Stuff You Got Wrong As A Kid

mrsdewinter · 04-02-2016 10:47AM

When a news reader would say, 'A body has been found...' I thought police had found literally just a torso - no head, no arms, no legs...

I won't go into the weird sex myths I conjured up to fill in patchy 80s sex ed - but just a few weeks ago, I heard my niece say, 'It's funny that you can have a baby when you're 18 in Dublin - but you have to be 20 in...' and here she named the rural part of the west of Ireland she lives in.
Misinformation is alive and well, folks...

Turtyturd · 04-02-2016 10:49AM

I also thought facial hair was a characteristic you couldn't change. So I spent a few years of my childhood terrified that I would grow up to have a moustache.

RhubarbCrumble · 04-02-2016 10:50AM

Candie wrote: »

I used to wonder about Mister Fogpatches. I thought his job was knowing the weather everywhere, and that he drove around the country to check he'd gotten it right. Mister Fogpatches in Scotland overnight, Mister Fogpatches in the West Country during the morning. He got around, that guy.

My cousin had the same problem with Mr Fog. I can remember being about 6 or 7 and watching the weather forecast at our grandparents house, and my cousin bawling her eyes out when it was announced that "Mr Fog will be creeping all over the country later tonight" She was absolutely hysterical!

endacl · 04-02-2016 10:51AM

I thought the character played by Mr. T in the A-Team was called 'Big A'. Made sense. His team was called 'A', and he was the big one.

:embarrassed:

PixelTrawler · 04-02-2016 11:06AM

Cant remember the age I was but I remember having no interest in something called Knightrider because it was probably about horses and olden times.... I refused to watch it... Until one day I saw it by accident... Mind blown

gramar · 04-02-2016 11:18AM

mrsdewinter wrote: »

When a news reader would say, 'A body has been found...' I thought police had found literally just a torso - no head, no arms, no legs...

.

That reminds of when they'd say 'remains'...I always imagined bits and peices of the deceased and wonder why they never died intact.

LDN_Irish · 04-02-2016 11:23AM

A bit embarrassed but, I don't get the "mister fogpatches." Is it "mist and fog patches"? I don't think I've ever actually paid attention to a weather forecast.

Akrasia · 04-02-2016 11:25AM

Every time someone farted in my house, my father said 'Who has done an 'Air Freshener'

So I thought that was the word for fart

It was a bit embarrassing when going to an under 10s hurling match with a bunch of my team-mates crammed into the back of a parents car when someone farted and i said 'Who's done an Air freshener'

I think I defended myself for a minute or two 'Yeah, that's what they're called..'
until It dawned on me that my father had been taking the piss, consistently, for my entire life.

He also called that little broken castle on the Ennis limerick road 'Bun Mousey' because the bigger castle down the road is called Bunratty

Oh, and Santa lived on that wierd tower thing on the hill across from the Clare inn.

sbsquarepants · 04-02-2016 11:27AM

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Used to think black people were actually white, they just had so many freckles that they all connected together to look black.

That's more or less the case
We're all the same underneath!

I used to think that cats were female dogs:o

kylith · 04-02-2016 11:28AM

Akrasia wrote: »

He also called that little broken castle on the Ennis limerick road 'Bun Mousey' because the bigger castle down the road is called Bunratty

That's brilliant! Your dad's great. ðŸ˜„

Bio Mech · 04-02-2016 11:30AM

I used to think there was a guy called Round John Virgin at the birth of Jesus, I asked my mother he was in the nativity scene once and learned of my error ("Round yon virgin, mother and child")

pawrick · 04-02-2016 11:41AM

For a long time as a child I thought if you ran fast enough you could take off and fly. I'd spend hours running around the garden trying to pick up speed. My parents probably thought I had some sort of a mental condition.

Gravity...before i know about it. I would sometimes see a helium balloon floating in the sky and have an mini freak out about how that could be me floating away, I'd ponder about what was stopping me from floating off and that maybe if I grew too tall the wind would catch me and lift me off in to the sky with no way down. I think this fed in to trying to fly so I could control it on my own terms and not just float in to space. I grew up near a factory producing medicines so possibly that had something to do with this?!

RobertKK · 04-02-2016 11:52AM

I am sure other highly intelligence children had similar problems as this...

This is about other children not being up to my intelligence level.

When I was in 6th class in Primary school back in the last 1980s, we were doing geography and we came to talk about Sri Lanka. I put my hand up and said there was guerilla warfare going on in that country. Everyone laughed at me thinking I had said there were gorilla warfare there.
So in their eyes I was wrong, and I was wrong for thinking they would know what I was talking about.
What was worse was the teacher didn't understand either, or at the very least didn't want to explain if he did know...making me look stupid.

FishOnABike · 04-02-2016 11:55AM

I remember thinking about prayers for the "fatally" departed - I mean was there any other kind of departed.

greenbicycle · 04-02-2016 11:58AM

I thought small those small annoying flys which are actually called Midges were called Midgets. I hated Midgets!

greenbicycle · 04-02-2016 11:59AM

When everyone said "thanks be to god" at the end of mass I thought everyone was really saying it cause they were glad mass had finally ended "thanks be to god thats over!"

