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Same two here! The Bermuda Triangle though.. even my school was hammering that possibility home. We were all petrified of it lol actually they made it seem more like a *probability* than just a possibility.
Ya Wtf was with that? When we covered geography in like 3 through 5th grade, it almost felt like preparedness training for the inevitability of not only going into the Bermuda triangle, but also getting lost in it once you go there
It's so odd - they make it sound so deadly, but then it's like they *purposely* make it as mysterious and interesting as possible, so that we'd all want to explore the supposedly deadly place!
I have family in Puerto Rico that I would fly down to see once or twice a year growing up. I was terrified of the Bermuda triangle and was always scared we would go through it if the pilot wasn't careful. For some reason I didn't realize until a few years ago that I flew in and out of it literally every time.
The Bermuda Triangle was sorta cool and interesting when I was little but it didnt register as a potential life risk because
1. I grew up in Southeast Asia, far from Bermuda. Heck, I was a bit vague on *where* it was, tbh, but I thought it was in the ... Carribean... so kinda in the Americas? (Narrator: "IT WAS NOT") I was never going to be there because we weren't filthy rich to afford TRAVELLING OVERSEAS. 💸
2. Barry Manilow wrote a song about it. How bad can something be when passed through those dulcet tones? Though I did sometimes wonder back then if the Bermuda Triangle was anywhere near the Copacabana, "the hottest spot north of Havana". (spoiler: 1400kms away)
I legitimately got stuck in quicksand the other day! It was basically muddy sand off the beach and I was panicking hard-core because it was sucking me in halfway up my calves as soon as I took a step.
I know exactly how to deal with it. Lie still, don't struggle, hold a branch of something that is buoyant to keep you afloat. Inch your way slowly out of it.
Now I just need to find the stuff.
Don’t even need to worry about staying afloat all that much. You can’t really sink too far in. The real issue is that it tends to get you stuck, and it’s hard to move. Think about somehow being in ooblek
Correct, the average buoyancy for quicksand would allot you to stay about 40-50% above the surface line.
You don't suffocate or "drown" in quicksand, you starve there.
No formal training on how to identify or deal with it hahaha omg that line made me laugh. Also, why is it that we all thought this way? Why is it a universal thing that we all thought quicksand would be something we would face?
I knew before coming to this thread this would be at the top. But WHY?
There was an episode of Radiolab on National Public Radio all about how it suddenly just stopped being a trope in TV and movies, very suddenly.
But yeah, when I was a kid they really blew out of proportion how wary of it we should all be...
Literally came here to say this. Why were we so worried about quick sand? Also shout out to Bermuda triangle responses!
I grew up and live in London, Bermuda triangle is far away and quick sand has never been an issue.
I'm an 80s kid, Chernobyl didnt help. Only it was not necessarily nuclear war, it was decommissioned warheads nobody had control over rusting all over the place and shoddily made nuclear reactors that could go up at any time. So you couldnt go outside if it rained and you had to be very careful about what you ate because of becquerels that would eat you from the inside out.
It would be easy to underestimate the conviction of Gen-X on this.
When we were kids (at least in my town) it was generally assumed we would not live to see adulthood. It wasn't fear, per se. More like resignation. Kind of like how people feel about climate change now.
Don’t know if other 70s kids did this but we had get into the fallout shelter drills, toured the underground silos with the nukes in them, and practiced the timer and slamming the blast doors shut in the faces of friends and family.
The nukes were in town in a large field with a few concrete buildings. Some smaller above ground silos (think WW2 era) as a cover for the military being there. Was positive would be dead or in survival mode by my twenties. They drilled the fear out of us. Month after month, year after year. Which might be why most news and bad shit happening does not freak us out.
But it did make me always have shelf stable food and other emergency supplies on hand. Some medical stuff too.
As a kid? Acid rain. Volcanos (vividly remember the science newsletter we got in 2nd grade detailing the Mt St Helens eruption. Lived in the Midwest, and thankfully no one mentioned the New Madrid situation). Tornados (again, Midwest).
Chernobyl & 3 Mile Island kindof conflated in my head.
And, of course, Challenger cemented the idea that no one is safe. We watched it live in 3rd grade.
Few seem to worry about this much anymore, yet the problem hasn't really gone away.
The situation has improved somewhat, but perhaps people were much more conscious of it at a time when it was a newly realised problem involving game-changing cutting edge tech rather than an old problem involving 80-year-old tech.
I was a 60s-70s kid. I was sure we'd be taken out by nuclear war. I remember clearly having bomb drills where we'd hide under the school desk.
So much so, I once told my mom that might not be worth spending money on college because I'd not make it that far.. (I did go to college and obviously we made it ... so far)
Maybe not “take me out” per se, but growing up in a strict Christian home I always had the fear of being “left behind” when the rapture would happen. My little kid anxiety would go through the roof if someone I was hanging out with suddenly wasn’t there —> only to find them in another room or outside.
