When we were young

Victor

What mad ideas did you have?

Age 6, when I was reading my mother's Woman's Own, I discovered an ad for sanitary pads. I thought it was hilarious that grown women would need pads to keep dry. Hell, at that time my 2 year old brother was doing well enough.

DaDa

I must have seen some 1970's documentary on the Sasquash (AKA Bigfoot) and I was sure that it was going to arrive in our estate one of these days

Khannie

I remembered the other day, that I used to think that a monster lay behind a boat that was upturned (and on blocks) in reads (sp?) near our caravan in wexford (caravan park).

Also...The concept of an unbounded universe scared this absolute crap out of me. It used to keep me awake at night trying to conceptualise infinity. Then I learned that the universe was finite in size. That scared the crap out of me too....trying to conceptualise how there could be an edge....and what was one centimetre beyond the edge. It was a frightening time.

On the sanitary pads thing, I used to think that if a man wore one, he'd start turning into a woman. That madness of youth.

Edit: here's a good one....My son got frightened about the future recently, when he thought about what would happen when he got older....in particular, he thought he might end up on the street when his mum and I weren't paying his way any more. We had a long chat about this, and it turned out that he wasn't considering that he'd have income of his own.

ArthurDent

For some bizarre reason, that I still can't figure out, up to the time I was 7 or 8 I thought that when people in films died they REALLY died. So I just didn't understand why people wanted to be actors (particularly cowboys/indinians as they always got killed). So my take on why they would become actors was that maybe a year before thery played the role they were given loads of money (I think I remember coming up with £100!:rolleyes: ) and they spent the next year spending it......
God even writing it down I can't believe how naive I was:o

ArthurDent

Khannie wrote:

Also...The concept of an unbounded universe scared this absolute crap out of me. It used to keep me awake at night trying to conceptualise infinity. Then I learned that the universe was finite in size. That scared the crap out of me too....trying to conceptualise how there could be an edge....and what was one centimetre beyond the edge. It was a frightening time.

Remember being freaked out by this and eternity too at about 13 or 14 and freaking out my dad with these big long conversations about it - sheesh I was a bit of a freak of a kid.

oRlyYaRly

I used to think the world was black and white in the 30s, but who didn't really?

I used to think babies came out of the anus. O_o

I used to think I would get married when I was 18 and have lots and lots and lots of kids by the time I was 25. :eek:

quickbeam

The infinity thing still keeps me awake at night if I start thinking about it. I try not to.

When I was younger I thought that grey hair was caused by not washing the suds out of your hair properly (made sense to me because suds were white).

At the age of 13 / 14, somebody who was nineteen years old was so-ooo grown up.

I remember thinking that a Virgin was a person who had baby out of wedlock because that's what the Virgin Mary had done.

BrianCalgary

I was convinced that dogs were the male of the species and that cats were the females.

Behind the altar at church was a curtain that ran floor to ceiling. God lived behind there with His angels. When I was an altar boy age about 16 I had a peek behind the curtain just to see what was behind there. Concrete block, no God.

deisemum

I remember reading the problem pages in my mum's magazine (I must have been about 10 at the time) and couldn't figure out how a woman could end up pregnant because the sheath tore, I was thinking sheet and used to worry that the sheet was smooth on my bed before I'd get into it.

Wex1

An old friend thought that the 3 little pigs was a horror story because when they got a bit big (she thought 5 was big) they had to leave home and were sent out in the world to fend for themselves

Wex1

and another one.... when I was 10 I refused to sleep in the tent with my 7 year old (boy) cousin on a camping trip cause I read the World Book Encyclopedia definition of sex! It said something about getting pregnant by sleeping with/lying beside a man!!! I totally freaked at the time!

Khannie

lol. Some of these are classic. Great thread victor. Delighted so many people had trouble with infinity / eternity.

Keep them coming.....

RainyDay

I remember thinking about how lucky I was to have been born into an English speaking country, as it would be really hard to have to learn another language at such a young age.

Victor

quickbeam wrote:

I remember thinking that a Virgin was a person who had baby out of wedlock because that's what the Virgin Mary had done.

Yeah, and how come none of the nuns at school had children?

branners69

I used to think that the world was black and white years and years ago..

I was brought up on Abbot & Costello films and Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, can you believe he only made 12!! I remember watching at least 700!!

