Yahoo Lifestyle "Kosher Ham Is Totally NOT A Thing" — 24 Hilarious Lies People Were Told As Kids That They Didn't Realize The Truth About Until Way, Way Too Late
Recently, Reddit user Successful-Eye2187 took to the popular r/AskReddit page to ask a fantastic question: "What’s a lie you were told as a kid that you didn’t realize wasn’t true until embarrassingly later in life?"
People's answers ranged all over the place, from standard kid misleadings to kinda cute falsities to downright hilarious lies. So, here are some of the most entertaining:
1."Mom told me that if I didn’t take a bath, I’d get a Russian disease called 'Ratchakokoff.' I shared that with the teacher and other kids in second grade."
ABC
"As a Russian that's the funniest shit I've read. 😭"
2."My third-grade teacher told us that grammar rules were decided by a bunch of old people in Washington sitting around the 'Oval Table.' My family still makes fun of me for believing it."
3."My grandmother told me that KFC was made from seagulls."
Aureliefrance / Getty Images, Niiaz Sabirov / Getty Images
"I saw seagulls sitting on top of the spinning KFC bucket outside the store and asked why they were up there. She said the store spreads bird seed up there and they fall through a trap door into the bucket, and the employees come out and get them every night to make chicken for the next day.
I'm not 100% convinced there isn't some air of truth to this."
4."That my attendance, behavior, and grades in school would be part of my 'permanent record' and impact my life forever."
"No one has ever asked me about any of that since I finished school. No employer has ever asked anything about any grade at any level of my education."
5."That if I didn’t behave myself I would be sent to boarding school."
"Then I read all the Enid Blyton books on girls at boarding school and desperately wanted to go.
Me: Can I please go to boarding school?
Mom: Don’t be bloody ridiculous, we can’t afford boarding school!"
"My grandparents made this same threat to my dad and his four brothers. The eldest brother eventually misbehaved enough to be sent to boarding school as punishment. Turns out he had a great time, and from then on the rule was, 'If you misbehave, then we WON'T send you to boarding school.'"
6."I was told every time you pick your nose, the nostril gets stretched a little bigger. If you pick your nose too many times, it'll take over your entire face."
"My old man is a bit strange."
7."I was told the Beach Boys song 'Kokomo' was named after our cat, Koko."
8."That it was illegal to EVER have the dome light on in the car while driving."
9."The Boston Fourth of July celebration has a mini fireworks show during the 1812 overture that happens an hour or two before the real fireworks."
"My parents had me convinced that was THE fireworks show for my entire childhood and I didn't find out I was getting sent to bed early until my 20s."
10."I was told that the alligators living in the sewers of NYC sometimes rose up through the grates on the sidewalk and snatched little kids away."
"I clearly remember walking around each grate when we visited family in the city, and my parents giving me that 'Nick is one strange kid, where did we go wrong' look."
11."I was raised Jewish, we kept kosher at home. For those who don't know, Jewish people who keep kosher are not allowed to eat ham (or pork of any kind). At school, I must've tried a friend's sandwich or something, but one day I tried school lunch ham and thought it was the best damn thing I'd ever had in my entire life."
Lauripatterson / Getty Images, Pop TV / CBC Television
"I knew at the time we couldn't eat pork, which was in my mind was bacon. I begged, BEGGED, my mom for ham and she kept saying no I wasn't allowed.
I tried behaving really well, and one day she pulled me aside and said, 'I found kosher ham, you can have it on Fridays if you keep this up.' So for a while, I had 'kosher ham' on Fridays at school. Eventually we all moved on and everything was fine."
"One day, I was with my mother-in-law, who was also raised Jewish and kept kosher. We were discussing how terrible kosher foods are, and I opened my stupid mouth and said, 'As a kid I got kosher ham, and that stuff was great!'"
"My mother-in-law looked at me like I was an absolute idiot, because I am. Obviously I remembered very quickly that kosher ham is totally NOT a thing, and that my mother snuck ham into the house for some peace and quiet."
12."I was told that my parents made illegal cat food with a machine in one of our bathrooms...I was almost 18 when I discovered it was in fact moonshine."
13."When we lived in San Francisco, my dad told me that there was a fog machine."
"Every night, the fog machine would turn on, and you know it’s on because you’d hear the loud 'toot toot' and soon after, the fog would roll in.
That’s just weather. That’s what San Francisco is like. There’s fog. The toots, yeah that’s the ships coming in. I was waaaay older than I needed to be when I really thought about that."
"That’s a Calvin’s Dad-tier explanation and I’m saving it in my back pocket for later, thanks."
14."Maybe not embarrassing, but my uncle told me carrots cure hiccups when I was tiny. Placebo effect, maybe? I believed it until last year. Never had a reason to question it. Funny stuff!"
15."My dad convinced me I was born with a tail and that the doctor had it in a jar in her office. I fully believed him for...way too long. I only became suspicious when he started telling my little brother the same thing."
16."'Fish won’t bite unless you stop talking.' I guess my dad just wanted peace and quiet, lol. I understood it more as I got older."
"Sorry to break it you, its not a lie. Your dad was right!"
17."Carp latch onto your belly button and suck your guts out. Thanks dad. 🫣"
18."'If you keep making that face, it’ll get stuck like that forever.'"
"For years, I was genuinely afraid to cross my eyes or make weird expressions for too long, thinking I’d end up permanently looking like a cartoon character."
19."English is my first language and I spoke it for the majority of my life. But I was trying to learn Russian from my parents — their first language."
"I asked my mom how to say 'sorry' in Russian. She was sorta pissed that day about something and jokingly said that sorry didn't exist in Russian. I spread that lie for years until I looked it up."
20."'If you swallow a seed, it’ll grow in your body.' That's the best scam that was ever told to me."
21."When I was 4 and my brother told me that Christmas Eve was the longest day of the year. He had me convinced it was a 25-hour day. It wasn’t until middle school when I was giving a presentation on 'the longest day of the year' that I learned Christmas Eve is a 24-hour day. 🫢"
22."This is pretty niche, but when I was young my parents told me if I didn’t return library books and DVDs on time it would go on my credit rating and I wouldn’t be able to buy a house. (Weird thing to say to a kid, I know)."
Paramount Pictures
"As an adult, when I was applying for a mortgage, my mortgage broker was talking about checking my credit history and asked if there was anything she should know about. I told her back in high school I lost a library book and to this day haven’t returned it.
So embarrassing."
23."I was told that the Velvet Divorce happened because the Czech Republic and Slovakia wanted to have their own hockey teams and win twice as many medals/games as they would've if they'd stayed one country. I just accepted that as a fact and didn't give it any deeper thought for years. 🤦♂️"
NBC, Alexander Spatari / Getty Images
24.And finally: "My mother would jokingly pronounce 'abnormal' as 'abby-normal' in reference to Young Frankenstein. I pronounced the word that way for about 15 years."
Personally, I thought some of these were laugh-out-loud hilarious. If you have your own story about a lie you were told as a kid, please share down below! I love reading them.
Or, if you want to share but prefer to stay anonymous, you can write in to this anonymous Google form! Who knows — your story might be included in an upcoming BuzzFeed article.
Note: Some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
