Megan Again: And If You Swallow Watermelon Seeds…..

Megan Again: And If You Swallow Watermelon Seeds…..
By Megan Wirts

When my younger brother was just a little boy he believed that there was an animal called a Meatloaf. According to him, this was a big hairy type of beast with big teeth and claws that people would hunt.

​ He even told elaborate stories about how he went out and killed a Meatloaf and then our grandma cooked it up and we ate it. Nobody told him otherwise for many years and when he found out that meatloaf isn’t literally made from a creature by the name of Meatloaf, he was...

---

...not happy. We all thought it was adorable,…..him, not so much. I’m sure he has forgiven us by now.

Every time I make meatloaf for dinner I think of that story and it makes me smile. Then I am reminded of how I thought for years that if I sneezed with my eyes open, my eyes would pop out of my head. I also believed that if you touched your belly button it would unravel and all of your intestines would come spilling out. Some adult in my life once told me that if I told a lie my teeth would all fall out, which also left me very distrustful of people that wore dentures for quite a long time.

After considering these childhood fictions, I decided to ask around and find out the silly things that we believed as children and  later found  to be untrue.

My own daughter, who is 12 years old now, told me that a few years ago she was convinced that an artichoke heart was the heart of some scaled reptile called an Artichoke. Very similar to my brother’s meatloaf confusion. She was flabbergasted when we ate dinner with our friends, who are vegetarian, and they not only served us spinach and artichoke dip, they happily ate it.

My son thought that celery was actually alligator meat because his Nana told him so. Why would he question his Nana? She probably told him such a tall tale because that boy refused to eat anything unless it was some type of meat for years! He believed it and he ate tons of celery. I call that successful parenting.

A friend of mine told me a story about how her older sister’s friend shared with her that if she brushed her top teeth, they would disintegrate and she wouldn’t be able to eat anymore. She didn’t learn the truth until she was a teenager and by then she had already had several cavities and multiple root canals!  Proof that sometimes, believing in silly things can be hazardous to your health.

Most of the time it’s all in good fun though. For many years, I had convinced my children and all the neighborhood children that colorful small rocks were eggs that magical fairies laid and would later hatch and a baby fairy would be born.

I made up this story one night when my oldest small person was the impressionable age of 4 years old. She had collected piles and piles of rocks and they were strewn about my house and they were taking over. One night I gathered them all up and threw them outside. When she woke up, she was very upset and demanded to know where her “pretties” went to. That’s when the “fairy rock” story happened. She was so excited to have all these magical fairy babies flitting about our house, she didn’t care at all that he precious rocks were now just out in the driveway.

 I had won! I lied to a 4-year-old, but she wasn’t throwing a fit any more and peace was restored in my home. Even now, at the know it all age of pre-teenagerdom, she still has special “fairy rocks” sitting by her nightstand occasionally. And I still go in her room late and night and throw them outside, just to keep the magic alive of course.

Many times, our own imaginative young minds create these ideas. We believe them because nobody tells us otherwise and other times our older siblings, parents, or other trusted adults tell us small fibs to keep the peace or so they can get a good laugh at our expense.
​
It happens to the best of us. ​