around the house

I had two twin beds in my room and until I was 6, I refused to sleep in the one closest to the wall, because I knew if a car came slamming through the wall, it would hit that bed first and I'd be safe. Never mind that my room was in the middle of the house on the second story.

Ben

As a little girl, I was given a "grown up" gift of a pretty little bottle which had the words "toilet water" on the label. I behaved like a grown up little lady and said thank you, but was puzzled. It smelled nice, but I didn't know that toilet water was a light smelling perfume to wear. I just poured it into the toilet.

Linda, Los Angeles

When I was a kid I thought the reason fire alarms were loud was so that the people at the fire station could hear them.

Razorness

When I was younger, we living in a unit block and the entrance was directly below our balcony.

I used to believe that spiting onto people walking in was a victimless crime and that if I did manage to hit them, they would be really impressed with my aim.

Thomas, Sydney, Australia, Earth

We lived in a condo on the 3rd floor. I thought that our neighbors from the 4th floor did nothing 24/7 but holding our ceiling lamps. One day it occurred to me that we weren't holding anyone's lamps even though people on the 2nd floor probably had them too.

Jo

I used to believe that Children's Aid was watching our house would come take me from my parents because I had to mow the HUGE lawn. It was a riding mower and I wanted to do it so I made sure I always smiled while driving the mower so "those people watching me" would know I was happy and not being forced.

Heather

When I was a toddler I kept trying to put my fingers in the electrical outlets, so my mother would always tell me "no no Anna." I thought all electrical outlets were called "no nos" until I was about seven.

Anna

when i was around 7 yrs old, my father was vacuuming and found a straw sticking out of an electric outlet. My father told us that whoever (me or my 2 younger sisters) did it must tell him immediately so he could rush them to the hospital before their hair fell out. I started crying profusely... and my father assumed I had stuck the straw in the outlet. As he dragged me to my room, i yelled... " i didn't do it" and he asked "then why are you crying?". I screamed at the top of my lungs.... " I DON'T WANT A BALD SISTER!!!!"

frank

In my old house we used to have floor boards, and one would always creek when I stepped on it, and I used to think that something was hidden under there, like old treasure or something, so one day I finally plucked up the courage to get out of bed at night, peel back the carpet and unscrew the floor board. I had a flash light so I could see underneath, and I heard what was like a ghost voice saying, go back to bed!!

So I quickly screwed on the floorboard and put the carpet back and ran to bed. I wouldn't walk on that part of the floor ever again. I always used to have to hold my breath for 5 seconds then run past other wise the ghost would come for me at night.

It's only recently that I found out, it was my dad telling me to go back to bed.

Scarey Cat

When i was very little, I lived on the 2nd floor, which had a clothesline attached from my neighbors house to ours. Our neighbors would hang clothes to dry on this rather frequently, and the pulley that was connected to my house was right on the wall outside my room. So, when I was a kid, I would hear my neighbor pulling the clothesline so she could hang more clothes... and it sounded like a moan.

So naturally, I thought that my walls were Sad. I would stand near my walls, looking up, saying "It's Ok, It's Ok. until they stopped!"

Tanin'iver

My mother used to tell us that if we incessantly rang the doorbell, it would make the house burn down in a fire.

Katie Bonk

I used to believe that if you walked around while on the telephone, the place where the person on the other end of the line would move around. One day, while on the phone with my Grandfather, I started jumping up and down and asked if his house was shaking.

Anon

When I was little, I thought that vacuums were for smoothing out the carpets, not cleaning them. Whenever my mom would vacuum I would tread as lightly as I could across the carpets because I didn't want to ruin them.

T

I believed that the word "contents" was a verb and meant "explodes". Why? Cans around my parents' home all had printed upon them the same thing: "Warning: contents under pressure". I figured that if you squeezed the can, it would explode. I handled all cans very carefully for a very, very long time!

Rhonda

I watched a lot of SciFi and adventure TV when I was a kid (a brother who was 8 yrs older and into that stuff helped). One day I asked my mom where the oxygen tanks were. When she asked me what I was talking about, I explained that the house HAD to be equipped with oxygen tanks because otherwise, when we closed the windows in the cold weather, we'd eventually use up all the air and we'd suffocate. But we'd survived many winters quite nicely, so there MUST be oxygen tanks in the house somewhere. Mom laughed and explained that the house wasn't airtight, that plenty of air got in. I was a little relieved and a little disappointed, I'll admit. The house seemed so...ordinary after that.

A Non-Ymus

When I was very little, a kindergarten classmate told me that naked pictures of people were very very bad and they were called pornography. I was to young to grasp this concept, however I remembered the word. I spent the next week secretly angry at my Grandparents. I thought they were bad people because they had a few classical art paintings hung throughout their house, in which half naked people and cherubs were painted. I told my mom one day, "I love Grandma, but I wish she didn't have so much pornography in her house." My mom was shocked, she burst out laughing. She set me straight.

Anon

When I was very young, I asked my mother what would happen if the house burned down, and she said not to worry because we have insurance and they could replace everything. I thought for a long time after this that the insurance company knew exactly what we had in our house and would give us replicas of everything we had. I was very amazed by this and comforted that all my stuffed animals were safe.

Shari

For whatever reason, when I was young, it was usual for us at my house to get a Christmas tree a little too tall to fit in the living room. So my father would cut off a bit of the top to make it fit. For years, I thought that was what was meant by "trimming" the Christmas tree.

Sophie

When i was younger , before i under stood the concept of Gasoline runs engines, i used to believe lawn mowers used to run off of grass....... well i know now.

Brian

When I was about 4 or 5 my mom told me not to break the coffee table because "a lot of money went into that". Of course being a small child I tried to break it open so I could get the money out!

Tyler