excursions

For the longest time I used to believe that the male ballet dancers were naked from the waist down.

Anon

My dad used to tell me that, at restaurants, a big burly man with a tatoo on his arm was swirling a huge vat of food in the kitchen. When I asked how the food came out, he said they would stick in a plate and out would pop exactly what you ordered. I believed him until I was about 12. I should have known better, because I watched my parents cook my food for me all the time and they didn't have a huge vat of goo.

Jen

My dad had me so convinced that I was actually driving the boats at Disneyland (they're on tracks, of course), that I later had nightmares of crashing them.

To make matters worse, I confused one of those nightmares as being a real memory and thought that I really had crashed one. (It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized I was wrong).

Sony full of Bologna

Whem I was about 4-5 and we went to washington D.C. My parents were talking
about there being no restrooms a the Washington momorilal. I thought that they were talking about the capital. so when we went to the capital, i had to go. so i went to the top of the stairs, uzipped, and let her rip!

David Railey, 10

When I was little, I went on vacation with my mom to a very far away place (about 400 miles, it seemed very far at the time). My mom and I would drive there and I used to believe that in order to drive anywhere, you had to learn and memorize all the maps at school and it sounded like an enormous task. Little did I know about folding paper maps and especially road signs...

Caroline

My dad and I used to go to the library. On the side of the library was a big yellow sign that said "Fallout Shelter." I asked my dad what that was, and he said it was a place to go in case there was a bomb. I remember being really worried because I knew I could fit behind that little sign, but I didn't think my dad could.

Later it morphed into the idea that there was a tunnel leading from the shelter to the street that came out right behind the sign, and the sign was about 15 feet above the ground, so when you left the shelter you would just 'fall out.'

Jen

there was a virtual ride at epcot when i was little. on the ride they "shrunk" you and you and you went inside the human body to try and find the problem for the doctors to help them solve it. well my dad told me that we were actually going to be shrunk and i of course believed him, and would not go on the ride.

Anon

When my husband was a child his older brother had convinced him that those rolls of bailed hay were *giant* rabbit terds!

Lindsay and Tim

We used to go out to eat a lot when I was younger. When we were finished with our meal and the server brought the check, my parents would start searching for their wallets. When they couldn't find them they would tell us we would have to do dishes in the restaurant's kitchen to "pay" for the meal that way. I remember we got so scared that we would have to do everyone else's yucky dishes! But every time, they "miraculously" found their money just in time. WHEW! I think I was well into my teens before I knew they were joking with us. And now that I'm a server, I love to play this little game with some of the kids at my tables.

Danielle

When I was in second grade we went on a field trip to the zoo, later on that day I broke out in chicken pox, well for years I thought i got the chicken pox from the zoo and wouldnt go back.

Desertrose41573

When I was a kid, there was an intersection in my home town and another that looked very much like it to me in a city that we would occasionally visit, a little over a hundred miles away. The latter reminded me of the former so much that I became convinced they were somehow the same intersection, but in two different towns. I thought, somehow, almost magically, that the street that turned off there in the distant town (which we never turned down) would therefore be a shortcut home, getting us back to my hometown in only a few blocks, rather than 100+ miles. One day I finally ventured to ask my father why we never turned there and took that drastic shortcut home. He just seemed to react like I'd gone crazy, and I don't think he ever caught on to what I was thinking.

Constance

When I was a kid, I was scared to death of Ferris wheels. I thought that if I got on one and it started going too fast, the wheel would break off and roll away and I would be lost forever. For some strange reason, even as a (very old) adult, I'm still afraid to get on those things!!

Misty

I BELEIVED THE WEIGHT TON LIMIT ON BRIDGES WAS SET BY HAVING PRISIONERS DRIVE OVER THEM IN HEAVY TRUCKS UNTIL THE BRIDGE SHOWED STRESS OR BROKE

LINDA

My family used to go to Asian restaurants a lot, and I always believed the fortunes would come true! So I saved them all and stored them in a cigarrete compartment in our car (no one in my family smokes). That way, when I really needed luck, I could pull one out! I forgot to take them out later, so whoever bought our car must have been pretty surprised...

Michelle

when i was little
i always thought that McDonld's was a 5 star resturant.

B*

Every July 4th my town has a popular fireworks display. The fireworks are shot off from a big hill on the other side of a channel of water running through to Lake Michigan. When i was young, i was at a party and i think someone who was drunk told me that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were behind the hill shooting off the fireworks every year. If that wasn't an all-American lie! I wondered why no one ever made a big deal about it.

Anon

My sister told me when I was about six that in order to ride the rollar coaster Space Mountain at Disneyland, you need to get a shot. I vowed never to go on that ride.

MEG