Lies My Parents Told Me

Every time I sneeze, I fight the urge to close my eyes. Odd right? When I was younger, I was told that if you sneeze with your eyes open, they'll fall out. While I assume most children would be horrified by this idea, I was rather fascinated by it. Over the course of my life I have tried to to prove this theory false. Even at 32, I am still trying to stop my eyes from involuntarily shutting during a sneeze. Could you imagine the looks people would give you if you sneezed your eyeball out of its socket?

I blame my parents for this behavior. Much like all parents, my mother and father told me the dumbest things when I was a child. Part of me wonders if it was a tool they used to deal with such an ostentatious child. In reality, my parents are assholes just like me, always seeing what outlandish idea they can make people believe. So for all you gulla-bulls out there that I have tricked before, you can blame Doug and Virgina Huckaby. And if you are want to give them a piece of your mind, their email address is ADHuckaby@gmail.com. I'm sure they would love to hear about the terror they created.

Not every lie my parents told me were believable. How could Santa always be watching? There was no documented evidence that supported this. Too much television was apparently not bad for my eyes. They just got tired of watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. (On a side note: Anybody ever notice how incredibly homoerotic that show is? Seriously. He "held aloft" his "magic sword"? Who says stuff like that? And I know it's not just me. I even had this conversation with my friend Kathy. I challenge you to turn on your Netflix, find He-Man, and watch one episode. You can even choose which one. Let me know how that turns out for you)

Being the inquisitive child that I was, I started conducting my own experiments to see if there was any truth to these loads of BS my parents would tell me. For example:

1.) Refrigerator Man- I use to keep the refrigerator door open all the time. My mother told me once that there was a little man that lived in our refrigerator that gets mad when we leave the door open. To which I responded, "Wouldn't he get mad at us for locking him in there?" I did go looking for said man, once. I don't know if it was more out of curiosity or fear that he would eat my Snicker Eggs. After three long hours, and one broken refrigerator, it turns out that there was no little man in the refridgerator afterall.

2.) The Pee Shower- I must admit, no child wants to be urinated on. I don't know if that is true for all adults, but that is an entirely other subject that I wish not to get into at this time. For myself, the idea of being covered in urine does not sound appealing. However, there was one time in my life I was willing to sacrifice my comfort in the name of science. I was 8 years old, and my mother told me that if I pee in the shower, it will come right back out of the shower head. After long hours of telling myself she was wrong, I tested it. Turns out she was wrong. Which I have to say, it was a good thing, because had she been right, I would have had a mouthful of pee. No good can come from that.

3.) It's Chicken- I asked a lot of questions as a child. Particularly about food cooked by my Cajun relatives. Whenever I was about to eat something and knew nothing about it, I would ask my father what it was. His go to answer, "It's Chicken." While I admit to believing him the first few times, I did catch on pretty quick. Chicken never changed color, texture, or flavor. It was only until later in life that I learned exactly what I had consumed. I am here to tell you that: Raccoon, Squirrel, Coyote, Alligator and Snake do not taste like Chicken.

4.) It will stay that way- Your parents ever tell you if you make a face or cross your eyes for too long it will stay that way? Mine did. I think they just wanted me to stop making faces at people in public. It didn't really help. I tried to get my eyes to stay crossed for the longest time. I thought it would be hilarious.

I will admit, there were some lies that I should have known where not true. Like what kind of logic is there to the crust of the bread has all the vitamins?  And yes I was a little naive to think I was going to grow a watermelon inside me because I ate the seeds. The Tooth Fairy has to be my favorite lie I should have seen through. When you get $5 from the Tooth Fairy, and your friend gets 50 cents, that should be your first sign. Or when your parents tell you the Tooth Fairy was quote "too tired and left your money on the kitchen table," that's just a poor work ethic, and she would loose her job.

I do have to hand it to my parents. They did feed me a lot of bullshit over the years. And some of it I believed all the way up to my 30's. That's right. Even I can be fooled every now and again.

For my final thought, I would like to direct this to my friends with children. Be careful about the things you tell your children. Hopefully you have a child that is forgiving or even a child that will pass on these lies to their children like some type of honored tradition. But pray you don't have any children like me, for I am plotting my moment for when the tables will turn and I get to show my parents just what type of trickster they have raised.