Ep. 7: Hairball Awareness Day: The Lies Your Parents Told You

Speaker A: Hello. Hi. I'm Shannon. I'm Emma, and welcome um to this podcast. Doesn't exist. You're here. Thank you for coming. Wherever you are, wherever you are, your car. Are you doing dishes? Are you doing laundry? Are you at the gym? That one's for Joey because he only listens to us at the gym. You're still allowed to go to the gym at your apartment. You have to ask for slots. Uh okay. But, yeah, he goes to the gym every day but Sunday, so. Yeah, good for you. He's got to keep that bus driver, uh that arm that has to pull the lever to open the door. Joey is my husband, by the way, in case you didn't notice. Yeah. In case you didn't catch that. But that story will allow you to cross off one of the squares on our bingo card. Yes. Please note that we do have a bingo card, if you feel so inclined to play. Um i have a friend who makes a point of playing it every week, which I appreciate. Thank you, Jordan. Um every time you click on it, though, it is in the link in our Instagram bio. In the link tree, you can click on the bingo card and it generates a new bingo card every time. So you're not playing the same bingo card, which Jordan figured out. Little late game. I love you very much. If you have any questions, we did a little screen record tutorial uh that's in our Instagram highlights. Yeah. And if you find us on Instagram, please follow us and like all of our posts and make us feel good and validate me. Thank you. Yes, please. But yes, please play bingo. It is fun. I will confess that I don't play bingo because I listen to these. Emma has to listen to us a lot. I just listen to us on Fridays. The first thing I do when I wake up, I roll over, turn off my alarm. Maybe I check my messages. Maybe it's like the second or third thing I do, but then I play it. So then I'm like listening to us while I'm brushing my teeth, which is kind of delightful to think about. It's just fun. I feel like I'm hanging out with my friend all over again, which is kind of silly, maybe a little sad. But if that's not a 2020 mood, I don't know what it is. Seriously. All right. Well, I think that is a good segue into today's topic. Uh the last couple of weeks have been a little sad, a little heavy. We had some um stolen children, a missing person, unsolved uh case. So today I thought we would go a little lighter. We're going to cover kind of um a broad spectrum of conspiracies uh under the heading that I've just dubbed Lies your Parents Told You. Yes. Oh, I'm so excited. Initially, I said mom conspiracies, but mom conspiracy. We are gender and identity inclusive here on the podcast. So we're going to start kind of more ridiculous and lighthearted and get a little more serious, but nothing's too crazy. Too crazy. I'm very excited. Okay, so the first one, and I kind of viewed several list style articles of uh different things. Um listicles, if you will. So some of these ideas were crowdsourced from a variety of places. All right, the first one, which kind of made me just laugh because I totally forgot that this was a thing when we were children um on road trips and stuff. But Brown cows are the source of chocolate. I remember believing that for so long. It's so cute. Um and the thing is, I don't remember my parents specifically ever perpetuating that lie to me. Like, I don't remember my dad being like, but I distinctly remember. Is your dad French all of a sudden? All of a sudden, your father is French? I think the Super Irish, Mr. Mccarthy. I think that's just my generic sound for, like, general dad silliness. Like a Muppet. No, it's not Muppet. The way you said it became, like, the sweetest chef. Um anyway, we're off to a wonderful start. Okay, um so I don't remember my parents ever trying to tell me that was a thing, but I distinctly remember me and my friends talking about it in the car, and then we extended it to other beverages. Wow, you guys are serious. I don't know if we were just speaking hypothetically or if we were trying to convince younger children, I'm sure. Yeah, there was both. Maybe we had gotten the younger kids to believe that chocolate milk came from Brown cow. So then if we saw any sort of other shade of cow, we would be like, oh, that's a strawberry cow. Shout out to TikTok, by the way, for that one. Look at you, strawberry cow. I don't remember the rest of the words, but those videos make feet smile. At one point, there was a Capri Sun cow. I don't know how that would even work. Capri sun is clear. Yeah, I'm aware. Okay, child logic. I don't know, but, um like, cute. That's fair enough. Why? Really adorable. Makes sense to kids. Colors. Yeah, colors matching. I was never told that lie by anybody, but I genuinely remember