This one happened to me last year, when I was 18.
My class was out at the flightline looking at a C-130 (Those airplanes you see with the propellers) and on the tips of the propellers are painted black. So I asked my instructor why were they like that.
He said it was to keep the silver paint from flying off when they spun.
My response: Ohhhhh.
I don’t think I have yet to live that one down.
My cousin Amanda was a picky eater growing up, and one time she came to stay with my grandparents (she was about three, maybe). At the time, she could have lived on hot dogs if you let her, so my grandmother, who was fixing ham for dinner, rolled the ham up and told her it was a “flat hot dog.” It worked.
When I was little, to keep me busy while she made pierogies, my mother would give me a little bowl of flour and water and let me make slop. I announced to her that I was going to make some “sauce” for the pierogies, and she let me believe that we actually ate that junk on our pierogies!
Another story my father told me happened with my grandfather and his siblings. My grandfather is the oldest, followed by my Uncle Paul, then Aunt Lu, and then Uncle Franny. One night, my great-grandparents were out, and my grandfather was in charge of the rest. The three older kids managed to convince Uncle Franny that he was a foundling Polish kid from over on Polish Hill, and that he was adopted. From what I understand, my great-grandparents weren’t too thrilled when they came home.
There might be an explanation for this; children’s kneecaps are made of cartilage and do not ossify (becoming more conspicuous in the process) until at least age 3, but sometimes as late as age 9 or so.
My favorite so far is the sheep one, too.
When I was 14 I went to my first band camp. After a day or so, my lips were burning after spending the day out in the sun. I was at the “snack bar” at camp and mentioned to one of the chaperones that I couldn’t buy potato chips because my lips hurt.
“That’s because you aren’t eating enough vegetables this week” she told me So I ate as many veggies that week at camp as I could manage.
It took me about a year to realize she just was trying to get me to eat more veggies - and my lips were actually sunburnt.
When my now 20-year-old niece was about five, I had her convinced that I had heat vision. I’d take her to the kitchen and turn the dial on one of the electric burners on the stove, but not far enough for the electric whatchamacallit to ignite the gas; then, telling her to watch, I’d stare intently at the burner while surreptitiously moving the dial that last fraction of an inch.
Poor kid thought I was Superman.
I told my daughter a couple of odd ones. When she was very small she was continually afraind of generic “monsters” under the bed, in the closet, outside the window, etc. Every night we went through the standard reassurances that there were really no monsters etc etc.
One night I finally decided to try something else. She claimed monsters. I agreed. “Yes Sweetheart. The giant squid, huge beak, wriggling tentacles and all is right under your bed. As soon as you close your eyes he’s going to reach up and get you with those slimy tentacles and drag you under the bed and that’ll be it for you.” It sounded so weird and out of character that she decided the whole idea of monsters was total BS and we never heard that one again.
The other very enjoyable thing was telling her that I was actually a beautiful little girl when I was born. Unfortunately, someone kidnapped me and left this ugly boy behind and I’ve been stuck being an ugly boy ever since. I’ve used this on several kids and it’s always fun to watch them chase that logic around in a loop. 
I convinced my 10 year old niece that tofu is actually a meat product, just heavily processed like devon or baloney. Took her a few years (and some arguments with her friends that had become vegetarian) before she figured that one out.
You are totally. fucking. evil. :eek:
I love it.
He wasn’t coparing knee caps, he was just trying to get out of following a 3 year old all over the house to see stuff.
I don’t know if I had knee caps at that time or not, I didn’t check. I just thought he had something wrong because he had bones in his knees.
I do remember early childhood development which included the differences in their anatomy and physiology from nursing school. Girls develop ossified patellae by age 3-4, boys, a little later, at 4-5.
Nine is very late, and would be considered delayed bone growth.
When my daughter was 4 or 5, we were out to dinner at a seafood restaurant which has the (of course) fascinating tub o’lobsters in the lobby. For dinner that evening, I had surf & turf (steak & lobster tail). When we left, I had her going nuts staring into the tank…
…looking for the lobster missing its tail because I’d eaten just the tail.
