As a little kid I’d already heard this one and knew the trick. So when a great-uncle of mine told me he could prove he had nine fingers I figured(being the sophisticated know-it-all) that it was another trick. So he counted his fingers real fast and there were just nine. I was puzzled at my inability to figure out his trick and made him hold his hands still. Well, the joke on me was that he really was missing a finer. I think it was the middle finger on his left hand.
The same great-uncle also bamboozled me with the old wive’s tale about how if you can put salt on a bird’s tale it won’t be able to fly, and you can catch it. I remember waiting all morning at his back door, salt shaker in hand, running out and never catching a bird.
When I was 15 and my little brother was 9, we were in the car with my dad at the drive through ATM, and I made some comment about how stupid it was that the numbers had braille on them. Then he looked at me like I was stupid and said, “Of course they have braille on them! How else can blind people tell which number is on which button?” I laugh, thinking my dad is just being dumb, and after a minute my brother says, “hey, wait, how can blind people drive if they can’t see?” Well, this was obviously what my father was waiting for, because he goes into this long story about how the bumps on the road are braille and it is so that blind people can drive safely. The story went on for about ten minutes, talking about how seeing eye dogs bark once for left and twice for right so that they know where to turn, etc. For almost a year my little brother was convinced that blind people were out driving on the roads with everyone else, and that any time you passed a car with a dog in the passenger seat, that was a blind person driving.
My friend’s uncle had a stepdaughter. One day she was playing around with his aftershave, she put some on the way she’d seen him do. He gave her a look of absolute horror and said “Aftershave is what makes beards grow!”. The poor little thing was terrified that she was going to grow a beard.
My husband’s (much younger) sisters weren’t allowed to have their hair cut when they were little, and so he used to scare them with tales about how your hair bleeds when you have it cut. When they were acting up, he’d threaten to tie them to the roof and let the birds eat them. They always loved going to McDonalds with him to get a “sad” meal (it’s the big brother version of a happy meal).
Well, any bird which you manage to put salt on the tail off is either dead or a non-flying species. Either way it can’t fly so maybe there’s some truth behind it.
And then in the late 80s, early 90s, my parents pulled this same stuff on my brother. Not identical… just mum musing: “Ah, the smell of patchouli coming from your room really brings back memories. You know, back when I was young, all the kids who smoked pot would burn incense to cover the smell.”
I don’t think he smoked much pot/burned much incense at home after that!
I don’t think this seriously injured anyone physically or psychologically but my dad used to pull this trick:
He’s put out his hand like he wanted to shake your hand. If you extended your hand to shake his he’d grab it and begin to pump your arm with vigor while reciting "I’m from the Ajax pump company. We sell pumps. New pumps, old pumps, second hand pumps, bilge pumps, blue pumps, sweet pumps, sour pumps etc. etc. etc. etc. this would go on for several minutes. While he rapidly recited every kind of pump he could think of many of which didn’t exist and were ridiculous all the while he was furiously pumping your arm up and down. After several minutes and just when you thought you could stand no more he’d end the tirade with “Wanna buy a pump kid?”.
I used to love that schtick. You never knew when it was coming. Sometimes you’d just be holding out your hand waiting for him to hand you something that you’d asked for and the next thing you know it’s the Ajax Pump Company.
Whenever my two young kids were in earshot, I pronounced Africa as uh-FRICK-uh and fragile as fruh-JILL-ee. (I think the latter came from a Marx Brother routine, but I’m not sure.)
I also told my young daughter that Drop Bears (an old Australian canard) were real creatures.
As a result, every so often, the kids would come home from school and tell me I was full of s**t!
My daughter is adopted, and she has known this from a very early age. Her older brother, who is not adopted, once asked me, “Dad, if I were adopted, would tell me?”
I replied, “No.”
P.S. My son really does use the subjunctive, I swear!
When my son was about 2 1/2 he first noticed an ice cream truck and all the kids running to it. He wanted to go too but we told him it was the broccoli truck and all the kids were getting great big bowls of broccoli. He immediately said he was not interested.
Fast forward to when he is 5. He comes back from visiting his grandparents, with the exciting news that the broccoli truck also serves ice cream! Oh well, we were spared two summers of begging and whining.
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. “Oh, no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
My favorite from Jack Handey!
Okay, IRL:
My brother’s name was Derek, and I told him how he got his name. He was born and Mom said “Isn’t be beautiful”. Doctor said “Actually, he looks like a dork”. Mom: “Derek, what a nice name!”
One that was pulled on me, quite by accident - led to a long line of bizarre world-views I had as a child. It might be something I would try on my own child as an experiment from the outside.
My parents attended university lectures when I was young and I happened in on one theological discussion about “proof of God”. Now, being 3 years old, I had an extremely limited vocabulary and I found the lecture horribly boring. I would imaine that I felt as if I were Paris Hilton at the ‘Innoventions’ section at Disney World, Epcot.
Anyway, there was a point where I began to comprehend a few words which I was able to memorize, though I had no clue what they meant. The statement made was: “The Sun is God’s umbilical cord to us”
I pulled on my mom’s arm and beged that she explain to me what an umbilical cord was – she tried to explain a couple of times, but I had no seen a birth and did not remember my own very well. Finally, she told me to hush… and the followed after a small pause, “it’s like your belly button”. AHA!
Hmmm, [The Sun = God’s Belly Button] is the relation I intuited via transitivity and stubled away in confusion. As I stared at the sun, and looked at my own belly button. – It led to some weird freaking dreams until I was 5 or so.
When one of my daughters whines about some perceived unfairness and asks why her sister got something she didn’t, I always say, “We just like her better, honey.” This might be cruel if I didn’t alternate telling it to each of them within the other’s hearing. And if they weren’t accustomed to their mother’s strangeness.
Offer a kid five dollars if they kiss the end of their elbows.
If they complain of being thirsty, tell them to drink their spit. If hungry, eat their tongue. Monkey heads are always for dinner. The bogeyman will get them if the don’t watch out.
When I was a wee little Nott (so they tell me) my older brother, in order to keep me out of the basement, told me there were ghosts down there. Next day, Mom asked me to go into the basement to get something. “No-o-o-o-o, Mommy! There are goats down there!”
My dad’s favorite put down was, “You’re a failure.” He taught me I was weak and clumsy. People, don’t ever do that.