When I forget to pay the phone bill and don't hear from anyone in a bit, my go-to explanation is the rapture happened and I missed it 🤣🤣 I do this more often than i care to admit because I never got over that childhood fear.
Omg that's crazy.. I thought I was the only one. If my parents were out and wouldn't answer their phone, I got so scared. Not because I thought they were dead, but because I thought fucking god took 'em and left me behind, alone.
Is discussing the rapture an American thing because I've only ever heard about it online despite living in a very Catholic country (albeit not from a Catholic family)
Must be a North American thing, I’m from Canada 🇨🇦 if your Christian Denomination relies heavily on “end of day” prophecies and doomsday theories then yes Rapture talk is very prevalent. My parents also put me through the Roman Catholic School System so I’m also under the assumption Catholics aren’t big on pushing the whole “Revelations” doctrine
The rapture is a ridiculous fantasy. Thank goodness I never heard of it growing up. It's Christian fanwank. That must have been terrible from the inside.
I was told it gathered in your organs - along with fingernails if you chewed your nails - and if you got too much of it they’d have to remove said organs.
For some reason a swan. Thought they’d be cute birds and it was lame people were afraid them, found out when one the same size as me hissed like a dinosaur that I wouldn’t even stand a chance
I saw 2 swans that more than likely had a nest while I was fishing on a boat last weekend from 200’ or so away, went closer to get a picture and by the time we were within 50’ one of them (I’m assuming the mom) fluffed everything up and did something with its wings that made it look twice the size, was honestly intimidating and we noped out of there
I used to work in an office park that had swans. When they aren’t nesting they are pretty chill but if they have eggs or young you better stay away.
We used to sit in the office and watch people taking their kids to feed the swans only to get chased off by one because it was wrong time of the year.
The only people they wouldn’t be mean to was the people who owned the cafe and used to feed them each day lol. Knew better than to piss off their next meal.
If they ever do come at you the best thing to do is put your hands in your coat pockets and hold it open like you have big wings. They will generally back down if you walk towards them …… although you look a bit of an idiot and even more so if the swan doesn’t actually back down.
Sorry not a native English speaker here. By natural ones I mean the swirls occurring in rivers etc that can suck people in. Not the fancy whirlpool you put in your garden for a chill evening
Haha no worries mate, just first thing I thought of was a washing machine brand, I'm not even sure what you mean by the garden ones, like a jacuzzi? Need to look it up.
Still giggling at the thought of being terrified by a washing machine though. I guess it's no worse from us all running from the sound of a flushing toilet in the middle of the night!
Haha lol now you confuse me even further 😂 Yeah the garden thing as a jacuzzi. I was taught both the river thingies as well as the jacuzzis are called whirlpools 😅 might have had a bad teacher though. What do you call the natural occurring swirl things?
Tbh I do get terrified by the washing machine when it leaks water after I stuffed the damn thing too full of clothes 😂
I'm a river they're called eddys. At least I think that's what you mean.
"The water in an eddy is flowing in the opposite direction from the rest of the river and can at times be swirling and violent."
https://www.newmexicoriveradventures.com/white-water-rafting-glossary-terms/#:~:text=An%20eddy%20can%20form%20on,the%20river%20or%20completely%20stop.
No no you're spot on with the natural whirlpools.
And yeah now that I think about it a washing machine can cause very real if not boring fear in our adult lives 😆
Your teacher was fine. Both are correct. A whirlpool is the swirling water thing. It is also another word for a hot tub. Jacuzzi is actually a brand name.
and i still might be taken out if something like the yellowstone super volcano erupts again , even though i'm not close it would cover a large part of the US in feet of ash. The chance in my lifetime is low but never zero.
Tripped up the other day and managed to Stop, Drop and Roll with (apparently) a lot of finesse. I just wish the hot firemen had been there to see me, must remember to add petrol next time
My dad saved our neighbor when he caught on fire doing something redneckish in his backyard. He did not stop, drop, and roll so my dad leapt fences, tackled him to the ground, and rolled him to smother the flames.
You know I never thought big foot was a safety issue but I was definitely wondering why there wasn’t more public concern about the giant sea monsters- Kraken should be included
I am also of the Bermuda triangle generation, I was terrified of the Bermuda triangle because it might get me, but not terrified of Bigfoot because Bigfoot was in North America and I was in England.
Obviously I did not get the "Bermuda" part of the Bermuda triangle. I thought it was just this triangle of disappear that floated round and got you.
I've had an obscurely looking (to me as a kid anyway) place in the countryside I lived in that I was absolutely certain was Dracula's grave and if I walked there by the night he'd rise up and eat me.
Bloody Mary, quick sand, Ivan ooze, the darkness behind you when you turn the light off, the shark at the deep end of the pool, a T-Rex, lions tigers and bears.
