What is a little white lie you were told as a child, that you believed for too long?
I was way too old when I figured out a human couldn't actually get sucked down a drain or flushed down a toliet. I used to cling to my little brothers, and pull them out of the bath any time my Mum would pull to plug.
@RickiTarr The old chestnut "If you keep making that face, it might get stuck that way!"
Tbf, I was always skeptical, cause I figured if it WAS true there would be a lot more people walking around with stuck faces, but I still worried about it.
It was actually the scene from Liar Liar where Jim Carrey is trying to prove to his kid that he can't lie that finally confirmed for me this was, in fact, a deliberate falsehood. As that was one of the questions the kid used to test dad's magic honesty.
@RickiTarr My father told us that artichokes were "too delicious for children" because he didn't want to share them with us. We greedily asked him what they tasted like as he gloated over the entire artichoke by himself, and he said it tasted "like M&M's, but much better."
I didn't believe him, exactly, but there's still a part of me that feels unbelievably decadent and selfish if I eat artichokes.
@RickiTarr My mother got upset because I would use dish soap to make bubbles while taking a bath, and then she'd have to clean out the tub when I was done. She told me I was going to inhale too many chemicals and die.
I'm not sure about the science behind that, but neither was my mother, so it was a white lie that saved her some work.
@RickiTarr , my maternal grandfather was a jokester, but he was brilliant. Most of what he'd tell me was true, but every now and then he'd slip in some nonsense and I'd swallow it, hook, line and sinker.
Case in point, when I was a kid he told me that Eau de Toilette was French perfume which was made from extracting the target aromas from actual water from the toilet. I believed him for YEARS. It was embarrassingly my youngest daughter who disabused me of this idea...
@nick@RickiTarr Yeah, and my wicked mutha assured me that the demonym for folks from Maine was ‘Maniacs,’ which I announced when asked to introduce myself to my classmates in second grade.
(When the teacher asked me to repeat myself a second time, I felt the blood leave my face. Funny how you remember some moments in ‘exquisite’ detail, even decades later.)
@nick@RickiTarr And while we’re at it about Mom pulling my leg: before I reached school age; I thought socks were left- and right-footed like shoes, but (obviously) I could not discern the difference, so I’d ask Ma.
On countless occasions she took them, ‘sorted’ them and handed them back: “this is left and this one goes on the right.”Finally, she clued me in, leaving me to wonder why she didn’t disabuse me of this notion sooner.
@catdad@RickiTarr I despised this one with a passion.
I grew up living on a dairy farm, and when I was 7 at a new Junior school another kid asked if they could come to the farm to see their dog....
As a 7 year old myself I was not really equipped to explain it...
@RickiTarr My mother convinced us that it was bad luck for the coming year to leave Xmas decorations up after New Year’s Eve. As I journeyed into the world I really worried about all those folks who didn’t understand this. After many humiliations I finally figured it out.
@RickiTarr My dad told me that GB on the back of cars meant 'getting better' (a step up from L) and I believed it long enough to thoroughly embaress myself at big school!
@RickiTarr mom told us the most bizarre thing as children, "If you sing at the table you'll have bad dreams". What a wonderful introduction to the sinister non-sequitors of my mom.
@RickiTarr Not really anyone telling me this, but the long-standing dramatic presumption of every single thing you do is remembered by an entire town and 30-40 years after high school everyone in town is "hip to your nonsense". Good people get lauded, bad people get shunned, and thats how everything is.
And 12-15 years after graduating high school, I returned to my former hometown and worked at the schools that I attended as a kid. Nobody cares.
You can take that as sad and cruel... Or take it how I did: incredibly liberating.
For those who are on the fence after high school and can't decide if staying local or going abroad is going to be worse... It's all going to change anyway. So be greedy and do what you want to do.
Leaving home won't change who you are or leave your emotional baggage behind, and staying home won't keep anything how it is or make you any less realized than those who go. It's probably the only time that you won't have any consequences for whatever you choose.
@Cefr Honestly the fact that most people don't think about me, was very freeing. I was such a self conscious person, and it helped me come out of my shell
@RickiTarr Grades 4-11: Dork. My entire deal was similar to Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks, just put it in the 1990s.
Grade 12: Useful dork. Described myself this year as "social chameleon" who could move across cliques, but really, life after HS was scaring everyone I thought suddenly liked me. And the Graduation was the culmination of it. The silence from that point forward was all I needed to know.
Number of friends I was in touch with 2 years after HS: 0. I have no interest in changing that.
@4d3fect@RickiTarr a former lover was once told by her first boyfriend that Watermelons grew on trees and you could get a lethal blown to the skull if one broke off and fell on you .
She was from the Desert south of Owens Valley and knew nothing about how Watermelons grow so sure watermelon trees .
They we showed her pictures of how they grown and that they are basically tripped out sweet cucumbers
@RickiTarr not me but I had to fess up when my son was convinced his friend’s mom was the tooth fairy. 🤣 My brainwashing was more the religious kind that took until my adult years to fully unravel.
@RickiTarr the food ones are the ones I remember. Apple seeds, watermelon pips, cherry pits, etc., will grow in your stomach. If you swallow bubble gum, it will stay in your stomach forever. Any parent knows everything that goes in, comes out.
And banana "strings"! A teacher in junior high seemed quite certain that if you swallowed them, they'd get wrapped around your heart? We were all way to old to believe that, so it seemed not only she was certain but didn't understand anatomy.
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