What were some ridiculous things you were told or believed?

[PhiloMed]

Stemming from another thread, what were some absurd things you were taught or believed as a child, teen or even as an adult?

Mine:

When the street sign read “No Outlet” it meant there was no electricity on that street. I believed this one until my mid teen years.

Before I actually understood the difference between boys and girls I thought girls could pee standing up if they just tried hard enough. And I tried. A lot.

People with really thick hair experienced pain when it grew because surely that much hair would hurt.

I once got in a schoolyard fight because someone said humans were mammals and I became angry since lions and tigers are mammals and humans are way more important than those animals. Therefore, humans are special and are not mammals.

If you hold enough helium balloons you can fly away. My estimated number was 6-10 depending on size.

When you had your menstrual cycle you would need to stay inside and lay in bed until it was over.

I really liked the Beatles song “Take the Next Right Turn” (Paperback Writer), Gay Stripper (Day Tripper), and Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds lyric “the girl with colitis goes by”.

 

[Xantippe]

Stemming from another thread, what were some absurd things you were taught or believed as a child, teen or even as an adult?

Mine:

When the street sign read “No Outlet” it meant there was no electricity on that street. I believed this one until my mid teen years.

Before I actually understood the difference between boys and girls I thought girls could pee standing up if they just tried hard enough. And I tried. A lot.

People with really thick hair experienced pain when it grew because surely that much hair would hurt.

I once got in a schoolyard fight because someone said humans were mammals and I became angry since lions and tigers are mammals and humans are way more important than those animals. Therefore, humans are special and are not mammals.

If you hold enough helium balloons you can fly away. My estimated number was 6-10 depending on size.

When you had your menstrual cycle you would need to stay inside and lay in bed until it was over.

I really liked the Beatles song “Take the Next Right Turn” (Paperback Writer), Gay Stripper (Day Tripper), and Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds lyric “the girl with colitis goes by”.

I have an uncle who (when he was driving his kids and me on a trip to Canada) claimed that there is a Canadian language.

Dr. Dobson (in a book for teenagers that my mom gave me when I was 11ish or 12ish) says that intercourse produces a “mild tingling” sensation.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I have an uncle who (when he was driving his kids and me on a trip to Canada) claimed that there is a Canadian language.

Dr. Dobson (in a book for teenagers that my mom gave me when I was 11ish or 12ish) says that intercourse produces a “mild tingling” sensation.

Poor Mrs Dobson.

When I was young before I started my period, I thought it was a one time thing that happened when you were about 20 something.

I knew that reproduction had to do with a combination of cells from mother and father. Bi didn’t know it was sperm,egg, intercourse. I thought the couple would engage in prolonged kissing and hugging and friction caused two cells to meet, and turn into an embryo and somehow be absorbed into the woman. Maybe I got that idea from Rizzo and Kennike in Grease?

After I learned how babies were actually made I was horrified and thought one only did that to conceive. So since I had just 1 sibling my parents did it twice.

 

[redbetta]

Since the school I went to from preschool to eigth grade did not have a cafeteria and my family did not really leave the house much, I thought tater tots were a myth and that they only exited on TV and in the movies, like pizza with anchovies. Freshman year of high school, a girl offered me a tater tot and I asked something along the lines of, “Those are real?” On a similar note, I never had a taco or burrito until freshman year of college. I still have never seen a pizza topped with anchovies other than as the butt of some joke on TV.

 

[EasterJoy]

If you hold enough helium balloons you can fly away. My estimated number was 6-10 depending on size.

It can be done, although it takes a lot more than 6-10. Don’t try this at home.

Father Adelir Antonio flew a lawnchair pulled by hundred of party balloons in an effort to earn donations for trucker rest stops in Brazil. Unfortunately… he neglected to learn how to use his GPS.

darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html

 

[EasterJoy]

I used to believe that there were no ethnic jokes about Germans because Germans have no sense of humor and are not funny. I later met Germans and found out that they actually do tell jokes about themselves. It turns out that only German Americans lack a sense of humor about themselves.

 

[Xantippe]

Poor Mrs Dobson.

When I was young before I started my period, I thought it was a one time thing that happened when you were about 20 something.

I knew that reproduction had to do with a combination of cells from mother and father. Bi didn’t know it was sperm,egg, intercourse. I thought the couple would engage in prolonged kissing and hugging and friction caused two cells to meet, and turn into an embryo and somehow be absorbed into the woman. Maybe I got that idea from Rizzo and Kennike in Grease?

