By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net (Rich and I did this in 2015; it’s time to open it up again in 2020–just send me a comment or an email, and I will add you to the list of parental fibs.)
Rich Lepore of the HUB store in Auditorium Park and I were reminiscing in 2015 about lies that our parents told us when we were kids. In Yiddish, such bull stories were called “bubbemycins” (trans: old wives’ tales).
So he and I exchanged a few and then Rich suggested we have a Blogfinger bubbemycin event. Sent us your favorite one or two, and we will wind up with a prize for the most fanciful of lies on the home front.
You can participate using a fake name if you don’t want your parents, living or dead, to punish you. You can offer a few sentences of explanation if needed.
PG: My father hated when I walked around the house wearing sox. He said, “Don’t do that—it’s against our religion.” So, although I never became a religious scholar, I did eventually realize that he was “hocking my chinick” –“chi”….like in pie (tr. annoying me with nonsense.) But, to this day, I hate walking around in my sox.
Rich: My parents said I would be up all night if I had a cup of coffee in the evening. Later I learned that I could sleep all night after coffee.
Rich: We couldn’t go in the water after eating anything because we could have a fatal cramp and drown. One day I snuck into the water after eating a Twinkie, and I didn’t drown. Now I don’t go into the water at all.
Kathleen Cluba: This brings back so many memories of my mother who I miss and think of daily. She always used to tell me to eat the crust on my bread as it would give me curly hair. Well, I’m pushing 70 and my hair is still very fine and straight and worn short. OMG, I look like a peach.
Ogrover: So many little ones to choose from like … Lima beans are just green mashed potatoes with the skin on … Keep making that face and it will stay that way … You can’t make a living as a Skee Ball player … oh wait, that one is probably true.
A Little Risqué: Don’t “make out”..You could get pregnant…oops I hope this isn’t too risqué.
—-Editor’s note: Risqué—Are you kidding? Many of our readers will learn something from your comment. I wish I could find a time machine and send your bubbemycin sample back to the junior girls at Rutherford High School.
Penny: “Don’t go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold!”
BILLIE HOLIDAY “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.” (Editor: Religious scholars will tell you that it is indeed a sin to tell a lie, even though it is not exactly in the 10 commandments. But there is that pesky commandment about bearing false witness….that’s a lie. )
Whenever it would thunder out, my Mother would declare God is mad because someone was bad…. then she’d promptly ask me if I was bad!!! To this day, I am petrified of a Thunderstorm.
When I first got my glasses, in the second grade, they (parents and the optician) said that if I wore them everyday I wouldn’t need them in the future. I have astigmatism, still need glasses after 60 years!
“Don’t go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold!”