Messed up things your parents told you when you were a kid?

Stemming off of the "creeped out" thread, I was thinking about the stories my dad told us as kids that had us terrified for ages, or crap that we believed for the longest time. I have quite a few but I'll just post my favorites that I fully intend to pass on to my poor Winnie Bug. LOL


The first one was the pregnant sidewalk (totally not kidding here) For the longest time our house in the valley had a bump between the two pieces of sidewalk (in the expansion joint, its caused by expanding and contracting in heat and cold) and I was very curious about it, so one day I asked my dad what was wrong with the side walk. He looked at me all kinds of serious and said "There's nothing WRONG with it - its PREGNANT." I was stunned and told all my friends that the sidewalk in front of our hose was going to have a baby... When I was in Basic Training, Dad sent me a picture of the sidewalk - the city had redone the whole neighborhood's sidewalks and the caption on the picture was "Sidewalk had its baby, I guess gestation is about twelve years." WTF. LOL

The next one was my purple toed, red haired uncle. My uncle Clyde was coming to visit, and back in the day before he went white, Uncle Clyde had FLAMING. RED. HAIR. I had never met him (I was about five years old, just getting ready to head to Kindergarten) and my Dad was telling me about Uncle Clyde. He told me Uncle Clyde was a really big tall dude who kinda looked like a gorilla (true in a way I guess, he is big and tall and has a flat nose from where a horse kicked him in the face) and had bright red hair and purple toes. Well, Uncle Clyde showed up and I opened the door - I looked him up and down and said "I'm not letting you in unless your toes are purple. Show me your toes." The poor guy was so confused and my dad let this go on for an hour before he finally came and told me Uncle Clyde must have fixed his toes and to let him in.

Then my dad told me there were alligators in the drain in the tub and they were hungry to eat little girls, so if I drained the tub, they would come through the pipes and eat me. I seriously wouldn't drain the bath water until I was like ten years old. Ridiculous but funny as hell now that I'm older.

Last one, and this one's a doozy...

We were all out camping and my cousin and I went for a walk in the woods, we were around twelve and thought we were big and bad... Well we found some really neat trees which are called "Alligator Pines" and we decided we'd peel off a piece of bark each to take home as a souvenir from the trip... My dad comes ambling up to us (we were about 100 yards from our camp site) and says "You really shouldn't do that."
Nichole and I were like "Whatever. Nothing's going to happen, its fine."
To which my dad responded "You don't know about Alligator pines, do you?"
I looked at him and said "Dad, I'm too old for your bull crap stories."
He said "No seriously, a long time ago, there was an Indian tribe that lived in these parts. A warrior named Dancing Alligator married the Chief's daughter and murdered her shortly after that. The shamen turned him into a tree and called him the Alligator Pine. On nights when the Moon is full he comes to life at midnight, and if you take this bark, he'll come after you looking for his skin."
I again called bull crap, Nic and I pocketed our bark, Dad shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, and we went back to the camp site.
Nic and I being big and bad decided to sleep in our own tent that night. There was a heard of cattle grazing in a field near by and I guess someone had accidentally let them out, because about midnight our scared little minds that really DID believe dad's story heard a cow moo'ing and flipped out - then one of the cattle brushed up against our tent, we were so terrified we ran out of the tent and almost tipped the adult tent over trying to get to safety, and the next day Nic and I went back to the tree and put the bark back where we got it.

So, tell me the crazy things your parents / grand parents / aunts / uncles etc have told you that you believed for a long time, or just BS yarns that were seriously funny because its late and I'm bored and can't sleep. LOL

Also, you get a cookie if you read that whole thing.

[ravennr]

I found one of those expansion bumps in the middle of the road one summer. Nobody would explain to me what the hell it was for some reason, and I assumed it was a sign that the world was about to be ripped apart.

When I was little, I had really bad tantrums and anger problems. I would get really upset sometimes and sit on the floor and start hitting my head on the floor until someone answered me, I guess I hated being ignored by my older sisters, and my mom was always working. I'd cry for HOURS when my mom left for work, and my sisters hated it. So, my mom told me one day, that if I kept getting upset the way I did, that I would spontaneously combust. Not even kidding. She showed me photos of spontaneous combustion, and we watched something about it on tv once and she explained that when you get angry, your body heat rises and you'll set yourself on fire.
I controlled my anger after that, as best I could. I am still terrified of SHC. It creeps me out and I always think about it when I get really upset about something.

[Saeleofu]

If you snort snot up your nose instead of blowing your nose you will get a brain aneurysm and die.

If you look closely outside and watch the trees, when they move that means the world started turning the other direction.

When my brother asked my parents what oral sex was when he was in kindergarten, my mom told him it meant kissing. So then he went to school and told everyone his parents had oral sex all the time

[Fran101]

The story of the sand man scared me for ages, I mean COME ON, this dude sneaks into your room as you are falling asleep and puts SAND in your eyes to make you have dreams/go to sleep.
I slept with goggles on for quite a while lol

[Renee750il]

I don't recall any of those told to me, probably because I tended to blow off crap my parents said way early, lol.

I do, though, remember my mom scaring my sister when she'd do something mom didn't like by telling her, "if you don't straighten up you're going to grow up and be just like Renee." Apparently it worked. We're about as opposite as it gets, lol.

[smkie]

The little white marks you get in your fingernails are white lies. So what have you been saying?

[AndrewF]

Eat you radishes...it'll put hair on your chest. Okay, not the worst thing they could say to a son, but I haven't seen my sisters touch radishes in over 35 years.

On the giving end, my oldest daughter used to growl when she was angry. So i told her if she kept doing that she'd grow a tail. Afterall, dogs growl and they have tails. I then showed her where her tail-bone was.

She growled once after that, got a shocked look on her face, grabbed her arse and never did it again.

[Fran101]

People don't learn how to Waltz, when you find the person you love you will break out in dance like in disney films.

Lie.
SUCH LIES! lol

[-bogart-]

that there was a gremlin living in her purse named fred.

[Taqroy]

Pregnant women get that way by eating watermelon seeds. I used to have mini panic attacks whenever I accidentally swallowed watermelon seeds.

If you keep sticking your lip out a bird is going to come poop on it!!

Those are both from my Dad along with "I'll GIVE you something to cry about!" Thanks Dad.