I think she’s figured it out now (she’s 13) but I’m not 100% sure. 
I have two sons that are fairly sharp. But I had them convinced until they were at least 10 or 12 that I could change traffic lights by snapping my fingers. Even now, when they are Dad’s in their own right, I’ll sometimes snap my fingers at a light and laugh hysterically. Just to piss em off!
My nephew was taught by his Christian school that eye crud was angel dust or some other religious tinted woohoo. Since he was 7 years old and all about dinosaurs and bugs, I decided that there were tiny worms living in his eye lashes and that they made the sleep in his eye.
He walked around proud as a peacock that he had his own worms.
I also told them that I had anti-monster spray. I had a small can of air freshener and would spray it in their room before bed to get rid of the monsters.
Now you can actually buy fairy dust and anti-monster spray. Someone got smart!
http://www.monstergoaway.com/
Sometimes you really think you’re outsmarting them, but sometimes it’s them outsmarting you. My nephew, who was 6 at the time, asked me one Saturday afternoon if I knew who Squanto was. This being around Thanksgiving I figured they were going over the pilgrim stuff at school. So I told him that sure, I know all about Squanto. Then I started to embellish the story a little bit.
I told him about how Squanto invented basketball and how all the pilgrims used to try and play him one on one, but they could never beat him so they hated indians. I told him that Squanto walked around butt naked all the time and went to the bathroom wherever he pleased, and they just showed him with clothes on in the books because they can’t show naked people at school. It went on for a while, my telling on the crazy exploits of Squanto (his house was underneath Plymouth Rock don’t you know…). Turns out he was supposed to write a report for school about Squanto and thought he’d just grill his uncle instead of reading the book……….
When I was little, our folks had these friends our family hung out with all the time. Anyway, from time to time we would all go out to do something and the parents would bring all of us kids back to their house in their station wagon.
The father pretended that he had a cool new technology in garage door openers: you said “Open, sesame!” and a voice sensor heard you and opened the garage door. He demonstrated frequently, surreptitiously hitting the garage door opener button.
When I was about five, my father and I went to the hardware store to buy speaker cable to rewire our hi-fi. On the way home, I was playing with the cable and my dad told me not to do that, because if I bent the cable, the sound couldn’t get through. I must have been 11 or 12 before I figured out that he was lying.
He also told my sister and I that he had to skip the fifth grade because of “the Indian uprising” in upper New York. I figured that one out pretty quickly, but my sister believed him into her teens.
Never mind kids, my grandmother was gullible enough to believe that my father could turn on the cats’ eyes in the road when it started getting dark. (And, of course, he could)
i have a concaved chest (missing bits of sternum, etc); whenever children see and ask what happened i tell them that’s what happens if you pick your nose.
My uncle told this one, too. He was missing two fingers from working the oil rigs, and he alternately said, “That’s what happens when you stick your fingers in the fan,” and “That’s what happens when you pick your nose.”
I can’t believe I actually did this to my son, but at the time it was hysterical.
We had a swimming pool in the back that we let get very funky. One day we had it drained and cleaned, and discovered several bullfrogs at the bottom of the pool!
So, one night I was making some type of Italian food for dinner. I served my son some pasta sauce and shredded mozzarella, and told him it was frog guts. He ate it! And said, “I like frog guts, Mom!”
Just last night my five year old asked what all those “black dots flying around up there” were.
I looked at them and told her those were baby cows.
She said, “Nahh, baby cows aren’t that small.”, never mind that baby cows can’t fly either. She goes to mom, who heard my response, and asks her the same question and gets the same response (thanks mom, I owe you one). Daughter looks at the nats again and just goes, “Wowwww…, baby cows.”
This thread makes me want to have kids so I can mess with them.
I can’t wait to tell my kids that I’m 100 and my father is 1000! I love that one.