People Are Sharing The Hilarious Lies They Believed As Kids And I'm Cackling
This week, redditor u/AfterIsIsIsIsIsWas asked the AskReddit community, "What were the dumbest lies you believed when you were a kid?"
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People shared some truly hilarious (and slightly disturbing, TBH) things that their parents, siblings, or friends told them that were completely untrue. Here are some of the best:
1.Reading will give you superpowers.
"When I was a kid, I asked my dad if reading enough books really could give you telekinesis (Matilda).
He said yes. I spent many years after that thinking I just wasn't doing enough."
2.It costs money to change the radio station.
"When I was a kid, my dad told me it cost 25 cents to change the radio station to keep me from fucking with the radio in his car. I believed that until I was 14."
3.The button on airplane armrests is an eject button.
"I found out it reclines your seat embarrassingly late."
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4.The death scenes in movies are real and acted out by prisoners.
"I could not understand how all the death scenes in war movies seemed so realistic. So, I asked one of my older brothers how they did it. He proceeded to tell me that they empty out state prisons in the area the movie is being made, dress them up and give them guns, and tell them that if they survive the filming then they get to leave jail after. I was told that at around 7, and I believed it till I was around 10."
5.Stuffed animals can tan.
"Lost my stuffed animal (a white dog) in the airport in Miami when I was 5. It was my favorite, and I was really sad about it. A few weeks later my mom presented me with a brown dog that otherwise looked exactly like the white one I’d lost. She said the workers at the airport had found it and mailed it to us, but he got a tan because he was in Florida. Bought it hook line and sinker for a few years. Tan dog is now my son’s, and he’s a big fan."
6.Mom has eyes in the back of her head.
"My mom convinced us she had eyes in the back of her head. She could tell us what we were doing in the living room while working in the kitchen facing away from us. We’d test it even further by doing the 'how many fingers am I holding up?' test, and she’d get it right every time. So all little kid evidence concluded that mom did in fact have eyes in the back of her head. It wasn’t until I was much older that I randomly noticed the crystal clear reflection in the kitchen window my mom could always see."
7.Cigarettes will kill you immediately.
"When I was a little fellow, my parents used to tell me when you smoke you'll die instantaneously. Unfortunately they forgot this at a campfire organized by our former neighborhood and smoked a cig. I remember I was desperately trying to stop them and cried all the time, because I thought they're both about to die."
8.Counting the stones in Stonehenge will kill you.
"My sister told me that if you count all the stones of Stonehenge you will die. I still don't know how many stones there are in Stonehenge."
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9.The bathtub drain would suck you into the pipes.
"That the draining sound of the water in the bathtub was a monster that would suck you in as well. A lie made to get me out of the bath."
10.Tap dancers make the tapping sounds with their mouths.
"My older brother pranked me once. I had watched a kids' TV show (I think it was The Electric Company) that featured a guest star who was a tap dancer.
My brother convinced me that tap dancers made their tapping sounds — not with their feet, but with their mouths.I spent the next several weeks trying to tap dance with my mouth noises before my mom made me quit."
11.Everybody used to live in black and white and Walt Disney invented color.
"Watching a black and white show, I thought everyone from the '50s and [earlier] had lived in black and white. I asked my father, 'Who invented color?' Dad looked at me dead serious and said, 'Walt Disney.' I believed it far too long."
12.The hazard button in a car will blow the car up.
13.One testicle makes boys; one testicle makes girls.
"As a kid I had a strangulated hernia, which left me with one testicle. My dad told me if I ever had kids they would be all boys or all girls 'cause each testicle is for each sex. Believed it for years."
14.Babies come out of a trap door.
"I asked my mom where babies comes from, and she diplomatically said, 'From a special passage inside the woman.'
For years, I pictured a butt cheek swinging open like a hatch and a baby dropping out."
15.Benadryl is truth serum.
"I was 'in' on this lie between my mom and younger sister. My sister was about 5 years old at the time, and my mom convinced her that Benadryl was 'truth serum.' My mom would threaten to give it to my sister if she knew she was lying. It was so hilarious, but my sister seriously believed it and would get upset."
16.You can un-mix a batter.
"My mom told me while I was helping mix some batter or something that if I changed from mixing clockwise to counterclockwise the ingredients would un-mix. I believed this for way too long and still only mix clockwise."
17.And finally...
"That adults know what they're doing."
Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
