<p>I thought that after someone sneezes you’d say “gobbeshu,” like it was some kind of spell to make people healthy.</p>
<p>I also thought I was James Bond when I was 7 because I would always wear a suit and sneak around the neighborhood.</p>
<p>That pirates still existed and that I could go be one when I grew up.</p>
<p>That most business closed for summer like school did.</p>
<p>That any farm could grow everything (like a farm in Indiana could grow pineapples).</p>
<p>That all trains were purple. (I think my earliest clear memory is the first time I saw an orange train).</p>
<p>I also thought most people worked in factories. That probably was in large part because many of the towns I lived in in my early life were dominated by factories, though neither of my parents worked in a factory.</p>
<p>^ Lol, pirates do exist.</p>
<p>That one said “bleshu” when people sneezed.
That something like 20% of the world was Jewish.
That my sister was a queen and that her name was Mone.
That (after watching too much Lifetime) all men, including my father who went on business trips had second families.
That ophthalmologists existed only to torture their patients.
That black women turned white as they got old.</p>
<p>^ Yes! Someone else thought it was “Bleshoo!” (Slight spelling variation, but whatever.)</p>
<p>I also thought children and adults were somehow different tracks of the evolutionary pathway, so children died when they were 10 and adults were otherwise formed. (Luckily I didn’t believe this until I was 10.)</p>
<p>I thought that telephone operators lived inside the telephone. Seriously, I don’t even know what used to run in my head.</p>
<p>That the boogieman was real. But in fact was my clothes in the dark, that look like a guy. </p>
<p>That Hogwarts was real and by 11 they would send me a letter saying I’m accepted</p>
<p>I used to think I had powers and could fly</p>
<p>17 year olds were really old</p>
<p>That teeth became money if you covered it with a pillow for a night.</p>
<p>That I would become a doctor.</p>
<p>That Power Rangers were real.</p>
<p>That if you swallowed a watermelon seed, then you would grow a watermelon in your stomach.</p>
<p>That if you swallowed gum, then some horrible thing would happen to you.</p>
<p>That if you opened your eyes under water you would go blind.</p>
<p>That world peace was a simple accomplishment.</p>
<p>“That something like 20% of the world was Jewish.”</p>
<p>That reminded me of Liberty Heights.</p>
<p>@toxic: You have no idea how ****ed I was when I didn’t get my hogwarts letter.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>if you held your hands to your ears and yelled so as to muffle the sound, it would muffle the sound for everyone else as well. i got in trouble for trying that in catholic school when i was really young.</p></li>
<li><p>that god was real</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t think Harry Potter was around before I turned 11.</p>
<p>Hmm… I guess it was. I don’t think is was popular in America back then though.</p>
<p>^ O_O I read my first Harry Potter book when I was 5 or 6. It was Chamber of Secrets, though, and I skipped about half of it because it scared me too much.</p>
<p>In god.</p>
<p>10char</p>
<p>That when you were waitlisted you didn’t get in b/c u were fat lol 
(i got the idea while watching Legally Blonde)</p>
<p>That the world was nice[cynicism]</p>
<p>“^ O_O I read my first Harry Potter book when I was 5 or 6. It was Chamber of Secrets, though, and I skipped about half of it because it scared me too much.”</p>
<p>You could read Harry Potter at age 5?</p>
<p>I turned 11 in 2001. I’m one of the older ones here.</p>
<p>^ But the 4th book had already been released by 2001! I didn’t really believe that Hogwarts was real when I was 11, but that didn’t stop me from feeling slightly disappointed at the end of the day. </p>
<ul>
<li>That if you swallowed gum, seeds, or fish bones, they stayed in your stomach forever</li>
<li>That songs on the radio were played live</li>
<li>That it was radiation coming out of the tv that made your eyes go bad</li>
<li>You know how some supermarkets have aquariums? I thought people bought the lobsters and fish to keep as pets.</li>
<li>People who died in movies died in real life</li>
<li>Chocolate milk came from brown cows</li>
<li>I thought that cars were able to go forward and in reverse because they “knew” what the driver was thinking</li>
</ul>
<p>^^ The language isn’t particularly difficult. And I didn’t read the entire thing.</p>
<p>^ I thought cars turned because you turned the signal on, and that they “knew” whether you wanted to merge or make a turn, and how sharp the turn was, etc., etc.</p>
<p>That if I yelled really, really loudly at the guy from Blue’s Clues or Dora (the explorer), they would hear my answers to the questions they asked.</p>
<p>That the phrase “it went down the wrong pipe” meant that food went down one side, liquids went down the other. </p>
<p>My mom told me the carrots in soup were orange noodles. I believed her until she told me the truth (when I was like 6) and then didn’t eat them again until I was like 10.</p>
<p>And my grandfather/dentist told me he saw the Rugrats running around (and driving cars) on my tongue when he did dental work. I got really excited and felt special. After all, they were only on MY tongue. Allrighty then.</p>