sitting on the swings at recess and talking about the chocolate milk cows. It's a thing. I think there's always that thing. And you talk to a wide variety of people, especially across the US. And it'll be like, Remember how we all used to do those S with the three lines on top? I'm very aware because I have an S at the start of my name. That's true. It was very clear. I don't have any SS in my name. First, middle or last? Wait, no, that's a lie. My middle name has an S. Yeah. I was like, Ma'am, uh excuse me. How do you spell? If you want to guess what my middle name is, go right ahead. Or if you know her middle name, please make fun of her. The next time you talk to her. Uh i can't spell. That's why I have two degrees in a language I already know. Um yeah. I don't remember ever being told that lie, but I remember believing it. And it being because I went to multiple elementary schools as a military kid. It's one of those cultural osmosis things. Yes. The s that you would draw uh uh was that game down by the banks of the hanky pants, like you would be in a circle. Yeah, there were different lines, but it was always the same concept. Okay, but let me read you this. That obviously no second grader ever considered in our life. By this logic, Brown cows equal milk. Chopping milk would not normal milk have black specks in it. Like Doradiyosella what Dotty Estella? It's like fancy gelato. That's chocolate chip uh gelato. Um italian. Oh, I've never heard of that. I mean, I'm probably saying it wrong, but, I mean, it sounds great, but that is true. Yes, it is. As far as the logic goes. You're right. We just never considered it. I think it might have to do something with marketing of like, we just assume that all cows are, like white with black spots. And then the minute that you're introduced to a cow of a different color, you would then be like, oh, so they must make different. You just assume that the original is decal. All right, so it makes sense for children. You're ready to hear some unfortunate information. Did you believe this? Up until last year, I did not. Okay. However, a survey from the Innovation Center for US Dairy found that 70% of American adults think chocolate milk comes from Brown cows. If you're pausing and you're like, Shannon, 7%, not that big of a deal. You're wrong. To 7% of American adults is equivalent to 17. 3 million people. Oh, my gosh. So the next time that you make a silly mistake, just remind yourself that you are not part of the 7%. And if you were up until this point, let us reiterate, Brown cows do not create chocolate milk. No, please know that that is objective truth. Um and then would you like to hear a really charming quote? I would love to. Really tickled me. Okay. Um it is quite surprising. A spokeswoman for the campaign told CNN, we don't have a suggestion as to why people would draw that conclusion. Obviously, I never believe that. A very nice team of scientists just being like, we don't understand. We don't. Where did our marketing go wrong? We don't know. Moving um on. Yes. Okay, moving on from chocolate cows. Cows. Next up, I'm going to say a little content warning to anyone who might be watching or watching, listening with or near kiddos. Not because of anything bad, but we're going to maybe be talking about a little bit of Christmas magic. And if you need uh to sort out your listening audience, we'll let you do that. Okay. Are they gone? Okay, good. Let's talk about Santa Claus. Yes. So I don't really remember the exact age that I came to the conclusion that Santa Claus is the mythical being that we as children are raised to believe in many of us. I don't really know what exact age I stopped, but I know at least up until fifth grade, I was requesting evidence. I think it must have been around like, third grade. I'm going to guess that I started having suspicions. So in my little Christmas list, or on the note that we would leave out with the cookies and the milk, the normal milk, not the note for Santa, I would request Rudolph's autograph because I thought, oh, this will be the source of information. This will confirm or deny. So I want to say that my mom, aka Santa, put me uh off for a couple of years by saying that they were on a tight schedule or that they didn't want to get the carpets dirty in the house by having Rudolph coming in. I don't really know. But then finally in fifth grade, I want to say it was fifth grade. I got a Sharpie hoofprint autograph from Rudolph, and uh I think that kind of confirmed it for me because I was like, you were like, all right, I was like, this is Sharpie. I'm not. This handwriting looks like my mom, but I don't really remember it being, like, a traumatic experience or realization. But I think it was nice