Parents Are Bastards!
Is it just me or do the majority of urban myths seem to come from parents making up complete lies to scare their kids into doing what they want them to? When I was eleven and my brother thirteen he inexplicably asked for an electric blanket for christmas (christ only knows why). In the spirit of fairness and laziness, guess what I also got that year? Get the fuck in! What eleven year old doesn't think that's a cool present? Oh yeah, all of them! Anyway, enough of me being a spoilt brat. To ensure we didn't waste electricity my mother told me that she once knew a man who'd fallen asleep and left his electric blanket on all night and when he woke up it had electrocuted his leg right off! I believed this whole heartedly until I repeated it in front of my entire, 13 year old, physics class and got laughed out of the door. Bastards!

It was this that suddenly made me realise that the story about the man who drank out of cans may not have been altogther truthful either. Apparently he kept them in the cellar and, unbeknownst to him, a rat had weed on the top of the can. Was drinking from a wee covered can enough for my parents? No. Apparently when he opened the ringpull he cut his finger on the sharp edge and the rat's wee infected the wound to the point where he had to have his arm amputated! Bastards! Canned drinks terrified the living shite out of me for years!

I wonder how much else of my childhood was complete and utter a-grade bullshit?

EDIT: I claim my five pounds for entering Panic Buying, Urban Legends, Shame, Old People Talk Bollocks, Shoddy Presents, Pure Ignorance and Lies Your Parents Told You all at the same time.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sun 8 Jan 2006, 14:13, Reply)