... I'm "a bad, bad person"! LOL

Another childhood misconception: Adults didn't have feelings. They didn't show emotion over the same things I showed emotion -- I couldn't wait to grow up so I wouldn't feel those things any more. Same with pain. Adults didn't cry when they got a scrape, so someday when I grew up, I wouldn't feel pain either.

Sigh.

by **Silverfish** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:00 am UTC

podbaydoor wrote:As for myself - it wasn't until my late teens that I realized the strange capital G-treble clef hybrid on the Disney logo was actually a capital D.

QFT - I had the same thing happen to me. I remember asking my parents "What does that say?" When they put in the disney movies and the signature came up. They'd say "Walt Disney" but it still always looked like a freakin G.

by **TheKhakinator** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:38 am UTC

@Disney talk: Don't even get me started on Gnid Blighton.

by **pollywog** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:56 am UTC

"These people are my friends"

Turns out I had a very different idea of what a friend was to the rest of the world.

Also for a while I thought that we were the only people that had a ceiling, in the entire world. See, we had one, but my grandma didn't, and I didn't really go to a lot of other houses.

A hell of a lot more just came flooding back.

"Sheep aren't dangerous" - large bruises proved me wrong.
"You can't read until you're five" - my parents have a video of me screaming this out, crying. They like to show it to friends of the family.
"TV is evil" - I don't think we got one until I was nine, and even then all I watched was Pokemon and What Now?
"I can fly" - No, I can't. And related to this is:
"Grass is soft enough to land on" - Not when you're jumping off of a shed roof.
"My grandma is everyone's grandma" - Everyone, and I mean everyone in the entire valley that I grew up in called 3 old ladies Granny. One of them is my Granny, one's dead, and one's in a retirement home.
"My neighbours are the richest people in the country" - They owned a lot of land.

by **keozen** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:38 am UTC

I remember asking my mum when I was 4 or 5 "Mum, what was it like when everything was black and white?". That was after watching some old movie with my mum that was in black and white.

by **Prole** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:57 am UTC

That a bike with stabilisers will NEVER topple, regardless of speed or angle.

by **MoonBuggy** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:16 pm UTC

I thought I could fly. I had lucid, recurring dreams that I was able to fly around my house, and didn't believe anyone who told me they weren't real. Yes, it was awesome.

by **keozen** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:21 pm UTC

MoonBuggy wrote:I thought I could fly. I had lucid, recurring dreams that I was able to fly around my house, and didn't believe anyone who told me they weren't real. Yes, it was awesome.

I used to have very lucid dreams that I could fly by doing breaststroke in the air and then literally "swim" up, down anywhere I wanted to go.

I also used to have a recurring theme that I could almost "glide" along if I lifted my legs up while walking, only having to pop my feet down now and again.

by **Nyarlathotep** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:50 pm UTC

keozen wrote:
MoonBuggy wrote:I thought I could fly. I had lucid, recurring dreams that I was able to fly around my house, and didn't believe anyone who told me they weren't real. Yes, it was awesome.

I used to have very lucid dreams that I could fly by doing breaststroke in the air and then literally "swim" up, down anywhere I wanted to go.

I also used to have a recurring theme that I could almost "glide" along if I lifted my legs up while walking, only having to pop my feet down now and again.

Wait, you too? You're the only person I've ever met who has to "swim" in order to fly. Everyone else just looks at me funny.

I was under the impression that if I ran fast enough and jumped, I could glide. So for a while my primary method of locomotion was a kind of loping running-hop-jump. On the upside, I got around pretty fast.

When I was young, I lived near a town called Rockville, and was fully convinced that it was becuase of the giant rocks that were there. Actually there weren't any giant rocks at all, but I totally knew they were there. totally. Maryland was also somehow smaller than Rockville and it was the most important place on the planet.

Sex never occurred to me at all until my parents explained it to me at age eleven. I'm not even joking, I had never questioned where babies came from, I assumed they spontaneously generated or something.

I was convinced that I could stay the same age by concentrating really hard. On the other hand, I seem to age very slowly so who knows, maybe it does some good?

At first, I loved taking baths. I was actually a very cooperative child who adored being in the water. I also LOVED to watch the water drain, I found the little whirlpool fascinating. Sadly, two incidents changed that:

1. I lost my favourite green plastic bead necklace down the drain. Now, I had an irrational, illogical attachment to this thing (I actually had a weird attachment to every object I owned, come to think of it) and cried for DAYS afterwards.
2. I accidentally walked in on a showing of remake of The Blob at my dad's work (they just kept the TV on all the time and it was on. It happened to be a lovely scene wherin someone was bloodily sucked down a bathtub drain. I can still see the scene in my head despite it being almost sixteen years later and it STILL gives me the willies. Thus, I was terrified that a monster was going to bloodily suck me down the drain.

