While riding in the car as a youth, I would get extremely nervous when my mom blew right by "No Passing" signs on the highway assuming it meant the same as "Do Not Enter".

Post Image: CC:TheTruthAbout...

As a child I believed that is was illegal for children to be out of school. Therefore whenever my parents took me out even to go the doctor or something I kept an eye out for police cars. I had my story of how "my parents were with so please don't arrest me" all planned out in my mind every time.

When I was a child my mom explained menstruation to me by saying her body was building a nest in her tummy to receive a baby. Since no baby turned up, the nest would come undone every month.

It was a fair explanation but she had no idea I would imagine a bird's nest made of twigs. I thought the branches were scratching the woman's insides as the nest was collapsing and that was what was causing bleeding.

My mom was mortified when, after a couple of months of fear and pondering I asked "But doesn't it hurt?" and she understood that I had taken the word "nest" a bit too literally.

When I was little, I was afraid to fart outside when it was winter because I thought people could see it in a cloud.

An anonymous submitter takes on an urban legend.

When I was a kid—maybe about 10—I heard the pop rocks will blow up in your stomach when mixed with soda pop. All my friends and people my age at school were talking about it. I was kind of on the edge of believing it and not believing it so I decided to experiment. I asked my Dad for money to go to the store. I bought a bottle of coke and about three packs of pop rocks and then went home to my bedroom.
Just in case it was true, I decided that I should write a note in case my family found me exploded all over the place. I wrote the note about how I had the best life and that I left all my earthly possessions to my baby sister who was two. Then I proceeded to eat the three packages of pop rocks and drink the bottle of coke.
Nothing happened.
I thought maybe I needed to jump up and down. I tried that and it didn't work. I proved to myself that it doesn't really happen. Funny thing was I was fearful that it would.

Theme Image: Mickey-who didn't die from pop-rocks.

When I was young, I was told by my 6-year-old friend that kids that lost their two front teeth had meteorites smashing into their face. I was so frightened when my teeth started to wobble that I would look out the window every night to see if there were meteors hovering by.

Post Image: Jeremy Miles

Andrew has a fear of smelling like an old lady:

When I was beginning to hit puberty & realized I smelled bad, my goal was to use antiperspirant deodorant so I wouldn't be able to sweat at all. My parents, who pick & choose at random what is healthy & what isn't, decided that they didn't want me to use it because of the aluminum that comes in most brands. Being twelve & kind of a brat, I refused to listen to them. Finally, my dad told me that since it blocks the sweat from coming out of your armpits that it would make you pee more.

Regardless of this information & because my parents refused to buy any for me, I just used my grandmother's antiperspirant instead. Then I began to believe that I was peeing more than normal. And I smelled like an old lady.

I stopped using it after a while because I figured it would be better to sweat than to pee a ridiculous amount (& smell like an old lady). It wasn't until a few years later I made a comment in passing to my dad about that incident & was set straight. My dad also told me he didn't think I actually believed him. He obviously doesn't know me very well.

Post Image: H Dragon

Lyn from Australia sends in this bloody tale:

When I was a kid, I went through a phase of having incredibly bad nosebleeds. I can't remember why. What I can remember is the best thing to do was to hold a pack of ice at the back of my neck, and let the blood flow into the handbasin so it could be rinsed away.

Every single time I did that, I was terrified the police would see the blood coming through the drains, come to see who'd been murdered and arrest me or my family. Because what else would cops be doing but watching the drains for blood, right? Lord I was dumb.

Post Image: gaelx

When I was a child, I thought that there was this woman who was stalking me, going to all the places I went to. I recognized her face at malls, convenience stores, movie theaters, and even on vacation on the other side of the continent. I was bewildered.

"Why," I asked myself, "do these slanted, vacant eyes, jowly cheeks, and slobbery lips haunt me so?" I could not figure out why I was seeing that same woman everywhere.

Well.

Turns out I was just seeing various women with Down's Syndrome.