Stupid things you thought as a kid - we were all dumbasses when we were kids

[From The Uncanny Valley]

This was just a puppet body. My real body was somewhere else.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

When I was like 5-7 I thought motorcycles were the most badass thing ever. I thought every single motorcycle ever could go over 200 mph (they just didn't because cars were too slow) and thought they could all do Evel Knievel shit because my parents told me some motorcycles could do that. And the people who rode motorcycles were mostly in the Hells Angels, who I thought was a bunch of cool guys who just liked to ride motorcycles and not a criminal group, I guess because I saw a bunch of random people wearing Hells Angels t-shirts who didn't look like bad people.

 

[Spastic Colon]

I was shocked mildly and the battery was burnt; nothing too exciting, only after I did it did I realize that probably wasn't the best idea. It was so long ago I can't even remember why I wanted to, oh I remember, it was for a laser pointer. Yes, I had a laser pointer, but it wasn't working so well so I thought the battery might be dead.
I seriously didn't know this until only like, 3 or 4 years ago.

Well, it was a country until it got stolen ...

 

[Box of Shame]

You know the way pants that are made with a zipper fly have that stitching on the front where the zipper is?

Being a little girl who had never had any pants like that but whose older brothers did, I thought that stitching was some kind of long, skinny inner compartment or pocket and that boys would tuck their penis into it while they were wearing their pants.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

We had to read (a sanitized version of) the news in elementary school and in 2001 there was an epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease (an animal disease) in the UK. I thought it was called foot-in-mouth disease and caused people to habitually put their foot in their mouth, and thought it was common in British schools and worried about getting sick with it.

As a kid, someone -- either my dad or grandma -- mentioned "ptomaine poisoning" and I misheard it as "toenail poisoning." Young me wondered how anyone could get poisoned through or from their toenails.

It wasn't until the four-week health education portion of 9th grade PE where I finally learned the truth. During our discussion of basic first aid, the teacher asked us to name different types of poisoning. When a girl responded with "ptomaine poisoning," he rather rudely told her, "That's just a fancy name for food poisoning!"

 

[cumrobbery]

I used to think that terms like "18th century" referred to the 1800s and not 1700s and that the current century was the 20th century because 20th Century Fox was still called that.
I also thought people used the term "21st century" to refer to the current century as a way to make it seem more futuristic and exciting.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I used to think that terms like "18th century" referred to the 1800s and not 1700s and that the current century was the 20th century because 20th Century Fox was still called that.
I also thought people used the term "21st century" to refer to the current century as a way to make it seem more futuristic and exciting.

In 1999/2000, I thought 20th Century Fox would change their name any day to 21st Century Fox because they had to get with the times and I couldn't wait to see their new logo when Star Wars Episode II (whatever that was) came out. And then many years later, they literally did create 21st Century Fox which made much older me laugh.

 

[Floop]

I always mispronounced iron as EYE-RIN. I still do.

 

[The Penultimate Warrior]

Islands and continents just floated on the water, and the land bridge that used to exist between the UK and France was a literal bridge that cavemen and mammoths would walk across.

Cash machines gave you £250 of free money every day

There was definitely a way to get blood on the SNES version of Mortal Kombat, and a nude cheat in Tomb Raider

The maximum speed shown on a speedometer was the top speed the car would go.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I was raised to believe that there was a fundamental difference in intellect between white people and other races.

 

[madethistocomment]

I thought the nearest big city to my hometown was New York City. I'm from Ohio.

I also thought New York was pronounced "Yoo Nork" And that afro was pronounced "Arfo"

 

[GeorgiaGuidestones]

I used to believe that if I put Ken and Barbie into a bed together, she would get pregnant and I’d have to raise the baby. I really don’t know how I got that idea in my head and my mom laughed about it for years.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I used to think I could dig to China from my backyard if I dug far enough.
I started a hole in my sandbox and kept going until my dad yelled at me to stop.

 

[Spunt]

When I was about 5 I thought that the cardboard things you hang from your hotel door to keep undesirables out said "Do Not Deserve", and I made one myself in a futile attempt to keep my parents out of my room. My mum laughed and said "you spell it with a 'B'" so I changed it. The paper sign hanging from my doorkbob now said "Do Not Beserve".

 

[millais]

I used to think that Jim Crow-type racial segregation of cinemas, waiting rooms, and buses was pointless because the segregated races were still mostly occupying the same volume of breathable air, so the air exhaled from a black lung was very likely to end up inhaled into a white lung, and it seemed to me that this was not something you would want to happen if blacks were indeed untermenschen.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

I thought I could clean my plastic toy army men by boiling them. I, for some fucking reason, did not use a pot, but instead a ceramic bowl, and burned my hand when I tried to pick it up off the burner. My toys were melted, and had to be thrown out along with the bowl.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Like Chris I used to think the video games where all made in the backs of the stores where they sold them. I had no idea it was a long and complicated process involving a lot of money and people in some cases working across the world just to deliver those little plastic cartridges to the local video store.


The thing is unlike Chris, I eventually realized it doesn't work like that and you can't just recall a game for having something you don't like in it by bitching and whining at the store and then assaulting an employee who gets in your way when they rightfully make you leave.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I used to think that people were a lot smarter than they actually were.

That's called becoming an adult.

 

[Count groudon]

When I was a wee lil boy, I became obsessed with the idea of somehow being able to create small earthquakes using my body after seeing a fuckload of characters in games and anime do it, and I thought if I trained enough I’d be able to do it. So for years I’d go through little spells where I’d slam my fists into the ground or jump up and stomp down with all of my weight repeatedly in a sad attempt to create a shockwave strong enough to knock other people back. My plan was to master this technique and then enter the WWE or UFC or whatever as “The Earthshaker” and win every championship imaginable by knocking all the other contenders around like rag dolls with my alpha-as-fuck attack.

I eventually stopped after one of my slamming sessions made my hands so sore that I couldn’t open my fists anymore and I started panicking. I was a really fucking dumb kid.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

i was a very small child and my mother would joke if i did not eat enough, i would end up becoming a wooden stick. i thought she was serious.