that me and my mom kind of like, perpetuated um the rude, maybe for a little bit longer than maybe it was strictly necessary. Do you want to talk about. Oh, I have your experience stories. Okay, so Shannon is an only child, so I feel like there's a little bit of that in it of like, you uh can do a lot of your own investigating. You don't feel the need once you find out the truth, that you need to perpetuate anything for anyone, maybe for your mom or for your dad to be perpetuate a little bit of the magic for them. But it's not going to be like, I need to keep this up for a while, right? Meanwhile, I have a younger brother. He is eight years younger than me. I thought you were just um going to stop at eight. And I was like, Am, I hate to brace you. He's not eight, not eight. He is like a grown human. He's 19, but um he obviously is much younger than me in terms of, like, when I was a teenager, he was still really young. And so um keeping up the Santa appearance definitely was a thing for our family. I will confess. And this is a little embarrassing. This is a safe space. It's a little embarrassing. I probably believed in Santa up until I was in freshman year of high school, and I think the main reason I did is because I clung to the idea of that magic. I wanted to hold on to that for so long, and you know how you know, but you don't want to know kind of thing. My family, I love you all. You are not secretive people. You are not good at being sneaky. So I would find, like, my mom had a wrapping paper specifically uh for Santa's presence. And I found that wrapping paper um right away in the closet, not hidden at all. But I was like, oh, so Santa um wrapped his presence here. I would create those stories in my head. I was like, oh, Santa wrapped his presence here. Obviously, he had to leave some behind because he had to, like, go, he was in a rush. And if they're in the sleigh, he has to be able to see which ones are for you and grab them and wrap them on site. Exactly. We can't label them all because there is going to be multiple Emmas. And he can't put my address on it because otherwise it would give away his system or whatever. So I don't know. We give it up now. But my grandfather, uh when we lived uh nearby then my mom's, dad, he's ambidextrous. And I didn't know this as a kid. I thought that was like Santa was writing back other letters. And my grandfather, who is dominantly his right hand when it comes to writing, but he can write perfectly well with his left. But it looks a lot different. He would write Santa letter in his left hand. And I was like, this looks like nobody's handwriting in our family. It's a perfect ruse, truly. Right. Think penalty. Also, though, like, parents band together in your little neighborhood group and just trade these. That would be so cute. I volunteered to write the labels right here's a sheet of label stickers. Everyone take a Sharpie and write it. However, love, Santa completely uh different than anybody's. Yeah. So there was some of that I remember, too, when I was maybe in, like, third or fourth grade. I had a best friend in the same grade. Her name was Abby. And we lived really nearby each other on base. And their family was German. And they had uh a tradition that they would put their shoes out on December 7 or something. Nickelode. Exactly. So it would be that you put your shoes out and you get a little gift in your shoes, or you get coal in your shoes and you got to figure out how to be better by Christmas, I guess. I don't know. I don't remember those. Krampus is going to come and take your butt into the woods in a bag with pain determines. Don't mess around, bro. I want to do Krampus so badly, I'm going to need you to say all the German words, please. Krampus. But yeah, so they had that. And uh I remember hearing about that and going, Mom, dad, we got to do this because obviously um Santa is in on this because otherwise he wouldn't be leaving gifts for Abby. And so my mom mhm was like, okay. And we put my shoes outside, and I waited the whole day. Like, I waited until right before bedtime. And I went out right to the front porch right before I was about to go to bed. And in one of my shoes was the most early 2000s thing I could ever receive, which was a dual calculator pencil case that was purple glittery and kind of clear, like this chunky thing. Wow. I was so impressed with the fact. I remember standing next to my mother and being like, oh, my gosh, Santa is real. Obviously, at this point, I'm in third grade. Okay, that's still acceptable. So this is still acceptable to be like, oh, my gosh, it's not 16. I came home from College. Uh obviously Santa's real because he wouldn't let your mom from finals week. You're like, mom. I put my