creepy crawlies

(this is what my mom told me about when she was little) when she was watching tv, she would always think that the people inside were roachs that had crawled up inside and would dress up like people.....

Donna (my mom)

Once when I was little, my family was on a hike in the woods, when I giant bug jumped on my arm and was looking right at me. I started screaming and swatting at it and whatnot. After it was gone, my mom said, "It only jumped on you because it thought you were pretty." I was young enough that I believed her 100%. Then I felt really bad, because I figured if it jumped on me because it thought I was pretty, and I started screaming about how ugly it was, I must have hurt it's feelings. I felt guilty about it for weeks.

I'm sorry, bug

My grandmother told us in order for us to stop whistling, that when we whistle at night we were actually calling snakes to us. I think I was about 13 years old when I finally figured out what she had done.

Sylvia

i thought there was a huge sprider that hid just around the bend of the pipe and when i sat on the toilet it would come out and sink it's fangs into my bum.

andrea

I used to believe that earwigs lived on earwax, and that they would crawl into my ear canal and eat my brain.

dodyskin

I used to believe that mosquitoes sucked your blood until you died. I told my little brother this when he was six. When he cried i had no idea what he was worried about.

Anon

well, i live on a canal, and dragonflies are quite common in the summer. i found it quite odd that there were so many "siamese" dragonflies.

only a few years ago did i figure out those dragonflies were actually mating..

Anon

When I was little my mom would like to go to flea markets, but I hated it because I actually believed everything had fleas and they would get on me.

Julie

This has to be a totally southern thing but my mother always called praying mantises 'Devil's Horses' and said that if they spat in your eye, it would put your eye out. I wonder why, as a kid, I disliked insects in general?

Brenda

I was at the zoo several years ago and overheard one of the guys in a high school group (apparently for a biology class) talk about a catepillar he found on the fence. He ernestly believed that the only way they became butterflies was to set them on fire! Naturally, I was horrified and had to set him straight, but I don't think he believed me.

Silverchild

I used to believe that if you plucked a leaf off a bush and carefully removed all of the greenery, except for the main part of the leaf - I guess the stem of the leaf, that the stem would then turn into a caterpillar. It just seemed completely logical at the time. I used to walk home from school, creating caterpillars from overhanging trees and shrubs.

Doug - the caterpillar creator

I used to believe that earwigs could crawl in your ears and make you deaf. So when one flew into the car on a road trip, I would scream and cover my ears. One time I was eating in the car and an earwig flew in there, I got so scared I threw up!

Laura

I used to believe amoebas wait 5 seconds before they start eating something you dropped on the floor.

I'm not sure if amoebas are classified as animals, but I'm putting this in the animals section anyway.

Anon

I used to believe that crickets were the sound that night made. Needless to say I was very upset when I heard a cricket during the day and then actually saw one. Ugh.

Kimberly

As a child I thought I had taught a fly to rub its hands together. Then when I seen another fly do the same thing I thought the fly had taught his friends. I was very proud.

Georgia

When I was little, in the summer kids used to drink from the garden hose in the yard. I always refused to drink out of it because whenever it rained there were worms outside, so I was convinced that the worms were made by water which meant if I drank from the hose, chances are a worm or snake or something would come out of it while I was drinking.

Alia

Someone told me mascara was made from bat feces. To this day, I'm not sure if it's true.

Schmoopy

I used to think that cavemen parents would punish their kids by making them sit on ants. My parents never hit me, and when I misbehaved, they threatened to call out the ants.

Anon

I thought that snakes were just a tail and a head like they looked like i.e I didn't know they had any internal organs in their bodies. Later when I learned that lizards can drop thier tails I thought that snakes could drop their whole bodies and would just be a head until it grew back!

Nate

I used to believe that if I could keep a worm alive long enough that it would eventually turn into a snake. Unfortunately for the worms, I always kept them in dry boxes.

Mark Morris