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 04-02-2016 12:00PM

i thought that the VW beetle was crammed full of actual insect beetles, and would freak out anytime I ever saw one, pure terrified I was

what a day · 04-02-2016 12:18PM

My Mrs phoned my sister in law the other day. The mrs is organizing her hens party.
My poor nephew heard part of the conversation and was so excited to come up to my house to see our new chickens!! His little heart broke when we told them its was a party for a bunch of oul ones!!

8 Bit Girl · 04-02-2016 12:59PM

Turtyturd wrote: »

I also thought facial hair was a characteristic you couldn't change. So I spent a few years of my childhood terrified that I would grow up to have a moustache.

All the mammies in my village had short hair, coincidence I suppose but one day I realised this and started bawling, thinking id have to cut all my hair off when I got older too.
Like it was some sort of requirement to be a mammy/older woman!

Gave my mother a good laugh with that one

Graces7 · 04-02-2016 01:08PM

I can distinctly remember. although for how long evades ,e, thinking that babies were born fully dressed.. I was wise enough as a child to listen rather than speak...thankfully,

valoren · 04-02-2016 01:25PM

As a 4 year old I thought that the inside of your body was essentially hollow.
And that you had to drink a sufficient amount of liquid so that it 'reached' your mickey, it was only then that you could urinate.

Choc Chip · 04-02-2016 01:35PM

My mother was to blame for most of my misinformation - she was probably sick of me constantly asking questions.

e.g.

I asked how the holes got into holey cheese. She told me that worms ate their way through the cheese. When I asked how they got out, she told me that they died in there. When I asked what happened to their bodies, she told me that they decomposed so that you couldn't see them any more. I wouldn't eat cheese with holes for years.

When I asked why my great granny always wore long dresses or skirts, mum told me that she had three legs and she wore the long dress/ skirt to hide it. This led on to great-granny being a witch and having a cauldron in the cupboard. I was terrified of that cupboard til the poor old woman died.

If I ever have kids I plan to follow her example - if you don't know the answer, make up the most outrageous lie possible.

Sleepy · 04-02-2016 01:38PM

I remember when hearing about sex from a childhood friend being told that having sex always led to a baby, unless you wore a condom and then it was called "making love"...

I left that conversation with the notion that a condom was something like a test-tube and that "test tube babies" must have had something to do with that!

thattequilagirl · 04-02-2016 01:46PM

My parents are from Galway but I spent my childhood in Celbridge. Every day they would have this conversation about what they'd get for Tamara's dinner. I was killed wondering who was Tamara they were always buying dinner for.

kylith · 04-02-2016 01:58PM

8 Bit Girl wrote: »

All the mammies in my village had short hair, coincidence I suppose but one day I realised this and started bawling, thinking id have to cut all my hair off when I got older too.
Like it was some sort of requirement to be a mammy/older woman!

Gave my mother a good laugh with that one

Not that wrong. In recent years my mum's been on at me about being 'too old' for long hair any more.

Hammer89 · 04-02-2016 02:22PM

mrsdewinter wrote: »

When a news reader would say, 'A body has been found...' I thought police had found literally just a torso - no head, no arms, no legs...

Haha I thought the exact same thing.

I also used to think Howth was part of Great Britain when you see it from Dun Laoghaire.

Turtyturd · 04-02-2016 02:34PM

Sleepy wrote: »

I remember when hearing about sex from a childhood friend being told that having sex always led to a baby, unless you wore a condom and then it was called "making love"...

I left that conversation with the notion that a condom was something like a test-tube and that "test tube babies" must have had something to do with that!

The official line of information isn't any less confusing. I know a bloke who came out of our sex education session in 6th class convinced you had to urinate inside a girl to get her pregnant.

Still hasn't lived it down.

04-02-2016 02:37PM

On a family holiday in France, my Dad and I were out alone together for lunch and stopped at one of those pavement cafes where Dad ordered a kind of chicken affair with ratatouille as a side dish.

After I'd eaten all the ratatouille, my darling Daddy told me it was called that because it was made out of rats. I remember sitting there looking at him in horror. With no warning at all, I puked all over the table, which is a pretty sensible thing to do if you have eaten a side order of rat. Dad didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he got what he deserved anyway.

When I was about ten, Dad told me that Stillorgan was called that because they found a pit with hundreds of amputated willies in it, called the Pit of Still Organs. I totally believed him. I even told my teacher about this interesting bit of history. I can still picture her face.

Another time, he told me that you could make a person walk funny if you gave them a big enough surprise, and that this was the origin of the London phrase 'knocked bandy'. I nearly gave my Granny heart attack after heart attack, trying to knock her bandy.

SEPT 23 1989 · 04-02-2016 02:39PM

My father brought me to watch LOI matches as a very young kid and i was convinced Shamrock Rovers was Ireland for some reason

CarrickMcJoe · 04-02-2016 02:43PM

You don't need to be a kid...Arranged to meet a friend in New York only to find her pacing over and back on the pavement.
When I asked her about it she pointed to the No Standing At Anytime sign (meant for motorists)..

Stuff You Got Wrong As A Kid

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