telephones

One Christmas day when I was very young, I decided to play with the telephone and got through to a woman. My mum heard me talking and came to see what was going on, took the phone away from me and apologised to the woman. For some reason I was convinced that I was in trouble because the woman was the Queen and I was disturbing her Christmas Day lunch.

G.B.

In my childhood, to make a phone call, you picked up the receiver and waited for a live operator to say, "Number, please?" She would make the call for you.

I believed that if the telephone operator could tell you when a line was busy, they should also be able to tell you when no one was home.

Melinda

I can remember misdialing a phone number as a small child and hearing a pre-recorded voice. The voice said, "If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator." I used to think it said "Bend down your operator." I couldn't figure out how making a telephone operator bend down was supposed to help you make a call...

Maeghan Jade

I used to think telephones ran off gas because when it thundered and the electricity went off the telephone still rang.

Libby

For years when I was a child, I believed that telephone cable was curly because curly cable was cheaper to make than straight cable. My dad told me that so it must be true, musn't it?

Andrea Storey

When I was young I used to think that our phone only worked for English speaking people. And that if you wanted to speak another language on the phone you'd have to buy that specific phone.

(ahem) still rather not say

When I was a little kid I thought that when you called someone, there was a tiny replica of them inside the telephone that talked to you. I wondered how there got to be a tiny replica of everyone in the world inside our phone. It seemed very impractical.

Rusty

I believed that when the phone was ringing, the person on the other end could hear everything going on at the other end.

Hoseki

When I was 10 I was jealous of the fact that my friend had a cell phone and I didn't, and when I asked my mother why this was she told me that it was because prolonged cell phone use could cause brain cancer. From then onwards and up until the age of 12, I straight-up refused to use cell phones (even in emergencies) and I even used to go around "warning" people about the dangers of using them. Then, up until the age of 13, I would only use cell phones when absolutely necessary. It wasn't until the age of 14 when I learned in physics class that the waves emitted from cell phones pose no health risk.

Anon

I used to believe that if you yelled "911" in a tin can phone, it would really work and the police will come and arrest you if there's no emergency. When my best friend and I were in 3rd grade, we tried using a tin can phone and I yelled "911" to her. My best friend told me it's illegal to call 911 when there's no emergency, so both of us got scared and we ran into the house and hid under the table so the police couldn't find us. We were stupid at that time.

Alice

When I was little, (around three or four); I used to believe that anytime someone used the phone, the person on the other line was inside of it. I nearly gave my mother a nervous breakdown when I exclaimed "AHH!!! DADDY'S IN THE PHONE!!! GET HIM OUT!!!!"

Reject

Before I had my own mobile phone (cellphone) I used to think that if you phoned one, you would hear their ringtone in your reciever!

Aidan

I used to believe that when you heard noise on the telephone that sounded like wind blowing, it really was the wind blowing through telephone wires.

Marlene

When I was little, I noticed that when the other person hung up, there would be a series of beeping sounds followed by a whine. I'd freak out because I thought that meant the phone would explode if I didn't put it back onto the receiver pronto.

Anon

I used to believe that Alexander Graham Bell was not just one person. I thought that they were three people!

J.D.

i thougt robers could shoot into the phone and the bullet would come through and hit me

knowledge

I used to think that when you were on the phone, the person you were speaking to would shrink themselves and crawl up the wire and sit in the handset.

Théo

I thought that when only 'life and death' telegrams could be sent, that it meant that new-born babies were in this category. This wasn't helped by the fact that I actually worked on the Post Office counter.

Grahame

I always wanted to use the telephone to call Jesus, Santa and Superman

Alex Burghart

When I was little, I used to think that when people were on the phone, they were only pretending to be talking to someone on the other line and the phone only worked when I would use it.

Mary K