childish notions

[Torm]

If everyone of us who've seen your mother naked were going to Hell....

Oh SNAP!

Oh no ee didunt! Oh no ee didunt!

 

[Rel]

Oh SNAP!

Oh no ee didunt! Oh no ee didunt!

I was thinking something along these lines but your phrasing was better. I bow to your greatness.

 

[RithTheAwakener]

I used to think that Mormon women grew an extra set of arms for every kid they had.

I have no idea where that idea came from. I didn't even know what Mormons were back then!

LOL! Thats freakin priceless

 

[Tinner]

When I was a boy, I took every word from my father's mouth as gospel.
Until he slipped up once and revealed that he didn't actually know everything.

Every Saturday morning, my father would get up early and cook breakfast for the whole family, letting my mom sleep in.
My dad worked his way through college as a short order cook in a diner, so he made excellent pancakes, french toast, etc.
Since I idolized my dad, I decided that one Saturday, I would get up even earlier than my dad, and cook breakfast for everyone too.

Now, I was probably 6 or seven years old, and had never made pancakes before. I didn't know about Bisquick and other pre-made mixes, so I knew I'd need a recipe.
Friday night I went up to my fahter, pencil and paper in hand, and asked for a recipe for pancakes.
Dad was watching the game on TV and flippantly rattled off "Take 10 cups of flour, a dozen eggs, 1 cup of milk ... etc."
I faithfully wrote down every word.

Saturday morning, I got up early and following my father's "reipe" to the letter proceeded to make DOZENS of the heaviest, most awful tasting pancakes.
It's a miracle those things were even edible.

Once my mother found out exactly WHY I had followed such a ridiculous recipe, she made certain that my father ate a nice big plate full of those pre-historic pancakes!

 

[wingsandsword]

Once my mother found out exactly WHY I had followed such a ridiculous recipe, she made certain that my father ate a nice big plate full of those pre-historic pancakes!

Priceless.

Now, my parents were pretty good about not filling my head with nonsense. My grandparents however, told plenty of tall tales. My grandmother filled me full of historical inaccuracies, my grandfather did his best to discourage me from any scientific thoughts.

My grandmother told me that when she was little, she had to hide from the Indian attacks on her house so she wouldn't get scalped, and tell me fanciful tales of indian raids and frontiersmen from when she was a little girl. (Her childhood being in the 1930's instead of 1830's, not very likely). She also told me filled me full of a lot of very bad things to say about the Japanese, since her world view was stuck firmly in the 1940's and 1950's her universal villains were "japs" and "commies" when they weren't "injuns", my parents flipped when I started casually using racial epithets for them, not knowing anything else to say. If I took all my grandmothers stories of childhood as fact, she never owned a pair of shoes until she was in her 20's, and walked dozens of miles in the middle of blizzards to get anywhere, everyday having to avoid Indian raids and mobster shoothouts while communists tried to burn down churches and close down the schools. All in a tiny town of a few hundred people in rural Kentucky.

My grandfather was adamant, vehement that there was no such thing as "the speed of light", and told me my teachers were wrong, and to trust him or I'd "git a whoopin". He told me that light didn't take 8 minutes to come from the sun, it took no time at all. There was just the "speed of eyesight", "see, it don't take light no eight minutes to come from the sun, your eyesight will go to the sun and come back in no time at all!". He taught me that my teachers were either intentionally lying or possessed by the devil, and trying to lead me astray when they said there was a big bang and evolution, and that I was beng "ignernt" when I talked about dinosaurs because there was no such thing and all those bones were a hoax being played by the devil. He also taught me that disease came from the devil, not germs, and doctors were lying or "jes ignernt" when they talk about germs. That and tobacco is healthy for you, gives you strength, and that "commies" want to ban or regulate it to weaken America.

Then I had the worst time mispronouncing so many words because I tried to pronounce words I read literally, I read Chaos as "chah-ohs" among others.

 

[Rel]

If I took all my grandmothers stories of childhood as fact, she never owned a pair of shoes until she was in her 20's, and walked dozens of miles in the middle of blizzards to get anywhere, everyday having to avoid Indian raids and mobster shoothouts while communists tried to burn down churches and close down the schools. All in a tiny town of a few hundred people in rural Kentucky.

Well, I think I've got the idea for my next campaign.

 

[pogre]

I remember when Nixon resigned I assumed it was because he had lost the war (I was 7 at the time). Did not get the whole Watergate episode explained to me until High School.

 

[glass]

I've been racking my brains since I found this thread, trying to think of childhood misconceptions, and I can't come up with much, but there were a couple:

I believed sex was just meant kissing, and later that it meant kissing with no clothes on, before I learned the truth.

I believed that the kilogram was a unit of weight, until I learned otherwise in physics. As do most kids, because for some inexplicable reason that's what they are taught.


glass.

 

[Goblyn]

I used to think old people came apart. This was because my grandfather had false teeth and after he took them out he would point at me and tell me to pull his finger. I never did because I thought it would come off.

I never realized the 'pull-my-finger' idea until sometime in high school.

 

[Pielorinho]

I thought the same thing but with the radio.

I've got an hour-long commute to class, and usually I'm either listening to audiobooks or to news radio. When I'm listening to an audiobook, sometimes I'll realize that I was spacing out for a minute or two and missed something, so I'll reach down and "rewind" (is that what you call it with CDs?) the audiobook to the right section.

The problem is that when I'm listening to news radio, sometimes I'll realize that I've been spacing out and missed something, so I find myself reaching down to rewind the radio before I realize that I can't do that. Need to get me a better radio. Do they make RadiVo?

As for my childhood misconceptions:
1) I concluded that bird tails were extremely susceptible to dehydration, and that's why Sylvester T. Cat was always trying to sprinkle them with salt, because then their tails would shrivel up and they couldn't fly away.
2) Toilet bombs. Not all toilets, but some toilets (especially those at school), were equipped by my enemies with a deadly bomb, activated by pulling the flush lever. The bomb would explode when the toilet made its final gurgling sound, killing the person closest to the toilet. I always made sure to exit the bathroom very quickly so that someone else would be closest to it and die in my place. I wasn't a very self-sacrificing child.

Daniel