I used to fill the kettle by the spout... my parents have always done it this way, I thought the center part was mainly for decoration, but not functional. I don’t know why I never questioned this.
One day I bought a new tea kettle and my husband was like wtf what is inside this, and with great ease, opened the center to pull out a manual with instructions and what not.
I was drinking dirty paper water for like 2 weeks.
supdawwwwgwife , freepik (not the actual photo) Report
My wife and I have this ceiling fan/light in our bedroom in the house we moved into two years ago. It has a remote control for the fan and lights.
About a year and a half ago the lights suddenly stopped working. The fan works well and we didn't have a tonne of money so we've just lived with lamps in the room, always being frustrated with how damn dark it is.
I was scrolling some other thread on ~~askreddit~~ TIFU a few weeks ago and the top post was a guy talking about how his lights stopped working years ago, and then he found out that it was just dimmed (which you do by holding *down* the button on the remote).
It sounded so much like our fan I went and tried it.
Dimmed.
Auto_Fac , Lotus Design N Print/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
I owned a light blue colored microwave for about three years that a family member gave me for a housewarming gift. Thought it was cool; never saw a blue microwave before. One night, a buddy asked why I never took the blue plastic wrap off my microwave, then proceeded to peel it off for me. Damn; that b***h is silver. Still miss my blue microwave sometimes though...
Id_Rather_B_Lurking , user18527123/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
I always thought eggplant tasted "itchy", like itchy was a flavor, like sour or salty. Fed some to my baby and his face turned red wherever the eggplant touched, and I realized we're both just allergic to eggplant. And itchy isn't a flavor.
anon , Aja Island/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
Living in a foreign country where I was actively learning the language. Social cues go a long way when learning a language on the spot. That being said, someone once said a phrase to me while serving a hot dish, which I assumed as meaning "excuse me". After going through crowds and lines, replicating the same phrase in an attempt to be respectful of those around me, I abruptly found out that the phrase actually meant "enjoy". Hind sight, completely makes sense. The odd looks I would get by saying "enjoy" while squeezing past people all of a sudden made sense.
cuntrylovin23 , Louis Hansel/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
My name is Ryan.
It took me until I was in 1st grade to realize my name wasn't *in* the alphabet.
My mom had told me my name was in the alphabet, and I felt so lucky. She obviously meant the letters *to spell* my name were in the alphabet.
But nope. It took that long to realize the alphabet didn't go "W, X, *Ryan* Z....
StraightToHell3 , Arthur Krijgsman/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
Back in the early 2010s, my boyfriend and I had a PlayStation that we used for Netflix etc since we didn’t have a smart tv. The controller was on such a short cord that we would always have to get up from the couch to change the program or push any buttons. My boyfriend also used to have to sit on the floor up close to the tv to play his video games, since the cord was so short.
One day my brother came to visit. We put something on Netflix, and got up to use the remote like we always did. My brother proceeds to unplug the controller, hands it to us, and says “you realize this is a WIRELESS controller right?”
We are dumbfounded. Why would there be a cord coming from it? Turns out that’s just to charge our wireless controller.
Mind. Blown.
Namrevlis1 , JÉSHOOTS/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
My SO and I were in a fight and he said "You are unbelievably selfish and impossible to talk to". Somehow my defense mechanisms were not engaged at that moment because I *heard* him and realized it was true. I saw for the first time that I had been (mostly) an a*****e all my life - that is - super defensive and wrong about a lot of things (aka a "narcissist"). I have since had to *learn* how to be kind, to listen, to give back and while it has been very hard (I still cringe often when I think back on many moments in my life) I now know *I* was wrong, my life is so much better.
EDIT: Thank you all for the upvotes, the silver and the gold. For those of you who suffer from the same affliction and want to make a change or two I highly recommend daily meditation and reading the stoics and/or checking out The School of Life .com (a brilliant "how to" guide for living a better life).
louderharderfaster , Getty Images/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
Well... This was a few years ago. I was the director of IT for a very large company. I was given a new cellphone and told to setup my voicemail.
I don’t know that when I recorded my name it would be played to whomever I leave a voice mail for.
Well the name I recorded was, “Dooder84 Corporate IT Godddd!!!”
I worked there for 4 years until someone in the hallway referred to me as the “corporate IT GoD!”
I was so embarrassed.....
dooder84 , NordWood Themes/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
I am lactose intolerant. I genuinely did not know this for the first 25+ years of my life. I always had to go to the bathroom after eating something with cheese in it. One day it just clicked: I bought some Lactaid, took it before the next time I ate cheese, and I didn't have to go to the bathroom.
