What untruth did you believe for the longest time?
1. Jackie from Albany writes: "As a child, I believed that only on the white stripes of the zebra crossing you would be safe from cars running you over. I always thought adults were extremely brave risking to walk across and stepping on the dark 'stripes'. I also believed the little ladder on the back of the caravans led to a little swimming pool on top. We neither owned a caravan nor a pool."
2. David writes: "My dad would tell me there was a monkey at the zoo paid peanuts to jump across a switch board and turn the street lights on and off. When we would see a light off at night or on in the day we would email the zoo asking the monkey not be paid peanuts because of the mistake. Believed this and told others till a teenager, when [Dad] slipped up and let cat out of the bag."
3. "For many years as a child I believed when the old year's calendar was taken down, there was a gap in time, which I could fall through and get lost forever," writes a reader. "Time only started again when the new year's calendar was put up. I would run from the house terrified when mother took the old calendar down and hold my breath until I was sure she had put the new calendar up."
Naive to the fax of life
"When I was a kid, I faxed a branch of my dad's office, in another town, drawings of horses. I had watched my father send so many faxes that I had the process memorised. Except, for some reason I thought that I could fax things to grandma. I put in the numbers for the office every time, but was convinced that the faxes were going to grandma. I also didn't think to inform my parents that I was doing this. My dad visited the office (three-hour drive) one day and discovered their conference room white board absolutely covered in my drawings. The guys thought it was adorable that I sent drawings and letters to them, and didn't tell my dad because they knew he'd stop me." (Source: quora.com)