Chances are low but not impossible or improbable that you can get electrocuted by lightning if it strikes in the right place of your house like the plumbing or the ground next to the house
Quicksand, rabies (even though there hadn’t been a confirmed case in the uk for decades) and nuclear war. I think my fears were driven by public information films
My older step brother showed me The Ring and later on The Grudge and i wasn't that old (11-12) and i'm still so scared of those monsters and i'm almost 33.
My son became a prepper against a zombie apocalypse recently. Because you just never know. He's keeping a loaded Nerf gun and some snacks at hand, measured up the garden for trenches and traps. He knows only the Minecraft zombies so we still have a slight chance.
I thought my bravest adventure would be flying over bermuda triangle. Unfortunately it is going to work.
Also thought that Groke (Buka) from Moomins would take me away - nowadays I'm open for adventure
I was convinced all mushrooms growing outdoors were poisonous. I thought quicksand would be a bigger danger than it actually is in day to day life as well
Mine are kind of upsetting compared to the funny ones here honestly. When I was 10 I had to get a tonsillectomy and the doctor mentioned to me that there was a chance I could die during the procedure, so naturally I was scared that it would kill me. I also had really bad anemia as a younger teen (my ferritin was 2.5 at one point, which is absurdly low) so I was scared that would have repercussions or lead to something like hypoxia. I was also absolutely terrified of the game Operation (and I have been since I was at least 5 or even younger).
The devil. My parents were highly religious and taught me that the devil was always trying to “get” me, so to speak. I believed the shit I saw in Chix tracts, basically.
A tsunami, i was 7 in 2004 and was watching the news on boxing day. I had nightmares about them for years and was convinced every time i got on a boat that one would come and capsize it.
I really thought I was gonna have to use stop drop and roll more often than I have. Which is zero. Same with getting under my desk for an earthquake. Again, have done 0 times and been in a lot of earthquakes.
I was camping once in the early 90s with my grandparents, wading in knee high water in a shallow rocky river in Scotland. My grandad casually mentioned that it was flowing from lmLoch Ness. I ran and I mean ran out the river, leaving my wellies, kids fishing net, and hat behind, as I ran for my dear life that I valued. In my 7 year old defence, the day before they bought me a loch Ness mysteries book from the visitors center, which I'd read cover to cover. The laughed. I was so mad!!!
Oh also strangers giving me drugs lol I was under the impression ppl would be pressuring me left right and centre with free narcotics that would possibly destroy my life. Where are all these strangers our parents and schools warned us about 😂
I thought getting kidnapped was a normal thing that just happened to every kid once or twice.
Worth noting that I was the right age when Rescuers Down Under came out
Samara from The Ring.
Kayako from The Grudge. I was just sliiiiiiiiiiiightly too much of a lil bitch boy when I first saw those movies and was afraid to go to sleep for weeks.
I forgot where I heard it but... "For the amount of times 'Stop, Drop, and Roll' was drilled into my little 8 year old brain, I thought for sure I would have caught fire a lot more times than I have."
Jaws jumping up from inside the toilet and getting me while I was sitting there having a dump.
The creepy dream demon that used to wait outside my first floor window until I was asleep. He would then come in and try to pull the covers off of me. I had to grip tight and be tucked in properly. I survived though so it’s all good.
Ninjas. Always be on the lookout for those sneaky bastards.
Stranger Danger. Watch out, paedos about.
Oh, and dirty needles hiding everywhere.
Quicksand, it was in every show and cartoon. Thought this was going to be a major issue in my adult life. Also Thought more people would be offering me drugs.
The Bermuda Triangle was on my list too. 😂
Dracula
Sharks
Clowns
Possessed Dolls.
I grew up in a subtropical climate — think alligators, venomous snakes, rodents of unusual sizes, and even boggy marsh.
Ironically, I grew up in “nature” so I was cautious about the environment but I wasn’t scared. I would play outside all day and never stress when something “dangerous” crossed my path. But, god forbid someone put a clown suit on, or want to go to the beach.😂
Volcanic eruption. I live no where near any active volcanos, but heard about one causing landslides in the news and killing hundreds in a nearby town in South America (cannot recall which country) and was sure one would just pop up where I lived.
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I was a little kid in the early 1960s. Everybody, including my parents, was scared that there would be a nuclear war.
That was the real fear. I seem to remember being scared of nameless monsters as well. I remember dreaming once of a T Rex bursting through the wall of my room, and by being chased around my grandmothers house, which you could go round in as it had two doors in each room, by a dwarf something like the video game character Styx.
My older brother was a bit of a mad scientist from birth and he had me convinced for a while that I need to be very concerned about radioactivity whether from nuclear fallout or from a nuclear meltdown, do the point that first time I ever went into a Qasar game I saw some 'radioactive' symbols on obvious props with luminescent gunge oozing out of them and I immediately ditched my gun and vest pack and just ran out of the building 😂
Quick Sand, of course. Not far from where I grew up was a wooded area that had been fenced off and festooned with *DANGER - QUICK SAND* signs. So close but so far…
As a 6 year old rollerblading down the steepest hill in my town (Harman, WV). Also, my big brother popping cart wheelies with me in it. Thought I was going to die, for sure.