...it was mind blowing. I have no idea how I didn't make the connection for years. So I guess you could say instead of having a "Oh s**t" moment I had a "No s**t" moment.
anon , Getúlio Moraes/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
We bought a nice liquor cabinet. We got it delivered and noticed it was a bit shorter than we thought. No biggie. Three years later, we’re moving. Lift up cabinet and these beautiful, ornate, screw on legs wrapped in tape and bubble wrap fall off the bottom. Looks so much better now!
anon , Antoine Contenseau/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
After moving to a new city I went to the laundromat and the Korean lady working was yelling at me about something I couldn’t understand. After some pantomime it became clear that she was upset I was putting in the wrong detergent but it was the same kind I have been using for 8 years (since moving away to college and behind). Turns out I’ve been washing my clothes with only fabric softener for nearly a decade. They always smelled good so I never really thought about it. Not my proudest moment.
KyloWrench , Bianca Jordan/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
When I was a kid and was acting up, my dad would always threaten to leave me at this mean old lady’s house. Her name was Helen Handbasket. Fast forward about 28 years later and it clicks out of nowhere while I was on a customer call at work.
Customer: This whole network is going to hell in a handbasket.
Me: HA! I’m an idiot.
Customer: Did you figure it out?
Me: OH! No. Not yet.
NAKEDnick , Ron Lach/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
Found out I was lighting incense wrong. Boyfriend and I got a bunch to add to our collection of nice smells and we would light them and they would just start a little inferno. Convinced we were buying cheap, garbage incense we stopped using them. I proceed to buy a different brand in a hope those would work. I test light and same thing it just goes up in an inferno. Roommate informs us you are supposed to blow them out once they catch. Oops.
gorbaby , Caroline Attwood/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
My family always had a cup next to the bathroom sink in case you needed to rinse your mouth after brushing your teeth or maybe get a quick drink of water in the middle of the night. My grandma had the same cup at her house. I used it for years whenever I was thirsty. One day she saw me doing this and said, “Don’t use that cup. Thats where grandma puts her teeth.”.
milwbrewsox , EyeEm/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
Since the dawn of time, I would pick up the silverware and utensils out of their tray in the dishwasher and put them away in their drawers then go back and pick up more out of the dishwasher. Then one day I saw my wife lift the tray out of the dishwasher and I legit stood there with my mouth open.
PetesBrotherPaul , Wavebreak Media/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
When i first got a debit card and would go out to eat at restaurants with my friends, i would leave a cash tip on the table. when i got the receipt to put how much i was paying i would write down how much money i left on the table. for at least 6 months i gave double tips to every waitress i had...
anon , Andrea Piacquadio/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
When I was 5 a pizza hut employee told me that the powder on the breadsticks was called fairy dust. Ordered extra fairy dust on my breadsticks until I was around 14 when an employee said ‘do you mean garlic salt?’ It still devastates me to realize how obtuse I was.
HolyCulture1983 , freepik (not the actual photo) Report
Not mine, but my dad has been spelling his name wrong his whole life (he’s 51). His name is Jeffrey, and he’s been spelling it like that since he learned how to spell his name. A few months ago my mom pulled out his birth certificate, and we all learned it’s actually spelled Jeffery. Not sure if he spells it correctly now, but it was definitely an “oh s**t” moment for him.
daniwthekilo , andreas/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
Not cause I’ve been doing something wrong my entire life but saw it wrong. I’m colorblind and my entire life I thought peanut butter was green until I turned 19. And when I found out it was brown my mind was blown. It took so long because no one really talks about the color of things like that.
Swaid1234 , Kaboompics.com/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
My mom refused to show me how to use a tampon because she thought I should stick to pads because they were "safer". This was back when googling how to do things wasn't an option, and I was the first in my friend group to get my period and a little sheepish about it.
So basically I was shoving that s****r up there with the entire applicator for like 2 years, wondering why tampons didn't seem to work that well for me.
It wasn't until I was in h**h school, and one of my friends went on a c*****e against "plastic waste" and started advocating for tampons with no applicators that all of a sudden I realized I had massively f****d up.
Mark_Reach530 , gpointstudio/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
For years I would struggle to take the cap off new deodorant (the one under the lid). It always is so stuck down onto the deodorant stick.
I had an "ah-ha" moment a year or so ago that I could simply crank the deodorant stick up until the cap could easily be removed.