Hence, I then avoided baths if at all possible, did not take toys into the bathtub for fear of them being lost down the drain forever, and also had to leave the bath before draining it.

by **elminster** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:55 pm UTC

Every adult had happy really nice lives with jobs and used the telephone alot. (That turned out to be terribly wrong. Except the phone part)
That vechicles had to be made by huge companies.
If you copied the other person at chess, it will always become a draw.
Green stones me an my brothers got from a nearby graveyard were gemstones.
Wasps and bees wouldn't sting you if you caught them carefully (Funnily enough, I used to catch wasps and not get stung, but then my brother dared me to catch this large bumble bee...)

by **TheKhakinator** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:58 pm UTC

Nyarlathotep wrote:Sex never occurred to me at all until my parents explained it to me at age eleven. I'm not even joking, I had never questioned where babies came from, I assumed they spontaneously generated or something.

See, this makes me think. Several people here, myself included, make jokes about reality and video games - stuff like when it's foggy saying "oh looks like reality turned the draw distance down to squeeze out a few more FPS" and stuff.

But, sometimes kids have said "Did the world really used to be black and white?" when watching old movies.

So to me, it's conceivable that children growing up with video games might come up with similar things, like "I hurt myself, I need a medpack!" etc. by accident, thinking the real world to mimic their game worlds.

by **Hawknc** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:05 pm UTC

TheKhakinator wrote:So to me, it's conceivable that children growing up with video games might come up with similar things, like "I hurt myself, I need a medpack!" etc. by accident, thinking the real world to mimic their game worlds.

"Hey, a mushroom!"

by **MFHodge** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:14 pm UTC

I thought cowboys and indians were fictional. I only saw them in cartoons and toys and stuff, just like aliens and spacemen and dragons.

My sex idea was fairly interesting. I knew that since kids had similar characteristics to their parents that that info had to get passed somehow. I figured that it was in spit. If you kissed enough, then the daddy's spit built up in the mommy's tummy and it grew into a baby. When it was done growing she pooped it out. Where else would it come out?

I also thought that airplanes made stops at all the houses that people were going to, just like a school bus. I remember telling my mom that I didn't remember the plane landing at Gramma's house (because I slept through most of the airport part).

by **TheKhakinator** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:20 pm UTC

Hawknc wrote:
TheKhakinator wrote:So to me, it's conceivable that children growing up with video games might come up with similar things, like "I hurt myself, I need a medpack!" etc. by accident, thinking the real world to mimic their game worlds.
"Hey, a mushroom!"

Ah too brilliant lol.

by **Hammer** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:25 pm UTC

I thought Elton John and Olivia Newton-John were ex-spouses. I had a whole story about their marriage and subsequent bitter breakup.

I thought that those radio interviews where the DJs pretend to be interviewing a famous person and they say really silly things were all real.

I thought I could give the mailman an envelope addressed simply "Buba" and he would take it to my grandmother.

I thought that if someone said something, it must be true.

I thought any number of things/people were the same thing/person because they had similar sounding names or I heard about them at the same time.

I could do this all day...

by **crazyjimbo** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:32 pm UTC

My sex one was that while I had picked up that the word penis corresponded to genitalia, I hadn't picked up that it only corresponded to male genitalia. I was pretty old, and well versed in the rest of the intricacies sex before I finally figured it out.

by **keozen** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:51 pm UTC

TheKhakinator wrote:See, this makes me think. Several people here, myself included, make jokes about reality and video games - stuff like when it's foggy saying "oh looks like reality turned the draw distance down to squeeze out a few more FPS" and stuff.

On a sunny day you can see all the way to the clipping plane.

by **thecommabandit** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:36 pm UTC

I was convinced that everyone in America looked like an adult when they were like 16 or 17. Don't blame me, blame my brother for seizing the remote control and making me sit through hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. To this day I still don't get why they use 25 year-olds in teen dramas =/

I thought a woman's hole (I didn't know what it was called either) was on the front of the crotch, in a place corresponding to the penis'. When I found out it wasn't I was left wondering how the hell people were supposed to make babies.

I also remember siting down one day and working out that I could never be older than my brother, since the basic principle of the mechanic of getting older meant that he got one year older every time I did. I was very disappointed.

by **Kizyr** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:49 pm UTC

Silverfish wrote:
podbaydoor wrote:As for myself - it wasn't until my late teens that I realized the strange capital G-treble clef hybrid on the Disney logo was actually a capital D.