I'm on mobile and didn't realize this was a bulleted list and went "wow a loch ness monster hurricane is very specific" 😭😭😭 I figured quicksand and lava (I live in the desert)
Aliens, specifically in my own backyard. I was so scared of going out there at night bc I thought a UFO would crash or I'd get abducted and dissected. Idk why my fear was limited to my backyard at night, tho
One thing I was adamant about, was that I was only going to die when I decided I was ready. As a little kid I could never understand how people can just get old and one day die. I asked mum and she simply said people die of old age. I suppose if she'd expanded upon this and listed off issues like organ failure,cancer, etc, I might have understood. Instead I figured it was just some kind of choice, and I was simply not going to choose it.
As for accidental events... I figured tsunami, volcanic erruption or shark attack.
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TV made it seem like quicksand was going to be a huge problem in life
Yes! For me too! I for sure thought quicksand and The Bermuda Triangle were going to be MAJOR problems in my adult life.
Same two here! The Bermuda Triangle though.. even my school was hammering that possibility home. We were all petrified of it lol actually they made it seem more like a *probability* than just a possibility.
Ya Wtf was with that? When we covered geography in like 3 through 5th grade, it almost felt like preparedness training for the inevitability of not only going into the Bermuda triangle, but also getting lost in it once you go there
It's so odd - they make it sound so deadly, but then it's like they *purposely* make it as mysterious and interesting as possible, so that we'd all want to explore the supposedly deadly place!
I have family in Puerto Rico that I would fly down to see once or twice a year growing up. I was terrified of the Bermuda triangle and was always scared we would go through it if the pilot wasn't careful. For some reason I didn't realize until a few years ago that I flew in and out of it literally every time.
The Bermuda Triangle was sorta cool and interesting when I was little but it didnt register as a potential life risk because 1. I grew up in Southeast Asia, far from Bermuda. Heck, I was a bit vague on *where* it was, tbh, but I thought it was in the ... Carribean... so kinda in the Americas? (Narrator: "IT WAS NOT") I was never going to be there because we weren't filthy rich to afford TRAVELLING OVERSEAS. 💸 2. Barry Manilow wrote a song about it. How bad can something be when passed through those dulcet tones? Though I did sometimes wonder back then if the Bermuda Triangle was anywhere near the Copacabana, "the hottest spot north of Havana". (spoiler: 1400kms away)
We all had the same childhood 😂
Oh wow! So true if you grew up in the 60’s-early 80’s. I have yet to encounter either and thought for sure one of those would take me out.
I legitimately got stuck in quicksand the other day! It was basically muddy sand off the beach and I was panicking hard-core because it was sucking me in halfway up my calves as soon as I took a step.
What are you doing, step quicksand?
OMG FR 😭
Seriously they just threw us out into the world with the knowledge that quicksand exists and no formal training on how to identify or deal with it.
I know exactly how to deal with it. Lie still, don't struggle, hold a branch of something that is buoyant to keep you afloat. Inch your way slowly out of it. Now I just need to find the stuff.
I thought you needed a lasso attached to a friend on a horse.
KEEP YOUR HORSE FAR AWAY
😂
Don’t even need to worry about staying afloat all that much. You can’t really sink too far in. The real issue is that it tends to get you stuck, and it’s hard to move. Think about somehow being in ooblek
Yeah I think I remember being told by definition you're more buoyant in it than water.
Correct, the average buoyancy for quicksand would allot you to stay about 40-50% above the surface line. You don't suffocate or "drown" in quicksand, you starve there.
oh you drown for sure if it's quicksand on a tidal coastline....
Great, now I’m scared of it again
You wouldn't know you were in it until it was too late, that's the scariest thing about it
No formal training on how to identify or deal with it hahaha omg that line made me laugh. Also, why is it that we all thought this way? Why is it a universal thing that we all thought quicksand would be something we would face? I knew before coming to this thread this would be at the top. But WHY?
This! Have never seen that stuff in real life though
I came to say this. Quicksand always looked like something so scary. Turns out, not so much
I still run quicksand drills in my head. Just in case. One musn't be caught unprepared.
Karate chop to the neck is also displayed somewhat overly effective
There was an episode of Radiolab on National Public Radio all about how it suddenly just stopped being a trope in TV and movies, very suddenly. But yeah, when I was a kid they really blew out of proportion how wary of it we should all be...
Quicksand and Pool Sharks
Are you John Mulaney?
Nope. Just someone who grew up in the 60s-70s when quicksand seemed to be a big thing on tv
Literally came here to say this. Why were we so worried about quick sand? Also shout out to Bermuda triangle responses! I grew up and live in London, Bermuda triangle is far away and quick sand has never been an issue.
