Kids will believe all sorts of things – it’s part of their charm, really. And although you want to be careful about establishing (and not losing) trust between you and your children, parents have made a sport out of telling the tallest of tales to their littles just to see what they’ll believe.

Most of the time it’s all in good fun and the memories on both sides are fond, but these 12 adults really swallowed some big ol’ hooks!

12. Quite a sales pitch.

When I was in elementary school, the orchestra teacher was trying to convince me to join up. He told me that, when I grew up, jobs would ask me what instrument I played and nobody would hire me if I didn’t play one. So I joined the orchestra and learned to play the violin.

So far, no job interview has asked me to play anything. Good thing, too. I was always horrible at it. If my employment as a web developer depended on how well I could play the violin, I’d be permanently unemployed.

11. Such high hopes were dashed, too.

Woke up on April 1st, walked into the living room where my dad handed me a “smart pill” and said “here you go, you’ll never have to go to school or do homework again”.

10. Older siblings are just the best.

I believed a lot of things my older brother told me but I think the worst was that Venus was pronounced with a P instead of a V. I thought I was funny because it had the word “pee” in it.

9. Sounds reasonable.

My stepbrother told me that a power plant was a cloud factory to make clouds artificially.

I believed him because I had heard of the artificial snow machines that ski resorts have, and figured it wasn’t unreasonable to believe there was a machine to make artificial clouds as well.

I was 13 when I said “the clouds factory is off, no wonder there’s no clouds around” in front of my dad and he laughed about it for like 30 minutes.

I still get crap for it today.

8. Kids are hilarious.

We were learning about the digestive system in elementary school, like maybe fifth grade or something. Using the correct terms for things, big words for fifth grade. Well my dad is a doctor in that area, so he came in to give a talk and presentation about it and answer questions. And he agrees to do a little verbal quiz for the class after, so he asks some sample questions the teacher has written, and he asks,

“What’s the big word for what we do with food before we swallow it?”

And a kid screams, “MASTURBATE.”

My dad absolutely lost it. Purple from laughing so hard. I still have no idea if the kid made a mistake or totally did it to be funny (success!), but my dad never forgets it. He managed to stammer out “Masticate. Yes, you masticate your food,” but still laughs about it years later.

7. The best type of dad comment.

That the car farts. Whenever we were on road trips, our car would make this sound every now and again and my dad would say it’s the car farting. That it just had to release them now and again like we do.

This was hysterical to all of us and we would laugh and laugh.

I was 14 and learning to drive when I found out it was….rumble strips. And my dad was just trying to brighten the atmosphere on long car trips.

6. So very well.

My brother told me Eeyore’s name in Winnie the Pooh was Jacka$$. Then a few years later in grade 3 someone tried correcting me and I was like, “Uh no, it’s Jacka$$”.

This went over well with my teacher at the time.

5. You should thank her.

My mom would be the official “poison inspector” and eat a few fries from the bag to make sure it was safe to eat.

Such a sacrifice.

4. How to get kids to shut up.

When I was 5 or so, I was going in my grandparents’ car and noticed they were speeding slightly (like, 75 km/h om a 70 road). Being the well-behaved kid I was (still am?), I kept complaining to my grandfather about it. After a while, he got tired of me and “explained” that the display was incorrect due to the fact that he had winter tires on, at which point I promptly shut up.

Probably one of his favourite memories, it feels like he mentions it every time our families meet up 🙂

3. Some things never change.

My Boy Scout leader told me the troop next to us had dehydrated water pills and a bacon stretcher. He told me to go ask to borrow then. I did and they looked at me like I was an idiot.

I was threading pipe in a plant last year near a crane and the riggers sent their helper over for a ‘long weight’, told him that my project lead was using it up on the structure, and to sit tight he’d be down in a few minutes.

He finally just got up and left after an hour. I sent out helper over to the riggers for a pipe stretcher after he cut one too short. He wound up getting sent all over the place.

2. A new one, for sure.

That this old man at my Cliftondale after school program died because he was eating Hot Cheetos while pooping at the same time and it burnt his butthole until he bled out. He would haunt kids in the stalls when they poop.

All the kids called him Old Man Cliftondale(basic). Lol. That afterschool program was scary as hell though, I held my poop in all the time for that reason.

1. A classic.

Turning on the lights in the car at night was against the law.

The windshield turns into a mirror and makes it a bitch to see out of. I was never told this as a kid so I learned this the hard way.

These just cracked me up; I love kids.

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