1

My older uncle told me when I turn 30 buy a suit because you ‘ll have a lot off funerals to attend I’m now late 30s and been to 5 in the past few years.

2

You see a lot of crazy things and people in NYC, but every now and again I’ll see something on tv or read something on reddit and think “that’s just absurd no ones like that in real life!” Only to be disproved when I walk through Brooklyn to see someone s@#$ting on an fire truck, or meet a cheery 76yr old who overdosed on xanax, or see a man in a fancy suit throwing a temper tantrum because his private helicopter was delayed or an artist selling pieces made using their own body excretions such as ear wax. Then I remember “oh no people are like that…”

3

When I was 10 my mom was giving me the puberty talk. I thought she was lying and trying to scare me when she said that I’d wake up one day with blood in my underwear.

4

When I was 6, I asked my mom how babies were made. She told me very matter-of-factly that a man puts his penis inside a woman’s vagina. I thought she was making up a weird, gross lie to avoid telling me the real truth.

5

That most actors for teenagers and children in movies and shows are much older than the people they portray. I didn’t fully believe it for years after I was told.

Which for me, gave me the impression that teenagers were much taller and bigger than they really were.

6

While changing countries, I was told that I would feel a sense of homelessness and I didn’t really believe it. I’ve been away for college and back to my home country during summer for almost 3 years now, and I have acquired a constant feeling of being misplaced both at the country I’ve moved to AND at my home country. It’s terrible.

7

My mom told me that after high school, I’d lose some of my closest friends. “They’re going to move on and start turning into other people over time.” I laughed that off because I thought we weren’t going to be like that.

We were just seven unpopular kids with a hilarious group chat. We did so much together. Now, there’s two of us left.

I miss them.

8

Coyotes can run faster than road runners in real life :(

9

I thought reindeer were fictional like Santa Claus until I was about 18

10

Saying “I don’t know” makes people think you’re smarter.

After 20+ years of formal education, where that was simply an unacceptable answer, it’s a huge adjustment to make.

11

Ligers are real

12

I truly didn’t Believe that bed bugs were real just thought it was a little bed time rhyme for kids….until my parents house became infested.

Bed bugs are true hell

13

People eat cactus.

14

I was in my mid-20s when I discovered that narwhals were actual animals and not made up like unicorns.

15

That the world is running out of beach sand. Erosion is stripping all the sand from the shores into the ocean, and desert sand is too fine to replace it. It’s so bad that many countries have a sand black market.

Edit: Black Market is of River and Beach sand to build artificial land and replenish beach sand.

16

Not me but a friend: Pirates until I told her pirate stories from the Island I’m from. She thought I was joking and that pirates were made up disney characters.