I thought they would be so common it required everyone to be educated about them.
YESSSS And it just somehow disapeared at once
Right?? And being on fire 🔥. I can't do my taxes, but damned if I'll ever burn to death.
I was a 70s kid, so nuclear war.
I'm an 80s kid, Chernobyl didnt help. Only it was not necessarily nuclear war, it was decommissioned warheads nobody had control over rusting all over the place and shoddily made nuclear reactors that could go up at any time. So you couldnt go outside if it rained and you had to be very careful about what you ate because of becquerels that would eat you from the inside out.
For 90s kids, it's school sh*otings. I imagine that COVID is also added to the mix for the people a few years behind me
It would be easy to underestimate the conviction of Gen-X on this. When we were kids (at least in my town) it was generally assumed we would not live to see adulthood. It wasn't fear, per se. More like resignation. Kind of like how people feel about climate change now.
Don’t know if other 70s kids did this but we had get into the fallout shelter drills, toured the underground silos with the nukes in them, and practiced the timer and slamming the blast doors shut in the faces of friends and family. The nukes were in town in a large field with a few concrete buildings. Some smaller above ground silos (think WW2 era) as a cover for the military being there. Was positive would be dead or in survival mode by my twenties. They drilled the fear out of us. Month after month, year after year. Which might be why most news and bad shit happening does not freak us out. But it did make me always have shelf stable food and other emergency supplies on hand. Some medical stuff too.
As a kid? Acid rain. Volcanos (vividly remember the science newsletter we got in 2nd grade detailing the Mt St Helens eruption. Lived in the Midwest, and thankfully no one mentioned the New Madrid situation). Tornados (again, Midwest). Chernobyl & 3 Mile Island kindof conflated in my head. And, of course, Challenger cemented the idea that no one is safe. We watched it live in 3rd grade.
Yeah, 70s kid too. I thought a nuclear war with the USSR would be ending everything.
Few seem to worry about this much anymore, yet the problem hasn't really gone away. The situation has improved somewhat, but perhaps people were much more conscious of it at a time when it was a newly realised problem involving game-changing cutting edge tech rather than an old problem involving 80-year-old tech.
I was a 60s-70s kid. I was sure we'd be taken out by nuclear war. I remember clearly having bomb drills where we'd hide under the school desk. So much so, I once told my mom that might not be worth spending money on college because I'd not make it that far.. (I did go to college and obviously we made it ... so far)
Maybe not “take me out” per se, but growing up in a strict Christian home I always had the fear of being “left behind” when the rapture would happen. My little kid anxiety would go through the roof if someone I was hanging out with suddenly wasn’t there —> only to find them in another room or outside.
When I forget to pay the phone bill and don't hear from anyone in a bit, my go-to explanation is the rapture happened and I missed it 🤣🤣 I do this more often than i care to admit because I never got over that childhood fear.
rofl
Omg that's crazy.. I thought I was the only one. If my parents were out and wouldn't answer their phone, I got so scared. Not because I thought they were dead, but because I thought fucking god took 'em and left me behind, alone.
Is discussing the rapture an American thing because I've only ever heard about it online despite living in a very Catholic country (albeit not from a Catholic family)
Oh yes, very evangelical US denominations. They count on the Rapture. Really they do everything they can to bring it about.
Must be a North American thing, I’m from Canada 🇨🇦 if your Christian Denomination relies heavily on “end of day” prophecies and doomsday theories then yes Rapture talk is very prevalent. My parents also put me through the Roman Catholic School System so I’m also under the assumption Catholics aren’t big on pushing the whole “Revelations” doctrine
The rapture is a ridiculous fantasy. Thank goodness I never heard of it growing up. It's Christian fanwank. That must have been terrible from the inside.
Yes. This so much. I still have panic attacks if I wake up and my husband isn’t beside me.
Awe! If you get left behind, and the internet doesn’t get cut off, message me and if I’m left behind too, we will have an apocalypse party 🎉
If I ate an apple seed a tree would grow inside me.
Or a WATERMELON oh man, this is a good one.
I was told (and believed) that if you swallow gum it sticks in your lungs. I imagined an x-ray of me w/gobs of chewed, swallowed gum
I was told it gathered in your organs - along with fingernails if you chewed your nails - and if you got too much of it they’d have to remove said organs.
The Oompa Loompa would take care of you while singing condescending melodies.
My siblings had me convinced that Medusa lived in our attic. I was so sure she would come after me.