I'm 34. It took me until age 34 to realize this.
Edit: thank you for my first silver! I'm glad I can teach the world about opening new deodorant sticks more easily.
Edit 2: and thank you for my first gold! What a great day!
heyyy_clumsy , namii9/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
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I have a flashlight that I've had for near a decade. I originally got it because it really looks like a lightsaber, and it was cheap. Plus you could twist the lens around to focus it, or so I thought. When I got it home and put batteries in it, I found out that twisting the top didn't change the focus. I assumed the top being able to twist was just a result of it being cheap.
Fast forward to a month or so ago, a storm picked up during the night so I went out to check nothing was going to blow away. As I was trying to open the gate, the flashlight slipped, and I caught it by the top part that twists, but the rest of the flashlight slid about 2 inches down from the twisty part and it turns out if you pull the top part up, it turns it into a lantern type thing for lighting up an area.
It's nothing big, but there have been times where it would have been incredibly useful to be able to put the torch down and light up a wide area...
anon , New Africa/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
I was dating an asian woman some years ago, and when we got Chinese takeout, she completely unfolded the box and laid it flat like a plate.
She said that was by design, and for the life of her could never understand why her friends always scooped it out onto another plate when the box *was* the plate.
I now do this all the time and it weirds people out.
anon , Curated Lifestyle/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
Over the years I had several girlfriends and from time to time they’d vent their frustrations or come to me when they were upset. I often half listened before beginning my efforts to badger them with the obvious solution to the problem. It took too long a time for me to realize they were more than capable of solving their own problems are were looking for a boyfriend, not a life coach.
anon Report
When I was a junior in college I wrote a paper that alluded to the Underground Railroad. My room mate did a quick read through for me and said “this is great, except it seems like you think that the Underground Railroad was literally underground”.
I truly believed there were a set of tunnels that made up the Underground Railroad. Didn’t learn elsewise til I was 21. Thanks public school education.
banana_dicks Report
Not wrong for years, but I work help desk, and we use a specific (terrible) piece of software for our Support system, IBM Notes.
It turns out, that for the first 9 months I had been working there, it wasn't setup properly, so I wasn't sending any emails from it, at all. No notifications that the ticket went to me, no responses from me, no close notifications, **nothing.**
Someone noticed this, took a look, and fixed a setting. I immediately sent out over a thousand emails to everyone in the company.
Lazer726 Report
My eldest child had a penchant for blowing out of his diapers—we tried everything but multiple times a week we had to pull that poo-filled onesie over his head and inevitably give our now super duper poo covered infant a bath.
Around when I was pregnant with our second, a post went viral about how infant onesies are designed to be broad at the shoulders so you can pull them down and off instead of over the head.
Poor kid would have had so many fewer poo in hair incidents had I known that then.
anon Report
It wasn’t very long, but when I was learning to drive my dad was explaining the rule of thumb regarding a safe distance to be behind the car in front of you. I thought it meant to hold your thumb up and if your thumb didn’t cover the entire car you were too close to it. When he caught me doing that he asked me what I was doing. When I explained he burst out laughing, then considered it, and concluded it wasn’t a bad idea but perhaps a bit distracting.
lukelnk Report
So... I was fortunate enough to buy my own home due to unfortunate circumstances. I moved in and the thermostat thing was set to about 70 degrees (F). As time went on, I couldn't figure out why there was no visible way for me to change the temperature. My electric bill would be through the roof every month. The thermostat is well above my eye level and I lived alone for quite some time, though family and friends did visit regularly.
After several months of leaving windows opened or closed to adapt to the change in weather, I finally asked my niece (I think?) to check the thermostat for a way to change the temperature. She looked around for a bit and saw that there was a tab I was supposed to pull to reveal all of the buttons and settings of the goddamned thermostat.
"Oh s**t."
So glad I posted this late enough for it to go mostly unnoticed. I'm an idiot.
EDIT: So it's been months, not years. Still. Damn it.
JimTheGiant53 Report
So I had always assumed that gas stations had pipes that led to a nearby oil plant or something. I live in Houston so during hurricane Harvey in 2017 there was so much news about the gas stations being empty because they weren't being filled. I was in the car with my sisters and we were talking about it and I mentioned I don't understand how the gas supply was limited when the pipes are underground and not affected by the flooding. They both looked at me with the most confused faces ever and one of them said "you do know that trucks come to fill up gas stations right...?" And I was completely shook by this and had no idea and they asked me "so when you see the big trucks at little gas stations in the city with the tubes in the ground what do you think they were doing??" And I replied "... filling up their gas..." Not something I did wrong but definitely something I thought wrong for 17 years.
dibarrie Report
Sometimes I assume I know the lyrics to songs I have heard on the radio for a long time.