After I learned how babies were actually made I was horrified and thought one only did that to conceive. ** So since I had just 1 sibling my parents did it twice.**

When I was in high school, a classmate from a very liberal family said that she’d come away with exactly the same impression–that her parents had had sex exactly twice in order to have her and her sister.

I think it’s hard to avoid misunderstandings with early sex ed…

I’ve always been wary of the “special hug” phraseology for using on little kids. That would have freaked me out as a child.

 

[EasterJoy]

When I was in high school, a classmate from a very liberal family said that she’d come away with exactly the same impression–that her parents had had sex exactly twice in order to have her and her sister.

I think it’s hard to avoid misunderstandings with early sex ed…

I’ve always been wary of the “special hug” phraseology for using on little kids. That would have freaked me out as a child.

I remember scouring the encyclopedia and every other piece of research literature available to me at the time. Nothing. When my cousin told me and our other female cousins who were about the same age (10-12?), you could have signed every one of us up for the convent on the spot.

 

[Xantippe]

I remember scouring the encyclopedia and every other piece of research literature available to me at the time. Nothing. When my cousin told me and our other female cousins who were about the same age (10-12?), you could have signed every one of us up for the convent on the spot.

Hilarious!

 

[Chovy]

When I was about 3, I was making faces in the mirror when I found that water (spit) was spraying out from underneath my tongue. I was certain I had sprung a leak. When I had to go to the doctor the next time I was terrified that this would be a surgery-inducing condition and tried to hide it.

 

[Joe_5859]

I think I was probably 10 or 11 when my brother tried to explain to me that “several” did not mean “seven of something” but could be used more generally to denote more than a just a few. I thought he was messing with me.

When I was 6 or 7, my cousin told me that if you stepped with bare feet on a pencil or a pair of scissors on the ground, you would lose all your hair. It was years before I realized she was probably just saying that so that I would clean the stuff up off the ground.

 

[CB_Catholic]

My grandmother told me that eating the crusts of bread would make you have curly hair.

I thought babies came out of your bellybutton.

If you shaved the thighs of your legs, the hair would grow in thick like a gorilla’s (my mother told me this and said that happened to her sister–it did not).

If you took a bath during your period you would catch a chill and get sick. Eww.

If you cut the tags off of pillows and bedding that said “Do not remove under penalty of law”, you would go to jail. (Mine still have tags)

 

[Arebella]

When I was a little girl, nuns still wore the full habits that covered them to the soles of their feet. I didn’t think that had feet under those habits and were so holy that they somehow levitated above the ground like hovercrafts.

 

[Arizona_Fat_Gir]

I was terrified of the devil. I was told somewhere along the line, as a little kid, that the devil could come up through the floor and grab me. Someone told me this, and bed time
became a literal nightmare.

 

[DaveBj]

My uncle told me that the water that sprayed out onto the windshield of his Packard was from a little boy who lived under the hood and peed on the windshield when he pressed a special button.

 

[lax16]

I was terrified of the devil. I was told somewhere along the line, as a little kid, that the devil could come up through the floor and grab me. Someone told me this, and bed time
became a literal nightmare.

Oh that’s terrible!

I hope you don’t have trouble falling asleep now.

 

[CB_Catholic]

My husband told my kids that whenever they opened the fridge door the penguin living there would turn on the light. Which resulted in them opening and closing the door multiple times to try to catch a glimpse of the penguin.

 

[Jake_Parker]

I used to believe that there were no ethnic jokes about Germans because Germans have no sense of humor and are not funny. I later met Germans and found out that they actually do tell jokes about themselves. It turns out that only German Americans lack a sense of humor about themselves.

This is equally true of Dutch Americans. My father’s side of the family is Dutch and has no sense of humor. This could just be the Dutch Reformed, though.

 

[redbetta]

I forgot this one. I think it was my brother who told me once that, if you put a dollar bill on train tracks and let it get run over, you will find 4 quarters when you return.

My grandfather told my mom when she was little that, if she slept with her book under her pillow, the information with the book will seep in.

 

[seagal]

I was pretty young (not sure how old) out for a drive with my uncle and aunt. We went over these 2 cords running across the road. My uncle told me were extension cords for the farm equipment (we lived in a pretty rural area). I’m embarrassed to say how old I was before I realized that farm equipment doesn’t need to be plugged in and that the 2 cords were probably counting traffic.