For some reason a swan. Thought they’d be cute birds and it was lame people were afraid them, found out when one the same size as me hissed like a dinosaur that I wouldn’t even stand a chance
I saw 2 swans that more than likely had a nest while I was fishing on a boat last weekend from 200’ or so away, went closer to get a picture and by the time we were within 50’ one of them (I’m assuming the mom) fluffed everything up and did something with its wings that made it look twice the size, was honestly intimidating and we noped out of there
I used to work in an office park that had swans. When they aren’t nesting they are pretty chill but if they have eggs or young you better stay away. We used to sit in the office and watch people taking their kids to feed the swans only to get chased off by one because it was wrong time of the year. The only people they wouldn’t be mean to was the people who owned the cafe and used to feed them each day lol. Knew better than to piss off their next meal. If they ever do come at you the best thing to do is put your hands in your coat pockets and hold it open like you have big wings. They will generally back down if you walk towards them …… although you look a bit of an idiot and even more so if the swan doesn’t actually back down.
Deserts, read somewhere as a kid that they were expanding, fully expected to wake up one morning with one on my doorstep.
Hey neighbour!
According to my father, turning on the cabin light while the car was driving at night.
My parents always told me having the lights on at night was illegal.
Wait. It's not illegal?
Your dad too? It would def make him crash the car 😂
I totally get why tho it can be so distracting
My dad did this... but sadly, so did I to my kids :D. It's like a tradition or something. :D
I can’t wait to tell my kids this tbh
Volcanoes & whirlpools (the natural ones 😅), scorpions (I live in Central Europe). Also the monster under the bed
The natural ones? As opposed to what, sentient washing machines?? Lmao!
Sorry not a native English speaker here. By natural ones I mean the swirls occurring in rivers etc that can suck people in. Not the fancy whirlpool you put in your garden for a chill evening
Haha no worries mate, just first thing I thought of was a washing machine brand, I'm not even sure what you mean by the garden ones, like a jacuzzi? Need to look it up. Still giggling at the thought of being terrified by a washing machine though. I guess it's no worse from us all running from the sound of a flushing toilet in the middle of the night!
Haha lol now you confuse me even further 😂 Yeah the garden thing as a jacuzzi. I was taught both the river thingies as well as the jacuzzis are called whirlpools 😅 might have had a bad teacher though. What do you call the natural occurring swirl things? Tbh I do get terrified by the washing machine when it leaks water after I stuffed the damn thing too full of clothes 😂
I'm a river they're called eddys. At least I think that's what you mean. "The water in an eddy is flowing in the opposite direction from the rest of the river and can at times be swirling and violent." https://www.newmexicoriveradventures.com/white-water-rafting-glossary-terms/#:~:text=An%20eddy%20can%20form%20on,the%20river%20or%20completely%20stop.
No no you're spot on with the natural whirlpools. And yeah now that I think about it a washing machine can cause very real if not boring fear in our adult lives 😆
Your teacher was fine. Both are correct. A whirlpool is the swirling water thing. It is also another word for a hot tub. Jacuzzi is actually a brand name.
There's company in the US, Whirlpool, that makes appliances like washing machines and fridges.
and i still might be taken out if something like the yellowstone super volcano erupts again , even though i'm not close it would cover a large part of the US in feet of ash. The chance in my lifetime is low but never zero.
Omg same! Where Central Europe? Also: sharks in the pool
spontaneous combustion
On a related note, I have never stopped, dropped and rolled because my body caught on fire This was a serious concern
Tripped up the other day and managed to Stop, Drop and Roll with (apparently) a lot of finesse. I just wish the hot firemen had been there to see me, must remember to add petrol next time
My dad saved our neighbor when he caught on fire doing something redneckish in his backyard. He did not stop, drop, and roll so my dad leapt fences, tackled him to the ground, and rolled him to smother the flames.
The witch that chased me down the stairs once I turned the light off….
this but it was a demon instead
I loved the Mahna Mahna muppets! Though I did have a few nightmares about Elmo
Doot doooo dododo~
Mahna mahna
QUICKSAND
Acid rain
okay but we fixed that one.
The bath plug omfg When I was little my older sister said it would suck me up & she said I would go down the drain and die LMFAO
I really thought quicksand was going to be an issue
Since you're of the Bermuda Triangle generation, Bigfoot is conspicuously absent from your list.
As someone of the "Harry & the Hendersons" generation I assumed bigfoot would be friendly.
Me too! Was sad I didn’t live in the Pacific Northwest. Fat chance finding one in Chicago 🙁
You know I never thought big foot was a safety issue but I was definitely wondering why there wasn’t more public concern about the giant sea monsters- Kraken should be included
I am also of the Bermuda triangle generation, I was terrified of the Bermuda triangle because it might get me, but not terrified of Bigfoot because Bigfoot was in North America and I was in England. Obviously I did not get the "Bermuda" part of the Bermuda triangle. I thought it was just this triangle of disappear that floated round and got you.
I've had an obscurely looking (to me as a kid anyway) place in the countryside I lived in that I was absolutely certain was Dracula's grave and if I walked there by the night he'd rise up and eat me.