Sometimes I think how much handier it would be if everything was still black and white:)

MrPudding

I thought butter milk came from bulls.

MrP

scrattletrap

One morning when I didn't want to go to school I told my mother that I had a twist in my sobriety (after the song), I thought your sobriety was a muscle in your leg. I didn't get away with it.

iguana

When I was about 4/5 my aunt gave me an apple which turned out to be rotten inside and I was convinced she was the witch from Snow White.:eek:

ircoha

What did u think happened when the radio was turned off? Would it restart where u left off?

LadyJ

I thought the people were in the tv.

I also thought that babies were made from putting the penis into the belly button

Kildrought

I once went through several pints of milk pouring them into a mixing bowl, utterly convinced that if I got it just right it would turn into chocolate......

[You need to be of a certain age and remember the ads for Cadbury's chocolate....:) ]

iguana

Y'know when you're eating something and it goes down your windpipe and you start coughing. My mum would always say, oh it went down the wrong way. And I thought that we had two tubes at the back of our mouth; 1 for the food and another for the drink.

Crea

When I was 10 I went through a phase of being terrified of death and there being no heaven so when you died that was it - nothingness. I was also afraid that once I died I would be forgotten about in 100 years and my existance would have been futile. I got over the second by having children and the first by ignoring the voices in my head
I used to imagine that there were little people who lived in desks and tables because when you put your ear to the table you would hear noises - a bit like a seashell effect.
I thought that my blind father could see us in the dark - unfortunately not true
I used to think that monsters were under my bed and would grab me and pull me under unless I jumped from a distance. I could have been a gold medalist in the long jump.

edengarden

I remember i used to think when i heard people were moving house that a big bulldozer came and picked up your house and put it somewhere new.

I also remember I heard on the TV that the IRA had bombed somewhere and i remember being terrified that the would blow up the moon(!)

RainyDay

iguana wrote:

And I thought that we had two tubes at the back of our mouth; 1 for the food and another for the drink.

Yep, I went for that one too.

On being informed that our household drains emptied out into the Liffey, I decided on the day we were going into town to empty a bottle of Clinic shampoo down the plughole to see if the Liffey would go blue & bubbly.

andrew

I used to think that when people broke their arm that they had actually broken their arm clean in two. Whenever my sis told me about someone who had broken their arm, i would always ask 'was there blood?'

Ayla

When I was young I used to imagine there was a green drippy hand under my bed that would grab my ankle if I stepped too close to the edge (so Crea, I sympathize with your long distance jumping).

Also, when I was 10-11 I saw "My Left Foot" with Daniel Day Lewis, and "learned" that twins are made when you leave the penis in for 30 mins (single births only had the penis in for 15 mins). I "taught" this to all of my friends and it was a good few years until I learned otherwise.

darkflower

when i was young i thought that dead people related to you would come and visit 3 nights after their funeral. i dreaded sleeping because of that and would take a place in between my parents for safety. i'd be glad when morning comes and nothing happened.:rolleyes:

kelle

ArthurDent wrote:

For some bizarre reason, that I still can't figure out, up to the time I was 7 or 8 I thought that when people in films died they REALLY died. So I just didn't understand why people wanted to be actors (particularly cowboys/indinians as they always got killed). So my take on why they would become actors was that maybe a year before thery played the role they were given loads of money (I think I remember coming up with £100!:rolleyes: ) and they spent the next year spending it......
God even writing it down I can't believe how naive I was:o

Actually, I was the opposite. I'd watch cartoons and it seemed when people died in them they would be brought back to life. I didn't realise that once they were dead, they were dead forever and I wondered why my Mum (who has since died herself) cried for months over the death of her father when I was 7!
Also, I read a problem page at the age of 11 and was horrified to read about a 15-year-old girl being pregnant. I thought it could just happen to me 4 years later and i expressed my horror at this to my mother. She sat me down and explained how this particular girl got to be in this situatin!

triona1

when me and my sisters were small.a older cousin came to stay at ours,she let her walkman fall and it broke into pieces,she had all of us looking for the drummers and the rest of the musicians for ages

scubagit

Hi Guys,
Never mind about when we were young. A friend of ours (30 yrs) nearly died a few weeks ago when I happened to mention about getting grey pubes.