I always sang Toto's Africa as "I miss the rains down in Africa..." until someone made fun of me and told me it's "I bless the rains down in Africa."
I argued, "That makes no sense! Why would someone bless rain? It's a song about longing to return to Africa, which is why they miss the rain."
Then I went home and looked up the lyrics.
xjrob85 , lookstudio/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
Realized the multi colored tape measures glued to the door frames of gas stations etc. are for identifying robbers, not for measuring yourself as you walk out. I mean, they can be, but that’s not why they are there. Unless you’re the robber.
Fudge89 Report
Last month was the first time I discovered lint rollers were peelable. Literally sat there for a minute to take that in.
Edit: I'm 20.
RussianPlkachu Report
When I was a kid I loved drinking coffee but didn't know how to make it. My mom taught me but the coffee ratio she told me to use was like 1tbsp per 1 pot of coffee as opposed to the actual ratio 1tbsp:1cup of water. Fast forward about 13 years to a couple months ago and I was reading the back of my folgers coffee thing and there was a little diagram showing how much to actually use. I then realized my mom had told me the wrong amount so I a)wouldn't drink all her coffee, and b)wasn't super hyped up going into school.
asspoopasspoop Report
Former school nurse here. The number of h**h school boys who don't know what circumcision is is amazingly h**h. Many think they were "born circumcised." When they finally see a f******n, they are in complete awe. When they find out the brown ring on their p***s is a scar from when their f******n was removed, they are also amazed.
markko79 , CDC/unsplash (not the actual photo) Report
Oh - not me (it was though my first year in my profession) but I see it ALL the time - people who don't know you need to cut off the little thread that keeps the vent in your skirts/suit jackets/winter coats closed. First day of intern season I want to run around with a little pair of scissors helping people out with their brand new suits :).
JadieRose Report
No one really ever told me you don’t need to buy shoes with the ‘two-fingers’ space in front of the toes after your feet stop growing.
I had been buying an entire size too big until about age 23.
Twenty. Three.
One day in college I decided to try a pair of Merrell barefoot type shoes and after reading the sizing guide, BAM. Mind blown.
It’s terribly obvious mistake I (29F) like to blame on being an only child. But really I’m just a f*****g moron.
tiffblan Report
I didn’t know you could take off the caps of those refrigerated coffee creamers... I had been stabbing through the foil with a knife for years until my uncle saw me and asked what the f**k I was doing....... lol
Edit to say I’m a woman, people always think I’m a guy by my comments 🤷🏼♀️.
14mackenzier Report
I grew up without a mom. She passed when I was 6. I was afraid to ask my dad how to put a tampon in. One day I made a comment (about age 18) to some friends that tampons hang out too far out your bajingo and made me feel like I waddled when I walk. My friend asked me how I put them in. I thought it would get stuck up there and wasn’t inserting it far enough. Did it wrong for about 5 years. My friends still make fun of me for it. I can’t help but use the dead mom card, but looking back it’s pretty common sense how to shove it up there.
Edit: for all those asking: I didn’t really feel comfortable with my body, so I’m not sure I really understood what the directions were asking. For others asking: my dad was a really good dad. Obviously he made some general mistakes as a parent (as all parents do) but as a substitute mother he did a great job. He taught me how to shave my legs (funny voices and all) and he was a Girl Scout troop leader for almost 10 years. He tried to figure out how to French braid, and he did comb my nasty a*s ratty hair on a daily basis.
Grawkkk Report
Until last week, when my father in law would made a phone call on his very basic non-touch-screen flip phone he would open the menu, scroll to the phone icon, open it, hit the soft key for contacts, scroll to the person he wanted to call, press ok, then press the soft key to call.
When he mentioned how he preferred his landline because he could just dial the number, I said "Humour me. Just dial the number and hit the talk button." I've never seen a man so simultaneously grateful and embarrassed.
ThievingRock Report
Winding a watch that was battery powered. For like, a year. Ah, f**k. Thanks for making me think of that.
refreshing_username Report
Not that I was doing it wrong, but I never knew the little arrow next to the gas gauge in the car told you what side the gas tank was on. Mind freaking blown when I found out!