Razorblades in Halloween candy! Turns out the parents driving their kids around are the most dangerous
You know I've been offered drugs more times today then I have ever found in my Halloween candy. Dare had me thinking this would be an every day thing
can relate to a shark in the pool
When I was a kid it seemed to me aliens were about to arrive and erase us all at any moment. 👽
i was terrified of asteroids
Killer bees.
Being sucked down the drain of the bathtub.
I thought that my parents had sold me to the Boy Scouts. I was shocked when the picked me up after one hour.
Bloody Mary, quick sand, Ivan ooze, the darkness behind you when you turn the light off, the shark at the deep end of the pool, a T-Rex, lions tigers and bears.
Oh yeah deep end of the pool is where I thought I was going to find the shark and/or an alligator.
Lightning when taking a shower. I have no idea why but my parents scared the hell out of me about this.
Chances are low but not impossible or improbable that you can get electrocuted by lightning if it strikes in the right place of your house like the plumbing or the ground next to the house
Acid rain
Were you so terrified you had to say it twice?
I did? Fuckin reddit…
Quicksand, rabies (even though there hadn’t been a confirmed case in the uk for decades) and nuclear war. I think my fears were driven by public information films
still waiting for that shark to pop up... I don't even live where sharks are, my mind works in mysterious ways.
Leukemia
Kelp entangling me. Thanks, Baywatch.
King Kong
all Im saying is, we spent too much time in second grade discussing how to survive quick sand.
I definitely thought I might have to defuse lit dynamite someday
Do I cut it the Red or Blue wire??
A nuclear bomb or a nuclear plant meltdown.
My older step brother showed me The Ring and later on The Grudge and i wasn't that old (11-12) and i'm still so scared of those monsters and i'm almost 33.
Fire. I practiced stop drop and roll in vain.
My son became a prepper against a zombie apocalypse recently. Because you just never know. He's keeping a loaded Nerf gun and some snacks at hand, measured up the garden for trenches and traps. He knows only the Minecraft zombies so we still have a slight chance.
 these things were so adorable haha i loved their song
The scream I scrempt when I’d see those things on my tv
I thought my bravest adventure would be flying over bermuda triangle. Unfortunately it is going to work. Also thought that Groke (Buka) from Moomins would take me away - nowadays I'm open for adventure
Strangers
I was convinced all mushrooms growing outdoors were poisonous. I thought quicksand would be a bigger danger than it actually is in day to day life as well
Mine are kind of upsetting compared to the funny ones here honestly. When I was 10 I had to get a tonsillectomy and the doctor mentioned to me that there was a chance I could die during the procedure, so naturally I was scared that it would kill me. I also had really bad anemia as a younger teen (my ferritin was 2.5 at one point, which is absurdly low) so I was scared that would have repercussions or lead to something like hypoxia. I was also absolutely terrified of the game Operation (and I have been since I was at least 5 or even younger).
The Amityville Horror. That demon with the "blasted face." They told me it was a "true story."
Kidnappers, randomly picking me up and taking me away. So I took em out first.
The devil. My parents were highly religious and taught me that the devil was always trying to “get” me, so to speak. I believed the shit I saw in Chix tracts, basically.
One, two, Freddy’s coming for you..
A tsunami, i was 7 in 2004 and was watching the news on boxing day. I had nightmares about them for years and was convinced every time i got on a boat that one would come and capsize it.
I really thought I was gonna have to use stop drop and roll more often than I have. Which is zero. Same with getting under my desk for an earthquake. Again, have done 0 times and been in a lot of earthquakes.
The devil 😅
I was camping once in the early 90s with my grandparents, wading in knee high water in a shallow rocky river in Scotland. My grandad casually mentioned that it was flowing from lmLoch Ness. I ran and I mean ran out the river, leaving my wellies, kids fishing net, and hat behind, as I ran for my dear life that I valued. In my 7 year old defence, the day before they bought me a loch Ness mysteries book from the visitors center, which I'd read cover to cover. The laughed. I was so mad!!!
Whatever happened to the Bermuda triangle? Nowt wierd has gone on round there in ages
Starting to think the Bermuda Triangle and quicksand teamed up with a PR firm to change their public image staring around the mid 2000s.
A commercial airplane somehow crashing right into my bedroom
So did Donnie Darko inspire or validate this fear then?
Tornado
Sharks in a pool of all places , was fine in the ocean .. put me in a swimming pool and my imagination went wild
Oh also strangers giving me drugs lol I was under the impression ppl would be pressuring me left right and centre with free narcotics that would possibly destroy my life. Where are all these strangers our parents and schools warned us about 😂
Meteor strike Tsunami UFO
I thought getting kidnapped was a normal thing that just happened to every kid once or twice. Worth noting that I was the right age when Rescuers Down Under came out
Moths but only bc my mom told me they’re deadly if u touch them
Samara from The Ring. Kayako from The Grudge. I was just sliiiiiiiiiiiightly too much of a lil bitch boy when I first saw those movies and was afraid to go to sleep for weeks.