shoes out and they're empty. Did he leave anything at home? Maybe he didn't get my change freshman year. High school man. Probably held onto that for a little long, but it had a lot to do with the fact that Liam was around. Yeah. Just trying to keep it alive for him. We also too, I think there was one year when we were living in Nebraska, and my dad. I don't know if this was by accident. I don't know if this was, like some abnormality in the actual carpet, but on one of the stair steps, it looked like a reindeer hoof. And so I was automatically convinced I was like, absolutely legitimate. He is real confirmed. And I remember having arguments in school, like, around the lunch table of the friends who were like, Santa's not really the awful, horrible human beings that those kids are. My children will not be those kinds of children. But I remember having those arguments of being like, he absolutely Israeli. Um you're wrong. I have been. I have a signed letter from Santa that is obviously Santa's handwriting. I just love kids because kids have no ability to mobilize beyond, like, a game of playground tag. That's obviously a generalization. But if everyone had just brought their evidence, we would have all compared, like, wow, Sam's handwriting, really. He mixes it up for everybody, but nothing would have claimed. I feel like people like us would have been like, well, he just wants it to make. He wants to make it special for each person. He can rationalize. His hand got tired. We would rationalize it incredibly. That's all I ever did. I will say in Joey's family, they did not have Santa. Oh, yeah, this was on my list. Ask about Joey's parents mandate to their children. It was mostly his dad, because in their family, it was all about the reason for the season thing, which is totally fine. There was still wonderful Christmas um magic. I will say their Christmases. We're going to their house for Christmas this year very safely. Everyone's getting a covid test, and no one is leaving the house. Do not worry. We are being as careful as we possibly can. But after this year, we need some family because we have not seen them in a very long time. However, going to his family's house for Christmas is the most magical thing. Like, they sing carols, they light actual candles on the Christmas tree, all fully safe. His dad always has a fire extinguisher ready. But there's never been an issue. Ever since they've done this, there's never been an issue. It's a lovely, wonderful Christmas. But as kids, obviously, they're posed a problem of like all these other kids are learning about Santa and are believing in Santa and all of that. And obviously, Joey's family and his siblings uh didn't do that. They didn't believe in him. But his dad also was like, you are not allowed to tell anybody that Santa is not real. You allow them to figure it out for themselves. You just enjoy the magic of Christmas and keep your mouth shut. I know. Hilarious. At the same time, I love it. We currently are having I mean, obviously we're not going to have kids for a while, but we're still having the minor debate of whether our kids will believe in Santa or not. So. Well, for um the record, on the record, San Shannon Joey is pro Santa, so I know I don't get a vote, but I'm just sharing my opinion. I'm sure my family would also be pro Santa. What's the point of having a uh podcast if you don't um just force your opinions on other alert your opinions out and make them absolute truth. No nuance November. Truly. All right. Well, thank you for those personal questions. If you have personal stories about how you realize the truth about Santa, your plans for your future offspring, share with us Please email us. Some um parents fear that lying to their kids about Santa will result in some really traumatic, like, rift emotional trauma, but research shows that it's actually mostly a positive that very rarely is one little lie going to cause your child to need therapy. Don't worry, they're going to need therapy for other things that you do. Therapy is necessary. It's just like going to the doctor check up. And then I'm just going to read you this um little quote because we got some science happening. It's just easier for me to share it directly from the source. Research in the field of developmental psychology suggests that such fantastical beliefs are not actually harmful, but are associated with a number of positive developmental outcomes, from exercising the counterfactual reasoning skills needed for human innovation to boosting emotional development. And that just articulated it in such a nice way. What we've been saying in that in trying to research and figure out the truth about Santa counterfactual reasoning skills, although how