Your Mother is a Liar!

Don't take it personally. All mothers are liars. And I'm not just talking about perfectly acceptable lies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny being real or that mommy and daddy were only checking each other for ticks. 

"No ticks on you. Now you check me. Oh, hi honey!"

I'm talking about some major health-related tales of garbage that mothers have been spoon-feeding their offspring ever since the Ingalls moved on to the prairie. That really happened, right? 

Lies like these:

1. Put on a jacket or you're going to catch a cold.
This lie was a little more forgivable a few hundred years ago when we didn't understand about germs or the importance of washing our hands or routinely applying hand sanitizer every five seconds. The truth is that the only thing cold is responsible for is teeth chattering and shrinkage. Two serious issues in their own right, but at least you won't get the sniffles. 

I take hygiene very seriously.

2. You have to wait to go swimming for at least an hour after eating. 
According to my mother, if you eat and then go swimming, your body will immediately seize up into a full body cramp and you will plunge into the depths of the ocean never to be seen or heard from again. The presumption apparently being that the combination of food and water are some kind of lethal cramp-inducing cocktail. But the truth is to the body, swimming is no different than say running or a vigorous masturbation session.  And you're much more likely to cramp up while tugging your gerkin than you are doggy paddling across the shallow end. 

A moment later his body seized up and he died instantly. 

3. Don't eat any sugar or you'll get hyper. 
Moms have a clever way of making getting hyper seem as disastrous as say losing your arm in a thresher or coming down with syphilis. And sugar is the gateway drug to hyper-town. Except it's not. Seriously. Google it. There's been a kagillion studies that show that sugar doesn't cause anything but tooth decay. Now when that sugar is accompanied by caffeine, like in every awesome soda ever, then you've got a problem. But if you come home and find your kid free-basing from the sugar bowl, don't freak out. Take a deep breath. It's going to be okay.

Trick or treat, mister! I'm jonsing for a Snickers.

4. Put on a hat!
This is one of my favorites. According to my mom, you can leave the house completely naked during a blizzard as long as you're wearing a hat. The assumption here that almost all of your body heat escapes through the head. But if this were the case, we wouldn't need hot plates. We could just fry up whatever we needed on our steaming noggins. Heat escapes from any uncovered body part. Why right now, you could roast chestnuts on my junk. 

Above: Visual representation only of my testicles. 

Four Animal Myths We All Believe

History isn't the only subject we routinely get wrong. When we're not outright making up lies about who did what to whom, we're completely misunderstanding our aquatic, furry, and crap-dropping animal breathern. Just like in these cases:


4. BABY BIRDS

The Myth: If you see a baby bird on the ground, do not, under any circumstance, pick it up and place it back in the nest or the mother will detect your scent and disown that bird faster than George Zimmerman's parents.

The Truth: While anyone who has seen Juraissac Park knows, it's never advisable to pick up a baby animal of any species, picking up birds for fear of dropping your musk all over the infant should not be one of your concerns. This may come as a complete surprise, but most birds have a very limited sense of smell.

Think about it. Have you ever seen a bird blow its nose?

Most birds, in fact, rely on keen eyesight. Which is why the only concern you should have if you try to play St. Frances of Assissi with a feathered rat with wings is not whether the mother will smell you, but if she sees you.

Birds don't like that.

3. DUCKS

The Myth: Everybody knows three things about ducks: 1) They look adorable in shirts, but terrible in pants, 2) They can't walk backwards, and 3) Their quack does not produce an echo.

The Truth:
Well, I'm afraid only one of these true. And it looks like this:

Freaking adorable.

Walking backwards is not a terribly vital skill for a duck to have what with spending a good portion of their time swimming or flying, but if you were to say corner a duck in a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, you'd see that delicious fowl back-pedaling more than Marc Weiner. And you'd also have too much time on your hands.

As far as the other myth, a duck's quack does produce an echo, though it's difficult for the human ear to pick up-- similar to the way we can't detect high-pitched frequencies (e.g., a dog whistle or a woman complaining). 


2, BATS

The Myth- Lacking sight, or possessing the myopic equivalent of Mr. Magoo, bats rely on sonar (echolocation) to guide them.

The Truth: Those eye holes aren't just for decoration. And while many bats use echolocation as their primary sense for sight, all bats have sight.

Except this Bat.

On top of that, while all bats can see, not all bats have that built-in GPS we just naturally assume is a given. These bats actualy have better night vision than Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. So while the phrase 'blind as a bat' has actually no basis in fact, bats are indeed clinically insane, so you can still get your fill with 'batshit crazy'.


1. GOLDFISH

The Myth: Goldfish are the best secret-keepers in the animal kingdom, mostly because they only have a five second memory.

The Truth: While fish are as stupid as they are delicious, the myth about their notoriously geriatric memory is absolutely false--the result, most likely, of a couple of ichthyologists playing a drunken game of 'Your momma'.  

Goldfish actually can retain information for several months which, coincidentally, is about the average lifespan in my daughter's tank. So think twice before you go tapping on the bowl or throwing cheetos into the water. Fish remember that shit. And they carry a grudge too.