Fibs....

I was watching TV with Lucy and Sadie last night and Sadie says to me-apropos of nothing-- "People shouldn't pick their nose a lot, because it will bleed. Right, Auntie?"
This, I presume, is some alarmist propaganda propagated by Laura because she's grossed out watching her kids pick their nose all the time. I happen to be a frequent nasal excavator and know for a fact that it doesn't induce bleeding. (yikes!) So, while I was compelled to reply "Hogwash! Dig on, Li'l Digger...no harm shall befall you" I dare not overtly naysay my sister. So after a contemplative pause I instead answered "Hmm. I don't know. Depends on what you pick with"

I was recalling this episode this morning and it moved me to think of those funny little white lies fed to us by our parents. I brought it up as fodder for office discourse, but Heather (who has a 3yr old named Hailey) insisted she never fibs to her daughter. I'm going to give her the bennie of the d and pretend she's for real about that. So, yeeeeah, I am just in awe of her then. I can't fathom raising a kid (or plural kids) without the aide of little white lies.

Two from my childhood immediately spring to mind...

The first one is sorta along the lines of my sister's nose picking lie. . . but grosser. I remember my mother saying, on several occasions, that excessive time on the toilet would give one hemorrhoids. (quick tangent: WHY is hemorrhoids so hard to spell? I had to rely on the Merriam Webster site to assist me. It's a really fucked up spelling--that 2nd "h" in particular. That's just needless..) I don't recall spending oodles of time on the toilet, but I must have been too poky for my mother's liking. And really, to be honest, if there was a Woman's World lying around, I am prone to reading on the can.

Also really funny is that on the rare occasion when me and/or my sister were being hellacious, and her standard "Wait until YOUR FATHER gits home!!" was proving ineffectual (I dunno, perhaps it's around noon and, with over 5 hrs until Dad's ETA, it just was not an imminent enough threat) she would make a pretend call. To the po-po. "Yes, Officer Smith. My children are being criminally naughty. Will you please come and arrest them?" This only really worked on me. My sister never bought it for a second but would let me panic for 10 min or so. Obviously she only attempted this a coupla times, because : a) it too was ineffectual and b) even I would've caught on if she pulled this frequently.
I suppose there were a thousand other fibs & ruses employed in my upbringing. These stick out in my memory because they were so big & ludicrous. The really good lies I either forgot or never knew about...