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I Used To Believe newsletter: September 2012

Hi,

We've always said that half of all beliefs are deliberately invented by parents, but this month's selection shows that dads are usually the one to blame. See how long some of those jokes last for! Glad to see at least one belief from the Olympics too - surely there must be more?

Have fun,

Mat.

PS Have you seen the IUTB website lately? We've jazzed it up a bit.

That the talking trees in the Wizard of Oz were real and out to get me. A belief cultivated by my father who used to wait behind tree trunks and shout ' Who's been stealing my apples!' when I walked past.
Anon

My parents encouraged us to call sun cream/ sun screen - 'SunSHINE cream!'. Adorable when you're 4 but I didn't realise they'd added the ' shine' part until university. Even now its really hard for me to just say sun cream... the other way is ingrained.
Anon

When I was little, I thought that mannequins were real people who's job it was to stay still all day to show off the store's clothes. So, whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would reply by saying "a mannequin." I got some very strange looks :)
Anon

I am 20 years old and I just learned this morning that if you swallow gum, it doesn't really stay in your stomach for seven years.
I'm not the brightest one in the family...

My sister believed for the longest time that the word "Grandma" was actually GRAHAM ma. She even used to call our grandma "Graham cracker." :D
Anon

When I was 4, when I didn't like a turn of events in a movie I was watching I thought I could call the police and report it and they would arrest the moviemaker or something for putting that event in! I would "call the police" using my toy phone whenever something I didn't like happened in a movie, then waited by the window watching for the cops. Once a cop actually did drive by my street after I did this, so I thought the police had finally responded to one of my reports!
Galadriel Moon Silk

As a child I believed I was a robot and my parents were engineers and every night when I was sleeping they improved my programs and done testing on me.
Anon

I thought that sexist was another name for prostitute (like a scientist does science so a sexist does sex!)
Netrom

I used to believe there were little men and women living among the grass like leprechauns. Their job would be to collect as many four leaf clovers as they can to make it harder for humans to find them and steal their luck. I still take a long hard look before walking into a grassy area.. childhood habits die hard.
Chunaner

Up until I was twelve, I used to wonder why there were so many baby prams at the golf club. Years later I discovered that they were golf carts.
Aneira

I used to think that the fog was a cloud that had died and fallen to the earth.
Cici

When I was little my dad told me that when he got something in his eye he used to go to the hospital where they would take our his eyeball which was on a long string and wash it in a bowl! For ages I thought our eyes could be taken out on long strings!
Emma

My dad told me once that my eyes were turning square from watching too much tv. He held my head to the window, and carefully examined them, indicating the square edges in front of me. I spent hours looking at them in my mirror, trying to see the square edges. Took me about a month to realise he was not being entirely truthful :D
Katie

I used to believe that instead of being loads of postmen, there was only one and he had to travel the world every day to give everyone their mail.
Lauren

I used to think there was a platinum medal in the Olympics that was better than a gold medal. (I still kind of wonder why there isn't one)
Alberto Richardson

When crossing the street and waiting for the street lights to turn green, my dad would tell me that he worked for the streetlight company and thus he had a special button inside his jacket to make them turn green - I'm not proud of how long it took me to figure out that he was just waiting until the light for the cars would turn red to "press" the button - it always worked! I even told my friends that my dad is very important!
marie

When I was 6 and my brother was 4, I told him that if he touched anything that was the color of gray, that this man would come get him in the night, and the only way that the Gray Man wouldn't get him is if he put out an offering, and he believed me. He even walked around with washcloths on his feet so he wouldn't touch the dust, cuz dust is gray.
Nuklehead McSpazatron

When I was about 3 years old I walked into my parents bedroom to find the bed unmade and my mom just about to start making it. I saw there were lumps toward the bottom half on the side my dad slept on. I was so scared because my dad was at work. I cried to my mom, "daddy left his legs at home." I did not believe her when she said it was pillows under the comforter until she showed me.
Anon

I thought Heaven was some kind of trailer park in the desert near Las Vegas that people moved to when they got old.
Anon

When I was a small girl, I used to believe I wasn't allowed to watch any "boy shows" because they were too violent. This was disappointing because I wanted to go as Earthworm Jim for Halloween. I just thought he was so cool-looking! (My fantasies of Halloween that year involved inflatable super-suits.)
Anon

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