A lie I told my daughter
I have a 10-inch scar on the back of my chest where my lung punctured in 1988 and things went pear-shaped. During my convalescence, my sister brought a snake to Wakefield to see me and I didn't get much better, but that's another story.

Anyway, I have an incessantly curious daughter who was keen to know about the scar. I told her it was a shark bite. Even constructed a story about how it was inflicted by the shark which was then frightened off by me punching it in the nose and shouting "go away, shark!" God, I'm hard. In my head, anyway. Worse than that, we even re-adapted Sing A Song of Sixpence so it ended "And do-own came a sha-a-ark and bi-it Daddy's back" (sing it, it works). The deception. Yeesh.

Shortly after her 4th birthday, in pensive mood (she was getting old), Az asked me about the shark again. I confessed it was a load of old rubbish. She asked why I ever told her that it was true. I said "er... because it was funny?" Her reply?

"Well, I suppose it is. In a way."

Oh, the maturity. She'd outgrown B3ta before it was even started, and before she'd even started school. Bless.

Oh yeah, and my mother maintains that curry is bad for you. I'm going to die in the middle of next week if that one's true. Goodbye cruel world.
( sp3ccylad carries on breathing all the way up to, say, Wed 14 Jan 2004, 21:03, Reply)