» Trolls

Winding up trusting offspring
I enjoy spinning inordinately detailed lies to my children, and their friends, in the hopes I'll create some kind of oft-repeated urban legend.

The essence is to start with a degree of seriousness, and it really helps if you can throw in a degree of scientific-sounding statements to back it up. The kids quickly adjust from a "haha, Mr Muppet's having a laugh again" to "hang on, I should probably pay attention, this sounds important".

We were on a camping trip one time with a cluster of families. The kids all got glow-sticks at night time which helped amuse them and for us to find them if they wandered off. Of course, some of the younger ones started to chew on them: not good. The older ones noticed they could break them and spread shiny glowing liquid anywhere they wanted - lots of lols.

To stop them poisoning themselves and the landscape, I explained that the tubes contained two chemicals that started a chain reaction when they were mixed. The light was given off by a lightly radioactive substance that started when the chemicals created a cold fusion reaction. I explained that the tubes were strong enough to hold this highly dangerous stuff, but if it got out it could attack their DNA - I also explained the purpose of DNA as the building blocks that govern how your body grows.

Which is why the next evening, one of the other parents was slightly startled when, after telling his 4 year old not to chew on the glow stick, his 6 year old sister solemnly chimed in with "yeah, otherwise you'll grow another arm out of your stomach and your ears will turn into carrots"
(Tue 24th May 2011, 23:49, More)