Is it normal my dad used to tell me this as a kid?
When i was a kid, we lived in a house near the end of a street which connected to a busy road.
When i was playing in the street, my dad would tell me not to cross the main road, because there was a bad man at the other side who would catch kids and put them in a bag, take them home and eat them.
He also told me not to touch the oil tank or it would explode, and not to touch the water heater switch because the house would blow up.
Ps. It worked.