Tao of Lunacy

When I was wee, we used to visit my father’s family in Ohio fairly regularly. We’d pack up the 1970’s VW Bug (not very spacious and roomy might I ad) and hit the road for at least eight hours. Part of the drive was on the twisting turning (and often foggy) mountain roads of Pennsylvania, where you’ll see the signs "Watch for Falling Rock." As a child, thanks in large part to my adoring father (no really - he was adoring and I was daddy’s little girl) I believed Falling Rock was a little Indian boy lost in the woods. It was our job to watch for him. My ex-husband found it hilarious I actually believed this. (Hmmm…maybe that’s why he’s my ex-husband LOL!)

Kids are impacted quite a bit by such harmless "stories". Even as we grow into what passes for being adults, something we heard as a child may stay burned forever in our brains, unable to be overcome by more logical learned knowledge. Most Americans have heard the term "uh-oh SpaghettiO’s", but for my non-American friends I’m going to digress for a brief moment (don’t I always at some point? I wouldn’t want to disappoint you now!) and give a little explanation of just what in the world SpaghettiO’s are. In order to provide the most accurate description, I’ve done extensive research. (Well not really. But I did go to the Campbell’s website. Campbell’s is the company that makes SpaghettiO’s (as well as the probably also very American line of well know soup varieties.) OK, back to the task at hand. From the Campbell’s SpaghettiO’s website:

SpaghettiO’s Original pasta has tender little O’s in a mild, delicious tomato and cheese sauce that kids love.

Think of the O’s as an alphabet soup letter on steroids. They come in original (as described above), with sliced hot dogs in them (ummm…Campbell’s prefers to call them franks I believe), and meatballs (that I remember being far tastier as a kid). They’ve added a few other nonsensical ones like "plus Calcium" and such, but the three I mentioned are the ones that have been around forever (or as my male offspring says - since I was little and dinosaurs roamed the earth). And for the record, plain SpaghettiO’s straight out of the can are my personal favorite…but I’m weird like that.

What does this have to do with Falling Rock? Nothing. ROFL! But it does have to do with the story my ex-husband’s father told him when he was little. He believed SpaghettiO’s were chopped up chicken veins. (See if you didn’t know what they were you wouldn’t understand a bit now would you?) Gross! But to this day he can’t bring himself to eat them - all because of the seemingly harmless story he heard as a child. It was always most fun to torture him with a spoonful of SpaghettiO’s headed for his mouth and watch him squirm to avoid being anywhere near them. Ah…fond memories of marriage…and who was it that thought I was silly for believing in Falling Rock?

I once worked with a woman who was told the incredible and miraculous story of how her parents found her in a trashcan on the side of the road in a rest area. Supposedly, they had stopped to stretch their legs while traveling by car and heard the small faint cry of a baby. On further investigation, they found her in a trash can. For ages, when they’d travel, she’d inquire of every rest stop they passed if this was the one where they’d found her. I’m sure it did no lasting damage, but can you imagine her little brain spinning away while they drove along?

I’m not blameless. In an effort to continue this intentional misrepresentation of facts to their offspring by parental units for their own sheer amusement (and YES I could have made that into a newly created disorder, but there are too many words and the acronym would have been far too lengthy, and somehow PLTOFF or Parents Lie to Offspring For Fun just doesn’t sound good), I told my  old male offspring (when he was just wee) the sounds at his grandparent’s house (which were just normal sounds a house makes) were actually the ghost (who I’d affectionately named George years before my son was even born) who lived in the ceiling. (The wall in my old room had a slope going up the wall for the dormer windows and it made for a perfect ghost apartment.) Even now, though he knows it wasn’t true, he’ll ask (with only the slightest hint of a grin) if a weird sound was George doing something.

Do you have any such intentional misrepresentations you’ve told your offspring for your own enjoyment? (Hmmm…IMFOE? Breaking News: IMFOE is the Intentional Misrepresentation (of information) For Own Enjoyment - yes by golly that works! Though I need refine the diagnostic tools for diagnosis as it really can apply to many situations beyond just our unsuspecting offspring. And so ends my rambling…for now…