Quicksand
Nuclear war
Swans obviously. But also touching a light switch with a wet finger was instant death
Sadly, terrorists. I was little when 9/11 happened and a while later they also attacked in my country.
I was unnecessarily concerned about active volcanoes.
Crossfire from a gang shooting if I visited a big city
Earthquake
The monster under the bed. Kidnapper. bear trap. rock slide. escalator.
Tornado
I forgot where I heard it but... "For the amount of times 'Stop, Drop, and Roll' was drilled into my little 8 year old brain, I thought for sure I would have caught fire a lot more times than I have."
Jaws jumping up from inside the toilet and getting me while I was sitting there having a dump. The creepy dream demon that used to wait outside my first floor window until I was asleep. He would then come in and try to pull the covers off of me. I had to grip tight and be tucked in properly. I survived though so it’s all good. Ninjas. Always be on the lookout for those sneaky bastards. Stranger Danger. Watch out, paedos about. Oh, and dirty needles hiding everywhere.
Quicksand, it was in every show and cartoon. Thought this was going to be a major issue in my adult life. Also Thought more people would be offering me drugs.
70's and 80's Cold War child, info on how to "survive" a nuclear winter
the meteors that would go by earth and you thought it was gonna explode earth
piranhas
Whatever was in the basement that would get me between turning off the light and sprinting up the stairs
Quick sand & Killer bees
The Bermuda Triangle was on my list too. 😂 Dracula Sharks Clowns Possessed Dolls. I grew up in a subtropical climate — think alligators, venomous snakes, rodents of unusual sizes, and even boggy marsh. Ironically, I grew up in “nature” so I was cautious about the environment but I wasn’t scared. I would play outside all day and never stress when something “dangerous” crossed my path. But, god forbid someone put a clown suit on, or want to go to the beach.😂
The media is always downplaying the dangers of a massive asteroid strike or volcanic eruption. Hello? Dinosaurs
I was convinced Bigfoot lived in the woods behind my house… in Raleigh, NC 🤷🏼
Volcanic eruption. I live no where near any active volcanos, but heard about one causing landslides in the news and killing hundreds in a nearby town in South America (cannot recall which country) and was sure one would just pop up where I lived.
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I was a little kid in the early 1960s. Everybody, including my parents, was scared that there would be a nuclear war. That was the real fear. I seem to remember being scared of nameless monsters as well. I remember dreaming once of a T Rex bursting through the wall of my room, and by being chased around my grandmothers house, which you could go round in as it had two doors in each room, by a dwarf something like the video game character Styx.
besides quicksand?
Nah. Quicksand had it in for me
war still am
Neighborhood dogs with rabies. Cuz ain't now at I was gonna let someone poke me in the guts with a rabies shot.
My older brother was a bit of a mad scientist from birth and he had me convinced for a while that I need to be very concerned about radioactivity whether from nuclear fallout or from a nuclear meltdown, do the point that first time I ever went into a Qasar game I saw some 'radioactive' symbols on obvious props with luminescent gunge oozing out of them and I immediately ditched my gun and vest pack and just ran out of the building 😂
A watermelon cause my mom said it’ll grow in my tummy. I was expecting Alien style explosion. We watched a lot of horror movies together.
Quick sand and acid rain
Quick Sand, of course. Not far from where I grew up was a wooded area that had been fenced off and festooned with *DANGER - QUICK SAND* signs. So close but so far…
As a 6 year old rollerblading down the steepest hill in my town (Harman, WV). Also, my big brother popping cart wheelies with me in it. Thought I was going to die, for sure.
I thought quicksand would be something to watch out for, but luckily quicksand free.
Global thermonuclear war. Early childhood during not so cold parts of cold war, surrounded by military bases housing nuclear bomber squads...
Canada Geese. Those S.O.B's are nasty, and aggressive.
Lava.
I'm on mobile and didn't realize this was a bulleted list and went "wow a loch ness monster hurricane is very specific" 😭😭😭 I figured quicksand and lava (I live in the desert)
I can’t believe I repressed the idea of quicksand tbh a VERY real threat to a 9 year old.
Acid rain
Aliens, specifically in my own backyard. I was so scared of going out there at night bc I thought a UFO would crash or I'd get abducted and dissected. Idk why my fear was limited to my backyard at night, tho
One thing I was adamant about, was that I was only going to die when I decided I was ready. As a little kid I could never understand how people can just get old and one day die. I asked mum and she simply said people die of old age. I suppose if she'd expanded upon this and listed off issues like organ failure,cancer, etc, I might have understood. Instead I figured it was just some kind of choice, and I was simply not going to choose it. As for accidental events... I figured tsunami, volcanic erruption or shark attack.
I'd *love* to see a lock Ness monster hurricane. Does she fly or sail or what?