Edit: I’m 40.
grandchester Report
I was at crate and barrel with my gf talking about how it's so weird they don't make tongs so you open them up super wide and then press in; I thought it was odd that they only gave you a super tiny opening. In the middle of me saying this she just presses the button at the bottom of the tongs I was holding and I stop mid sentence in shame.
DoctorLemonPhd Report
I lived in a house for 6 years with a bathroom with no “shelf” or cupboard to put toiletries into. I was very disappointed and ended up using a window sill that was WAY too small to fit everything.
Anyway, one day we had a friend over and he asked why we don’t have anything in our bathroom cupboard. I was confused so he showed me.
It turns out that the mirror I had been using for 6 years has a hidden compartment behind it. It was a mirrored door to a mounted cupboard on the wall. I was astonished and IMMEDIATELY moved all my stuff from the window into the new space.
My friend was baffled that I had never figured out there was a space behind the mirror. There was an obvious gap between it and the wall that I SOMEHOW failed to notice.
Tiodichia Report
As a boy, I had an unconventional method for masturbating. It would require a diagram to get across all its subtleties, but lets just say that it required two hands, was not intuitive, and simulated no known sex act—it was suboptimal. After a year or so of convoluted self-abuse, one of the older kids made the international jerkoff hand gesture towards me.
My jaw dropped.
I instantly knew that I had been doing it wrong all that time. It was so simple, so obvious, way quieter, and way more effective. I tried it that night and never looked back. That dude changed my life. Thank you, Chris Eastman.
Niro5 Report
From as young as I knew the word "backpack" until about maybe the fifth grade, I called them "pack packs".
aviatortrevor Report
I just realized I've been pronouncing sherbet like it has two "R's" in it. Found out when I asked my wife why she was saying it weird. It still sounds stupid without two R's.
Also, told a bunch of our friends and they agree it should be sherbert.
joshuakrey Report
I have a tendency to think I know all about something but end up being completely wrong. Like the word “carafe.” I thought it was pronounced like “care-uh-fay,” and would use that word often at my old job. Corporate came in once to visit and I walked them through my department, all the while telling that our new “care-uh-fays” have been so popular and selling like crazy.
Also the word “segue.” I thought it was the best word ever, like I was such a grown-up for knowing it. But I spelled it “segway,” and I used it in all my essays - my AP tests, finals, my college essay. I mean, I was accepted, so it all worked out.
marissaaa Report
Caulk guns. Everyone says that you're supposed to pull it towards you, but I saw a reddit comment saying that they're designed to be pushed away instead. My boss looks at me funny for doing it, but it's exponentially cleaner and tighter!
Edit: quite a few of y'all are mentioning that you're unclear on what you're pushing away. When you caulk you slide the entire gun across the crack that you're sealing, so it's that. You can only ever slide it towards you or away from you (unless you're going sideways, I guess) and most people pull the entire gun and tip towards them whereas sliding it in the other direction works too. A few of y'all sound like you know exactly what you're doing and have added a couple other tips on how to do it cleaner and better, too, so thanks for that.
TheK1ngsW1t , vh-studio/freepik (not the actual photo) Report
When I realized, at 18, that the phrase is “up and at em” not “up and Adam”
I was always wondering who the hell adam was, thought it was a stupid phrase.
MaxisDidNothingWrong Report
Wiping my a*s.
I always thought everyone reached their hand between their legs, but after someone making a joke about wiping their a*s, I asked how they did it. Then for curiosity sake I asked a bunch more people. I'm the only person I know that wipes their a*s from between their legs
EDIT: Seems to be more common than I thought. I always thought everyone did it like me but I guess it's a pretty big split. Everyone I have asked near where I live all wipe from the side or standing up.
pariah2000 Report
For 20+ years I’ve been saying “play it by year” instead of “play it by ear”
After a lengthy argument and a quick google search, I was left with my tail between my legs.
Hydro_iLy Report
Learned earlier last year “bust a nut” isn’t an expression for when something hits your nuts or you land in a way that crushes them.
Shuau_21 Report
I was 30 when I found out that an ‘event calendar’ as I called it, is not a thing and it’s an ‘advent calendar’. I was 32 when I found out advent is not short for adventure...
lenesy Report
Couple years ago i was trying to open some toothpaste and had to break the seal of the tube, i used to look for something like a nail to break it, then one day i looked at the pointy end of the cap and thought 'what if I could use this to break it' and oh s**t it did fit and broke it effortlessly, and so did every other tube product i had in the house and their respective cap, my mind was blown.
el-mocos Report
Do you ever buy soda in a 6- or 8-pack of bottles, and then struggle to twist and pull bottle out of the tight plastic rings? There's a pull tab connected to a serrated line through the plastic. You can just pull that and then the plastic will break easily when you pull at the bottle.
