The LIES They Told Us when We Were Kids!

Remember childhood? Depending on ones age, maybe not so much! At 52 I still have a distant memory of being a rug rat. I was awesome, so my Mom tells me, and she should know - she is, after all, the mother of the most awesome creature this side of Heaven.

So, did your folks tell ya if ya kept making faces your face would freeze like that? Now that one must have been true. I mean, have ya seen the mug on some folks? Christ Almighty! Mom wasn't kidding!

My wonderful Mom told me not to pick my nose. What's up with that? If I don't do it, who will? Is there a cadre of professional "Sinus Clearing Specialists" who will handle this one for me? I sure hope so.

As a boy I was told I could "wipe" in either direction, but girls MUST wipe from front to back, and we all know why, right? What, is someone checking up after the event to be sure we are following our parents dicta? Not that clown again! Always wanting to hang around in the rest room with me. Puleeeezee!

As I matured into young adulthood, or allegedly "matured" although no one can prove it, I was given a whole new list of do's and do nots.

No kissing girls unless they wanted me to. Huh? How the Hell am I supposed to know which ones want me to slip 'em the tongue? Short of asking, "Hey, wanna swap spit with me?" the only way I could figure this one out was to kiss everything in a skirt and a few things in slacks (I think I accidentally kissed Hillary once due to the slacks confusion). Sure enough my Mom was wrong on this one. And when I tried this one on my middle school principle she seemed pleased.

Eventually I found a few who liked playing tonsil hockey with the young and up-coming Biker! I strongly advise every male to use this method. Oh sure, you'll get slapped a plenty, but you'll get to do a whole bunch of the "humpty dance" with some of them there cute little hard bellies.

Pay no attention to their protestations - as the movies of the 40's and 50's clearly demonstrate, all women want ya to take them in your arms and plant one on 'em - they just don't know it yet! Like Dennis the Menace used to say about Margaret, "Dumb old gurls!"

And then came the admonitions from the progenitors to not drink alcohol and don't smoke weed, and don't do drugs of a more "hard" nature. To that advice I asked, "How do I know which drugs are good or bad if I do not try them for myself?" Yeah, Mom found zero humor in that query. What a grump!

And that thing about LSD causing flashbacks is pure BS friends. God knows I spent the 1970's testing this one out. I did all I could do to get a recurring buzz off of something I paid for and enjoyed years ago, but not flashback one. And believe me, I have been watching this one closely.

Hell, sometimes I jump up real fast just to get a little light headed so I can coax myself into flashbacks. Try as I might, I just can't get 'r done, so that advice from our folks was another lie, lie, lie! Flashbacks my ass! I can't even get a hot flash, much less a flashback. My search continues!

I never got fleas rolling around the backyard with the dog. I never got lockjaw from having a cut I did not cleanse, apply copious quantities of antiseptic to and then cover with a bandage. Mom lied again, that hussy! Methinks she is just a control freak.

I never waited 30 minutes before going back into the water after eating. I am almost certain I never drowned.

And allow me to pass along the benefit of some of my acquired library of knowledge:

NEVER pretend to eat something you hate and then excuse yourself to go to the restroom to get rid of the food without swallowing it. And most DEFINITELY, if one must break the rule I just warned you about, DO NOT remove the chewed food from your mouth and HIDE it in the bathroom for your Mom to find later. FLUSH THE CHEWED AND NOT YET SWALLOWED FOOD DOWN THE COMMODE! DO NOT hide the chewed and discarded food behind the old radiator in the bathroom - Mom WILL find it - EVENTUALLY!

Never be an only child and steal your Mom's smokes. She counts them packs, ya know. Do not have friends over at your house when you are not supposed to and then when your Mom comes home unexpectedly ya try and hide them in a closet - you'll get caught and if your Mom knows my Mom, your ass will get tanned.

And most of all, NEVER go home and proudly brag about how you saw a girl in your class do something she wasn't supposed to and how you were so smart you told her "If you give me your dessert from your school lunch for one month I won't tell the teacher what you did."

Did y'all know that's called "blackmail" whatever the Hell that is? First I'd heard. I just thought I was the most clever little Bastard in the First Grade. Who knew?