animals

When I was little I had a pet gerbil, and gerbils don't seem to live that long........so my gerbil would die then somehow it would be back a few days later. This went on for years. I thought it was the damnedest thing that these animals died and then returned to life after a couple days, and that only I seemed to know this. One time my friend's hamster died and she was heartbroken, so I told her to get a gerbil cuz they're just like hamsters, except they come back from the dead. It wasn't till much later that I relized my dad had just been replacing the gerbils before he thought I'd notice it was gone.

Rae

The nature of bats intrigued me so much: "How could an animal that is not a bird fly?" Until the day I realized that when mice died they became bats.

Júlio De Marco

I had an ant farm when I was a child. Somehow I managed to name most of the ants, as if I could tell them apart. One of the ants got caught on the little green plastic bridge when I poured the ants into the ant farm. He stayed on the bridge all the time, never moving, so I named him Lazy. I didn't realize he was dead until the other ants dragged him off and "buried" him a week later.

Anon

my family's cat, tyronne, died when my sister was 5. my parents burried him under the big evergreen in our backyard. for years my sister thought that tyronne was just walking around under the ground in the backyard--that being dead meant that you lived underground. when we had moles that pushed up the yard, she thought that was evidence that tyronne was playing and jumping up!

christine

At a dinner party we were talking about childhood pets, when my mother told about how her cat had become to old to live at home anymore and had gone to live in a home for retired cats, this had happened when she was quite young (about 10).

As the story was told she suddenly realised that the cat had, in reality been taken to the vet and put down.

The sudden realisation that she had never mourned her precious childhood pet dawned on her and she collapsed in tears, as the 30 years of mistake became clear!

aethel

When I was about 9 or 10 I had a goldfish that I won at the school carnival. One morning I woke up and found that the fish had jumped out of it's bowl onto the floor and died. I ran into the other room where my brother (younger) and father were seated watching cartoons and asked what happened. Upon examination my father convinced both my brother and I that the fish commited suicide after seeing my brother's face earlier that morning. We still laugh about it even today.

gullible in MN

I used to believe that semi trucks pulling pigs for slaughter were just the farmer taking the pigs for a ride on the expressway.

Alexandra

When i was younger i used to go and visit my grandmother on her farm. Every time we went there my brother and i used to get bought a duckling. When i asked my Grandma where the ducks from last time had gone she would tell me that the fox had got them. From this i'd somehow assumed that this fox had taken the ducks to live on his own farm. it wasnt until i asked my grandma why we couldn't just go to the foxes farm and take them back that i found out the sad truth...

anon

When my cat, Shadow, died of a tail infection when I was four, I was so sad that I drew thirteen pictures just for him and told my dad to mail the pictures to Heaven so that Shadow could see them. This was a yearlong hobby, until I found out that Heaven doesn't have a mailbox.

Marshmello Da Strawberry Cow

When I was younger, I noticed how the dead animals on the highways were always at the SIDES rather thatn in the middle so I asked my mom, "How come people swerve to the side of the roads just to kill the animals???!!!"

Elizabeth

I used to REALLY believe that all dogs went to heaven. So, in that case, it meant all cats went to hell. I always cried for my aunts cats at night for their soon to come eternal damnation... I was an odd child...

Robyn

When I was a toddler, my mother had a pet goldfish named "Ronnie." The poor fish met its demise when I poured dishsoap in its bowl, "trying to help Ronnie blow bubbles."

Maeghan Jade

When I was about three-years-old, my parents had a friend named Kevin. My dad also had two pet hermit crabs. One day, I looked into the tank and they were gone, so I asked my mom what happened to them; she told me they had gone to heaven, but I misunderstood what she had said, and began telling everyone that my dad's hermit crabs went to Kevin's.

Megan

When I was little, we had a dog who was born one day before I was. When I was nine, he died, and I thought I'd be next.

CappysSister

I used to think think that meat was taken from animals like an operation and they recovered afterwards. i was horrified when i discovered the truth and I'm now a vegetarian!

Megan

when my brother and I where kids, we used to have a dog called Jewls. She had been in the family for 16 years. When she died I was 8 and my brother 5. My father explained to us how Jewls had gone to heaven. The next day my mother was surprised to see my brother throwing sticks high up in the air, so she asked him what he was doing and he answered: I am playing with Jewls

Marissa

When I was about 8 my dog got hit by a car and had to be put to sleep. My parents explained the vet would give her a needle and she would just go to sleep forever. I was so upset about this that I would cry for hours at night. My parents thought I was just upset that the dog was dead but really it was because I thought if she slept forever instead of dying that she'd never go to heaven. I didn't know why they wouldn't just let her die.

I still miss Maggie

I used to believe that dogs and cats would be able to speak to us when we all died and went to heaven. This is why sometimes dogs would stare at you - they were paying close attention to what you were doing so they could remember for the afterlife. I was particularly embarrassed about what my childhood dog might reveal about me, so I would tell her lots of stories to try and confuse her about what was made up and what actually happened.

Nugs

When I was small, my Dad told us many stories about his childhood. He had lived near a big forest, so the stories usually involved woodland animals. One of them involved a blackbird flying into the kitchen window (i.e. it hit the window and bounced off), and my Grandpa reviving it with brandy.

Fast forward to the day I was about 11, and a pigeon flew into my bedroom window and knocked itself out. Remembering the brandy story I ran to the drinks cabinet - unfortunately there was no brandy, but there was some vodka, so I force-fed the pigeon quite a lot of that.

It did not wake up.

(Other stories involved newt royalty and a squirrell getting a firework up the arse. It wasn't until adulthood I realised they were mostly made-up.)

Lady M

When I was young, my very old dog had to be put to sleep. We were with him, and the injection the vet used was a bright pink fluid. From that day on, I refused to wear, buy, or even look at anything pink, because I thought the pink itself had killed him.

Rew