effective it was on Emma and I specifically, to be fair to us and to maybe tutor on Horns a little bit turned out to be fairly smart individuals. I think we're all like very empathetic people that care about magic, care about the magic of life. Counter to the two of your hosts, most kids give up on the roof by uh around age eight. Sorry, I was 14. So they're old enough to reason and to understand and figure out. And they're also old enough to recognize that some white lies are told for positive reasons versus younger kids. You have to blanket across the board, be like lying is bad. Never lie. Younger kids tend to focus on more basic questions. Where does Santa live? What does Santa look like? And older kids start getting a little more suspicious. Like, how does he travel that travel around the world? How does he shape shift? We don't have a chimney. So how does he get into our apartment? Is he a lock pick person? I don't know. Santa Cruz outside your front door. You know what? He would. You know what, guys? Santa real. We've decided. We figured it out. You want to wait before we move on? Wait. Okay. I want to tell my favorite joke. Oh, I'm not prepared. Okay. What do you uh call Santa's elves? Subordinate clauses. Thank you for my English joke break. You do not understand that. Please look it up. Don't even contact us. Do your own research. The only part of my English degree that I enjoy. I don't know how to move on from that. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm just going to jump to my notes. I may end up cutting this out. No, I listen on Friday and snotting. I'm going to message you. I can get very angry. Yeah, actually, I'll just yell at you from across the house. That's true. Okay, well, parents or other adults that interface with children your options. You can deflect these questions back on the kids. If you're trying to perpetuate the magic a little longer. How do you think he does it? Exactly? Or if you are kind of ready, if you think it's time, if you're concerned that your daughter is in high school. Hey, I never had the actual conversation with my parents. Just like I never had the actual birds and the bees talk with my parents. It's more. I understand it's kind of no. Well, so if you're ready to kind of bring it to a close, you can offer up what they've called uh in the article. Disconfirming evidence. So, like your mom's Santa wrapping paper, you could leave it out. You could cease trying to disguise your handwriting. I don't know if that was an intentional choice on my mom's part or not, but anyway, that was a very long segment about Santa. I will wrap it up by saying gift givers. You've maybe seen this going around on Facebook. There's a screenshot that goes around, but gift givers take credit for the big items. Let Santa give gloves or smaller, modest things so that every family, every child of every economic circumstance, can feel that they are seen and loved by Santa versus if one uh kid gets some socks from Santa and another kid gets. I was going to say a Game Boy, but I don't think that's a thing anymore. A switch. That's the new thing. You know what I mean? Boy, children will notice that discrepancy and, like, compare about it. The unfortunate thing about childhood is that it's honestly very competitive as a kid. Like, even mhm just comparing your lunches is so competitive. I remember the fact that I love you, mother. I love you so much. But my lunches as a kid were, like, whole grain granola bars and wheat bread with that kind of healthy crap that kids hate. And all of my friends had, like, Ho HOS and Cooper bars and Cheetos. I had a kid in one of my classes in again, third grade. He would make his own lunches every week. He had one day where he got to make his own lunch every single time. It was a Captain Crunch sandwich. This is how it was made. He would take a sub sandwich bread. Um so, like, split. Not even Wonder Bread. No, sub sandwich bread. It was a hoagie. And he would put butter on one side and mayonnaise on the other and then sprinkle Captain Crunch in and squish. See, I was picturing, like, marshmallow fluff and cast and Crown, and I was like, not nutritious, but delicious. That sounds disgusting. I do not know how this kid. I don't know where his brain was, but every week it was either Captain Crunch or it was, like, not fruity pebbles, but, like, the. It might have been also Captain Crunch, but, like, the ones that are, like, uh round colored Oops, all berries. Sure. I don't know what that is, because there was, like, Captain Crunch. Yeah, I guess it was just a Captain Crunch household. But, like, it would be either regular Captain Crunch, like the little squares, or it would be those round bears. Did he have anything else in