general

When I was five and a half, my mom bought a new calendar for the upcoming year- 1980. I could read, so I sat down to flip through the pretty pictures on the calendar, but I quickly realized that this calendar held no month of June. Some printing error had taken place, and the calendar went straight from May to July- no June. SInce my birthday is in June, I was devastated and started crying. My mom finally got me to tell her why-- I thought that since there "was no June" that year, I wouldn't have a birthday and would have to stay 5 instead of turning 6! My mom kept the calendar, she still has it!

Jennifer

When I was a kid, I was confused by Daylight Savings Time and asked my dad why we had to do it. He told me that charcoal companies all got together and made the law so that people would grill out more often in the summertime. I totally bought it, and repeated it to people through my early 20s.

Sara

I was waiting for some friends to come over and was getting impatient. I got mad at my brother because he was staring at the clock to make me mad. I thought that time would go slower when you look at the clock.

Sarah

I used to believe that the numbers zero on a digital clock meant time had vanished. Because there was no time, I was also non-existent. The only way to survive the zeroes was to sleep through them. I was really afraid when I woke up and the clock showed 22.00, or worse, 0.29, or the worst of all worst things... 0.00!
We had also a calendar made of blocks you turned to show the right date, day and months. They obeyed the same rule. I used to turn them such that they showed 0, 0, blank (for the day of the week) and May (the shortest name for the month, such that it showed a maximum of white). I guess I wanted to cure my fear, but it never worked. I looked at it for a few seconds and then ran away and refused to come in the same room as the calendar until someone changed the numbers.
My sister eventually convinced me. The zeroes on the clock are little rectangles made by LEDs and have nothing in common with the real time!

Tamske

I thought if you had a clock you could control time. I learned the truth when one day I got a clock as a present and asked how to do it :)

Nate

I thought that when somebody asked the time, they meant the precise second. So, when somebody asked the time, I would reply 'It's 2:43 and 10 seconds . . . now!"

Anon

I used to believe that time flies when you're having fun. That meant that if you had a group of kids playing, time would move faster. So when I was in elementary school my friends and I would set a person to just sit there during recess and not have fun because we thought it would make recess last longer.

Time lord

I thought that 1983 went on for 3 years - had to ask my sister who decided how long a year lasted.

Sally

When I was small, my cousin told me that fat people exploded if they stayed up past midnight, I believed that for a long time, until my aunt & uncle hosted a new year's eve party, I was petrified about a quarter of twelve, I was sure we'd all be witness to my aunt's explosion....needless to say, my father boxed my ears when I tried to warn her to go to bed and why...

kk

In Australia you can ring a number and it tells you the exact time ... Ala "At the third stroke the time will be 3.31 and 10 seconds.. *boop* *boop* *boop*"
I used to think that was father time... Obviously I was brainwashed by my brother

Bec, Vic

When I was 3 or 4 some kid in my daycare told me that if I saw the hands on a clock move, the clock would explode. I would stare at clocks for the longest time and never see the hands move (very dissapointing I wanted to see something blow up). It must of been 5 or 6 years later when my mom told me that theres no way a clock would explode like that. I still watch clocks intently (still hoping for an explosion lol!)

Heather

I was always mystified at how adults told time when I was little. My mom would ask my dad what time it was, and dad would respond saying "quarter after" or "ten of", but he never said the hour. I never knew how my mom knew what he was talking about. To further my confusion, one day (after I learned how to read a clock) my mom asked me what time it was and I said "quarter past", and she asked me which hour! I though adults had some type of ESP or something that kids didn't, because she didn't know which hour I was talking about.

Jess

I used to think that the 29th of Febuary was the first, and only, day of Farch.

Anon

When I was little, I used to think whenever it snowed, it would be Christmas.

TropicalSmoothie

1972 was a leap year. My sister told me that meant February had a "29th" but some years didn't have the last day of February.
Did this happen to other months? I was so scared that maybe July would sometimes drop its last day, and I wouldn't get my birthday. No birthday presents! Horrors!
Lucky for me, I did in fact get to turn 3 that year. Phew!

Wendy

I always thought 24/7 meant the time period for one day: 24 hours and 7 minutes. This made me wonder what happened to those seven minutes each day on the clock. I figured there were some extra before midnight: 11:58, 11:59, 11:60, 11:61, all the way to 11:66 when it finally changed to 12:00. This surprised me New Years Eve when everyone said, "One minute till midnight!" and I said "No, it's in EIGHT minutes. You forgot the extra seven."

Mike

I used to believe that if I changed my clock it changed time for everyone. So I figured that if I didn't want to get up at 7 AM, I could just set the clock back to 6 AM and sleep another hour!

Laurie

I used to believe that if a movie shows a character from, say, age of 7 as a child and then later shows him as an adult of, say, age 27 .... the movie-makers had to film him when he was 7, then wait another 20 years for him to grow up and continue filming the rest of the story. And so on.

Ronald Kow

I used to think that if I held my breath, closed my eyes, plugged my ears with my hands, and remained completly still, that time all around me would stop... Stop laughing, it could have worked.

Dero

When I was about four, I got my first digital watch and I remember my parents kept asking me what time it was, so that I'd get used to it. I kept giving out the wrong time, because whenever it read say, 4:20, I thought the :20 could mean 20 "to" 4, or 20 "past" four. I just took it in turns

Niall K - Ireland