Asklemmy

I thought adults actually knew what the hell they were doing.

I thought that when the clerk at the checkout asked, "would you like cash back?" That you could say yes and they would just give you cash straight out of the register for nothing lol.

I figured that most people were very honest and didn't need the money, so they would just say no thanks and leave it in the register for somebody who really did need it.

So many things...

I didn't understand how lie detectors were supposed to work so I thought you could hook someone up and ask something like "does god exist" and you'd be able to get answers to all of life's big mysteries.

I thought there was a left and right sock

I thought wolverines were mythical creatures

I thought if I tried hard enough I could somehow become older than my older brother like it was just a title or something

Thanks to DARE any time I saw a skittle with the S missing I thought it was drugs even in a newly opened package

I could go on..

I remember thinking that women gave birth to girls and men gave birth to boys, and being really worried because I (as a guy) didn't want to give birth.

My dad told me that walnuts were owl eggs.

He got in trouble when I stole all the walnuts in the house and wrapped them in nose tissues to keep them warm so they would hatch and I would have baby owls.

I was trying to figure out what caused wind. I noticed the leaves moving when the wind blew, and I knew that a fan (handheld) also moved wind. So it stood to reason that trees moved causing the leaves to move which caused the wind. And naturally it must be earthquakes that caused the tree to love. And then I thought, we’ll there must be a master tree that started the wind, and the most “logical” place for that tree would be the North Pole.

So, that there was a tree on the North Pole that caused all the wind.

That sheep and goats were same species. I thought sheep were the girl versions and goats were the boys, like hens and roosters.

Wasn't until well into my 20s that I finally ran into something that put the spotlight on it... IIRC it was some Farmville type of videogame, which included males and females of both sheep and goats. To me, that stood out the same way a "female bull" or "male cow" would have, so I had a little chuckle at the obvious 'oversight'. Realized shortly after that I was, in fact, a fucking idiot.

I thought CEOs worked super hard

That adult humans knew what they were doing and had things in hand.

I thought black and what television was black and white because history happened in black and white. I suppose that means life in colour happened after the invention of colour tv

When I was five or six, I think I must have dreamed that my dad could turn his head around 360 degrees. A few days later I was in the car with my Dad and asked him if he could really turn his head around. He responded "not now, I'm driving." I took that as a yes. It was years before I realized the truth...

I thought cats were female and dogs were male. Can you tell I didn't have pets growing up?

If you were cold then you would catch a cold.

You had to wait an hour after eating because if you swam after eating then you would sink.

Carrots will allow me to see in the dark if I eat enough of them.

If you did a bad thing then the universe would make a bad thing happen to you.

If you dropped food on the ground and picked it up quick enough it didn't have germs.

Grew up on a dairy goat farm. I noticed we ate most of the boys and kept all the girls.

I was so scared; I had to ask my mom which one of me and my brothers were they gonna keep.

I believed until I was 8 or so that beans were a type of meat. When I learned the truth, I had an argument with my older brother with me saying something along the line, "You're gonna feel real dumb when Mom says I'm right."

I remember asking my dad if the Earth ever got heavier besides when meteors landed and babies were born.

I couldn’t comprehend that babies were made out of food. I thought they just came from nothing.

There was a coca cola plant in my hometown. When we were kids, my dad used to tell us that the huge water tanks that were painted as coke and sprite cans actually contained soda and I always imagined diving in them. Obviously he was just fucking with us, but I actually believed it for a while.

I thought peas were little unborn animals. Because they had a "cocoon". Refused to eat peas for years.

Being a hard worker gets you places.

That me parents didn't have parents growing up. It somehow never dawned on me until I was like 7 that my grandparents were their parents, despite knowing my grandparents all my life.

Adults act mature and rationally

I used to believe in God, that was super stupid looking back.

Actors have to be married to kiss on screen

That your tongue is divided into segments which each can only taste certain flavors

Learned about cremation before I learned about death. Thought we all were burned alive at the end.

I thought that cars were powered by the jet propulsion coming from the exhaust pipe.

That other people would do what is right and protect me from abuse, as a child and as an adult.

That the legal system will protect innocent people, punish the guilty and ensure justice is done.

That other people are higher-thinking and moral.

Homer Simpson wrote The Odyssey. I didn't know about any other Homer 🤷‍♂️

NSFW warning. I thought sex had to be anal. Just by the looks, it was impossible that a penis could pass through a vulva, and poop made it evident that it could pass through the rectum.

OP, that thing you used to believe is disturbing as fuck.

Because radio stations' DJs would say "and here's artist with song name", I firmly believed that one of two things must be true:

Radio stations had the bands always playing live for them

And/or

Radio stations would present a local DJ, but they would then tune in to the artist playing the track live for a larger station

What's even funnier about this is that my dad has at the time taught me how to use a tape deck to record radio and CDs to tape. So I clearly understood recording mediums. Just, the idea still lingered in my mind for a while.

Believed this until I was like 16 and so did everyone else in our school.

A girl did anal and got pregnant and since it was anal that got her pregnant she was gonna poop out the baby. Funny thing is I was part of the group conversation that started this rumor and STILL we all believed it. 😭

I used to think "euthanasia" was a country.

I thought when my mom said she would drop things off at Goodwill, she meant a giant, hollow wooden wheel full of tumbling clothing called Good Wheel. I imagined it looked a lot like a water wheel at a mill.

That boogers were bugs that flew up my nose and died.

If you cut your own hair, it won't grow back. That was a lie my mum told me (after I experimented with the scissors). I believed her for years because there was a gap in my hairline. Eventually I realised "how would the hair know who cut it?" The gap in my hairline was just my parting.

I believed LCD screens in digital watches were made of mercury (they were silver after all), which I knew was toxic. I thought that if you touched the display directly, you'd die. One day, I'd disassembled a cheap watch to see how it worked - I took everything apart back then, eventually I got good at putting them back together again. Drove my parents mad, but these days they always have something for me to fix whenever I go round.
Anyway, I had this watch in pieces, handling the innards like an IED, but disaster! I brushed the back of the screen with a fingertip.

I was dead. It was just a matter of time. I didn't cry or run for help, nothing could be done, I was resigned to my fate.
After about an hour of continued existence I began to doubt my assumptions. It dawned on me that something so frighteningly lethal wouldn't be simply handed to children with nothing but a cheap, press fit case! That said this was in the 80s, and back the I also believed it was both safe and fun to help demolish an asbestos cement outbuilding by jumping on the sheets to smash them into little pieces. That one might still get me, we'll see.

I thought vaginas were just hiding 20-30 tiny miniature penises inside, and that's why they couldn't use urinals because it would spray everywhere

Also, that all cats were girls and all dogs were boys.