QFT - I had the same thing happen to me. I remember asking my parents "What does that say?" When they put in the disney movies and the signature came up. They'd say "Walt Disney" but it still always looked like a freakin G.

In addition to that, I also thought the "Y" on the end looked like a "P".

I always wondered why Disney spelled his name Gisnep.

As for other childhood misconceptions...
- Before I knew about sex, instead of believing in the stork and all that, I thought that humans reproduced asexually.
- I used to think that cats and dogs were the same species, and cats were the female form, dogs were the male form.
- I used to think that Pluto was a planet.
- I used to think that everyone naturally understood the English language
- I thought, at some point, that apes and humans were different species but the same genus, so theoretically they could have an infertile offspring, like a mule.

I think most of those misconceptions were 'til about age 8 or so. KF

by **BlueNowhere** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:08 pm UTC

thecommabandit wrote:I also remember siting down one day and working out that I could never be older than my brother, since the basic principle of the mechanic of getting older meant that he got one year older every time I did. I was very disappointed.

Haha, that's awesome.

Hammer wrote:I thought that if someone said something, it must be true.

I've believed this for the longest time. When I was younger I was really naive and I never thought that someone would lie to me. I wasn't about to lie to them, so why would they lie to me? Then again I did lie to my parents and other kids but it made sense when and why I was doing it. I just didn't put two and two together to realize that other people might be lying to me as well. This actually lasted well into my teen years, I'd say.

by **Pesto** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:15 pm UTC

A couple things I said when I was younger.

Me, to my older brother: "When I'm older than you, I'm going to beat you up."

Some adult: "Do you have any pets?"
Me: "Yeah. We have a cat. She lives at the vet."

This cat's name was Kitty. Kitty wasn't alive for very long on that last visit to the vet, but I didn't know that.

by **bod** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:23 pm UTC

My older brother taught me this rhyme when I was little:

A man's occupation
Is to stick his cockulation
Up a woman's ventilation
To increase the population
Of the younger generation.

I think he thought it would be educational. Only trouble is, I just didn't believe it. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

Now, of course, I realize the truth of my childhood nursery rhyme - but sometimes I still think it's ridiculous :-)

by **Eleven** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:25 pm UTC

Kizyr wrote:- I used to think that Pluto was a planet.

Lol. Didn't most of us? Poor Pluto.

I had some very screwed up ideas as a kid, so I'll just share the amusing ones.
-If I had a big plastic bag like the ones from Toys 'R' Us, I could put my arms through the holes and PARACHUTE OFF THE ROOF!
-Burglars would be scared by my ridiculous traps and run away, and I would catch them and be famous. (I used to rig my room with a dozen traps whenever I entered it. They only really caught my dad though.)
-A dinosaur died in my backyard, and I had discovered its remains and would be famous. Then I would make Jurassic Park. (I actually dug up a vertebra out back. The scary part is that it was roughly human sized and shaped! :shock:

Never got a positive ID.)
-I would be famous.
-College is easy.

by **zingmaster** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:28 pm UTC

Because of Harold and the Purple Crayon, I was 100% convinced that if I drew on an empty wall with a purple crayon, I'd be able to walk into it. This resulted in rather upset parents. But purple still remains my favorite color to this day. A little unusual for a guy, but who cares? I like pulling that out on people and having them look at me weird.

by **Retrograde Motion** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:18 pm UTC

- That only overweight people got cellulite
- That doctors could diagnose any medical problem by doing a few simple tests
- That when you become an adult you sort of just got a house and a job and got married. Like it all sort of magically appeared one day.

by **Pesto** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:22 pm UTC

Eleven wrote:-Burglars would be scared by my ridiculous traps and run away, and I would catch them and be famous. (I used to rig my room with a dozen traps whenever I entered it. They only really caught my dad though.)

That sounds awesome. What were the booby traps like?

by **Ian Ex Machina** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:35 pm UTC

That you can spit and polish anything, and its easy to just lick the object to clean it.
Food (stone?) poisoning from licking a stone

by **bod** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:04 pm UTC

Retrograde Motion wrote:- That only overweight people got cellulite
- That doctors could diagnose any medical problem by doing a few simple tests
- That when you become an adult you sort of just got a house and a job and got married. Like it all sort of magically appeared one day.

Yeah - I thought that too - and you 'magically' got kids.

Am I ever glad that last one isn't true...

by **d33p** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:15 pm UTC

I believed that Jesus must be very very tiny, like one of The Littles, if he was ever supposed to live in my heart.

I believed stuffed animals could get chilly.

And for the longest time, I was convinced that I was missing a tiny bone in my wrist because I had a dream my dad pulled it out like a loose tooth. I used to make other kids feel the "gap" where it used to be.

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