My aunt taught me about this over 20 years ago, because no one in my immediate family was aware of it. I let my fiancee in in the secret just last week.
stizzleomnibus1 Report
One of my Arabic neighbors asked my mom's boyfriend-at-the-time, "Hey Bob, which way is north?" So Bob pointed.
He responded, "Oh no! I've been praying in the wrong direction for five years!".
bricarp Report
That you do, in fact, need to disassemble your laundry drier and clean the lint out from underneath the drum once per year.
I’m 31 and never knew this, no one ever said anything, never saw anyone do this. Crappiest thing is that my parents *also* learned this the hard way and never bothered to give me a tip when I bought my first drier.
Luckily, the wife and I discovered the lint buildup when changing the rollers. I said to my parents “wow it really builds up in there!” and they were like “oh yea you need to do that like once a year”.
WAAAAAAAT.
BaronJaster , RDNE Stock project/pexels (not the actual photo) Report
Not really exactly what you're looking for but a few months ago I figured out Childish Gambino and Donald Glover are the same person. Definitely an oh s**t moment considering I'm a fan of both Donald and Childish Gambino for awhile before that.
TheWorldOne Report
You know how people say you're supposed to hold chopsticks like you hold a pen? Well, when I was like 7 years old and went back to Taiwan with my family, I was thoroughly mocked by my dad's family for holding my chopsticks wrong. A very confused extra chibi version of me was like, "but I hold it like my pencil like I'm supposed to." On that day, I learned that I also apparently had never held a pen/pencil correctly either.(normal: hold pen between 2nd and 3rd digits; me: holds pen between 3rd and 4th digits)
Edit: changed fingers to digits because holy semantics. Also - for those of you feel that this resonates, the name for holding a pen/pencil this way is called the quadrupod grasp! My parents had let me write and hold my chopsticks this way because they were like, 'the darned child can feed herself so whatevs.' After the family started making fun of me, my dad tried to "correct" it - which just resulted in me holding my chopsticks the way they wanted me to during banquets/meals with family friends and I would do whatever I want at home. I still write with a quadrupod grasp, but I alternate the way I use my chopsticks now depending on which way helps me pick up the food better.
chibimorph Report
My name is kasen, and when ever someone said “case in point” I was like Oh cool I got a point what does it mean.
k2_ninjas Report
I thought of a second one. I was incredibly sheltered growing up. Anything sex-related was taboo and not discussed.
I was in middle school when instant messaging really became mainstream. I couldn’t understand why the boy I had a crush on kept laughing at me and telling me not to use the shorthand “cum” for “come.”
I didn’t find out for a few years.
Related: I genuinely thought a hand job was essentially frantically waving side to side with the palm on the penis and a blow job was - you guessed it - blowing on a penis until probably around 8th grade?
*sigh*.
anon Report
When I was washing my pets’ water dishes and then dried them, I thought, ‘why tf am I drying the inside when it’s just going to be filled with water?’
I’ve had pets my whole life. I have been doing this s**t for thirty f*****g years. Drying every time. WOW.
SmoSays Report
I always put my insoles in with the gel side facing up. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how people liked them. Then I happened to see someone do it correctly one day. Felt like the world’s biggest dumbass.
HeiGirlHei Report
I ate mangoes with the skin on for a while before I learned you're supposed to peel them.
commandrix Report
My father would cook grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast when I was growing up. He’d burn those suckers a good 75% of the time. When he’d drop the crispy, black sando in front of me, he’d always say, “Cleans your teeth.”
I was 22 when a roommate saw me burn a GCS. I wasn’t concerned and explained it cleans you teeth.
With immediate disbelief, he accused me of lying. Ratatouille style, I was transported to back being a child. A time when I believed my dad might not lie to me nearly first thing every morning.
I later confronted my father. He got a kick out of it.
OffBrandMark Report
I used to lace the speed hooks on my boots with two hands until I saw my linesman friend [speed hook his boots](https://youtu.be/1QwXnmu7wI0) like this. I was shook.
Eamonsieur Report
Opening milk bottles. They all have that flap of plastic that you can grip to peel the cover off. I've ignored that for however long they've been doing them. It took my mum coming over to visit from overseas, watching me open a new bottle and ask me why I'm not using the flap for a grip. I actually asked what she meant and she showed me. I felt like I was 5 and learning how to subtract triple digit numbers all over again.
Khlai Report
Not so much something I was doing but something that I thought members of the opposite sex did. I though women put pads on their body like a band aid and just kinda trapped the period inside of them. Girlfriend had a lot of fun making fun of me over that. I am a 21 year old male, for context.
bluefry Report
Grew up thinking that the toilet seat was supposed to be up when you poop and down when you pee. Have no idea where I got this from but it made for a very interesting conversation with my friends later in life.
xEnfant_Terrible Report
As a kid I never knew that saving in video games were a thing, whenever I looked at the menu screen I just didn't think much of it and just ignored it. After a few years maybe when I was about 11 years old, I started watching gaming videos on YouTube and saw that you could save your progress. Little old me was absolutely mind blown that Pokemon wasn't supposed to be played in less than a day and that I could actually save my progress.
anormalredditbag Report
I used to think just reading the material was how everyone studied, so thats how I did it too. I never quite understood why my grades were so low, id be like "I read the page, idk what happened!" until I saw my friend making flow charts and summaries and I was like "we dont have to do that you know" and he was like "nah, im just studying". It blew my mind how much better my grades got.
Edit: Bet you thought you were real original coming up with that username joke, huh? Bet you thought id never heard it before, huh?... Well whose not smart nooooooooooow!?!?!?! ... still me? ok yeah ill go home sorry.
anon Report
I accidentally logged my tips incorrectly for the first month or so of working at a restaurant. I’m not quite sure how I was doing it, but I ended up not getting taxed on a couple hundred dollars because I never logged them as income.
Edit: this was only on cash tips, and I have now been made aware that I didn’t need to log cash tips in the first place? So I did nothing wrong?
foppishyyy Report
Pronouncing hybrid as "High Bird". My husband repeated it to me in a Snuffaluffagus voice and I swear I had a Ratatouille food critic flash back to every time in my life I said it wrong. I was 33.
Alytris Report
Kraft mac and cheese. Up until a few months ago I would drain the noodles, add them back to the pot, then add the milk, butter, and cheese packet. It took forever to get all the clumps out.
Then I realized it would be way easier to just add the milk, butter, and cheese to the already hot pan and make a cheese sauce while the noodles are draining. No more clumps.
DidIDoItRight Report
Pronouncing Chik-Fil-A as Chik-fil-Uh
Never had one near me so mostly just pronounced it in my head that way, so no one corrected me. Once one opened near me I told the boys at work we gotta go try some Chik-Fil-uh!!! They still bust my balls about it.
Runs_N_Goses Report
Not entirely doing it wrong but did it worst. I HATED getting into the shower turning in the water and then splashed with cold water till it turns to a more tolerable temp. I ended up just standing in the corner in the cold waiting for the water to warm up. Until I came by a comment on Reddit to just turn on the shower before getting in and wait for it to warm up. And ever since then I have been doing that since!
Alphonse__Elric Report
I’ve been saying “hold the fork down.” I just found out last week it’s “hold the fort down.” I’m in my 20s and have been saying fork for years. I just wonder why nobody ever corrected me haha.
tuna825 Report
I took my then girlfriend to a fancy baja bucket joint in San Diego, and we each ordered a variety bucket full of shrimp, lobster, carne asada, chicken, etc.
Trying to be suave and playful, I went to feed her a single shrimp tail from my bucket.
She giggled and I put the shrimp in her mouth but held the tail... because nobody eats that.
And she bit down, I pulled the tail away. And she chewed... then stopped... then chewed once more and stopped, and she stared at me with a, "...da fuq you doing?" look on her face.
This is when I learned about "peeling" shrimp.
GiraffeTears Report
One day I was with my friends and we were talking about almonds but when I said the word they all looked at me funny and apparently I say it wrong?
They say it to where it almost sounds like they say owl. So "awl-mund" but I say it like the name Al. So I say it "Al-mund" with a more pronounced "a".
They thought this was hilarious, especially since I was with my twin sister and she doesn't say it like me.
Edit: they say it like "all-mund".
Dezbar Report
I used to brush first, then floss. Then my friend told me after you floss, your teeth gaps are still dirty and you should brush after. Now I floss, then brush.
ThinkOutTheBox Report
I'd been keying 1-3-0 on the microwave for years before I realised I only needed to type 9-0.
shallowblue Report
Well, to start off I'm male who grew up with my grandma and mom. So growing up I had very few male influences and I'm 34 now so internet sucked.
Anyway, when I was 12 my mom decided to move us in with her boyfriend. The first night in our new place I walked out the shower with my towel on. My step-dad says "what are you doing, you're not a girl". I looked confused and said "I know, why?" he then said "guys don't wear their towels like that!". I then realized, I had always wore my towel up to my chest, since that's all I saw growing up, not realizing it was so they would cover their boobs. I was so embarrassed.
So yea, long story short, I wore my towel like a female until I was 12.
831Golfer Report
Brake jobs are expensive, so I got a friend of a friend to show me how to change the shoes.
He didn't explain much, just focused on getting the job (that he didn't want to do) done, so I just watched intently.
When the brakes needed doing again a year or so later, I made a decision that would cause me no small amount of frustration for years to come: I removed the entire caliper.
Now, the brake line would still be attached, so I would work the old shoes out and curse and cry until the new ones were in place - all while hunched over in the wheel well with the caliper tethered to the car with a very short 'rope'.
Well, finally, my wife needed the brakes done on her new car, and I just couldn't get the new shoes into place, "JFC! I'm doing something wrong, I know I'm doing something wrong, I've always known I'm doing something wrong" and off to YouTube I went.
f**k. me. running.
The caliper comes apart for two lousy bolts, the part you need to work on can be brought over to the bench, and the shoes just slip into place.
kittenrice Report
I recently realized that the arrow to the right of the 'write comment' box on Reddit mobile, lets you skip to the next comment thread.
Noob_umbrella Report
Playing an N64. Now, it wasn't "years," only about one. I got an N64 for Christmas the year they came out with Super Mario 64.
Unfortunately, my family had splurged to get me the game and the video game system, so I didn't get a new game until my birthday nearly a year later (October birthday, FYI.) Until that time, I played the N64 by gripping the outer prongs of the controller. It wasn't until I saw a diagram of recommended play styles in the instruction booklet for "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire" that I realized it was much easier to put my left hand on the center prong.
Thewrongbakedpotato Report
When I used to check my email, I would go to AltaVista and type "please go to yahoo.com.".
Sketchables Report
"Fifthteen" ended up on a worksheet I made for Korean school children while I was teaching public school English there... Two years before I noticed the mistake :S.
Snuffy1717 Report
I say the word “buried” as “buh-read” not “berry-ied”. Found out at my grandmothers wake when I said “at least she’s buh-read next to granddad.” My family f*****g lost it and it gave everyone a much needed laugh. I just felt silly.
Edit: I don’t want to disappoint anyone but it was buh-reed. I’m Australian so pronouncing buried with a heavy buh sound like I did/do is kind of left field and ridiculous (according to my family anyway haha).
ZhenHen Report
Apparently I’ve been using a can opener wrong for 10 years, who knew you weren’t supposed to cut through the side.
Gooby_7 Report
This is perfect for the TIFU guy that didn’t know about incognito mode.
boxiie91 Report
When I have been separating the trash into whites and colors for 8 years just for Pam to tell me we don't recycle. Wtf.
The_Lava_Wielder Report
I used to open a banana by holding it in the middle and peeling it down traditionally from the stem after snapping it to the side.
Then I saw a documentary about monkeys. They open them by driving their thumb into the other (flat end) and push in like it's a button. The air bubble pops it out then they peel it back. Bonus - the stem is like a handle to hold it from. Not taking financial investing advice from monkeys, but bananas? They're onto something.
Grunvagr Report
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My mom has been pronouncing Massachusetts "Massa Two Shits" for years and no one corrected her because they thought she just had strong feelings about Massachusetts. 
I taught myself how to play clarinet.
When I was a kid, I was told that the paper that came on cupcakes/muffins was edible.
My mom use to refer to me as a “bull in a china shop”. Always heard it as “bowl in a china shop”. Thinking it was a compliment. At about 22 I hear someone else use the phrase and realized she meant “bull”, not “bowl”. 
I used to pull my pants down all the way at the urinal. 
I didn't realise I had to brush the BACK of my teeth as well as the front (I was a dumb kid - I blame toothpaste adverts) unto I was 15. Had 9 filings and a root canal. 
Travel frequently for work and only just noticed that most laptop bags have a strap to place over a rolling suitcase handle. 