his lunch or was it just that? Honestly, dude, I don't remember. He was focused on the fact that he made himself that sandwich salad. I don't know where you are in the world now, kid. I have no clue. I would love to know. He's like a Fortune 500 CEO, CS really high cholesterol. Move on with some more summer themed uh lies that your parents have told you. So there are two that have to do with swimming pools. The first that we're going to talk about is that parents tell you that there is a dye in the pool that will change color if it detects urine. Oh, I have never heard that before. What? I've never heard that before. No one's ever told you that. Wow. It's not true, though. It's not. But the good intentions. Good intentions because you don't pee in the pool. People will know if you pee in the pool. Yeah, but it's good to put the fear of public shaming into the mix. And actually, it's very effective. One organization cited that 52% uh of adults still believe this is true, which is a pretty helpful thing. A good lie in public pools. But it's not true. Contrary to the movie grown ups, I never uh seen that movie. I have not either. But I've seen clips clearly at some point because I thought, like, in your brain. Well, I had a vague awareness, or at least a suspicion that this would be used as a comedic device in some stupid movie. So I went on YouTube last night, like one in the morning, beautiful, and searched, like, pee in pool, die scene, movie scene or something. My web results are really weird. Is that why you texted me? No, there's something else later, but I just hate that uh kind of humor. What is that guy's name? Kevin James. Sure. Maybe I want King of Queens. Yes. Here is my fandom reference for the bingo card. Kevin James. You may be the television King of Queens, but the real King of Queens will always be Peter Parker. Okay, moving forward, that was going. You never do. It's a wild ride. All right, so there's that. And then the second swimming pool related lie is that you have to wait uh 30 minutes, 30 to 60 minutes after eating to get back in the pool. I remember that lie. And this, my friends, is a total lie. It's a tactic to let parents relax or go and get things done without having to keep eyes on their kids in the pool, which is good on you for keeping eyes, because children can drown very quickly, quietly, and it's really sad, so you have to watch them. But I get it. You've been at the pool all day. It's really hot. It's humid. You just want to lay in the shade and take a nap or read a magazine, whatever you want to do. The wives tale logic of this lie is that once you eat, blood needs to focus in your intestines, and that will divert it away from your arms and legs. That's how bodies work, and that'll leave you more vulnerable to a cramp, and then you'll drown. But I have a source, which um is from the Mayo Clinic. You know, the very serious you have cancer. And Dr. Boniface, um I think, is his name. Wow. Boniface. It's spelled like Bonnie face, but I'm pretty sure it's not Bonnie face. But he has a quote in this article that says, we um now know that really, there is no scientific basis for that recommendation. So while it might be slightly uncomfortable to swim, if you just ate, like, four hot dogs or whatever at the barbecue, it's not technically unsafe. So parents just enjoy the half hour, like, adult swim, where they kick all the kids out of the water and they're too busy, like, fighting over who gets the last two dollar ice cream cone that they counted their dirty quarters and gave to another child behind the counter like another child. Was that not your experience? I will say I am not a fan of pools to begin with. I mean, I do have a very distinct memory of being about maybe four years old. And my mom was a uh water aerobics instructor, and so sometimes she would take me. Why are you laughing? I just am picturing your mom and relishing in the joy of her enthusiastically pepily yelling at people to do their exercises. Genuinely, the majority of her wife, she was a water instructor, and she had different hats to wear for certain occasions. She was that kind of person. She still has some there in her costume. I am not surprised whatsoever. No, Mama Kay has some real good costumes and very good enthusiasm when it comes to that kind of stuff. She's a very good performer. But when I was about four, I was taken with her to one of these pools. I remember, and I had the little floaties on my arms, and I had just had my lunch, and my mom was like, all right, go play in the shallow end. I can keep an eye on you while I'm doing my muscle memory routine for these people. You have floaties on there to lifeguard all day. I remember swimming, and then my stomach feeling gross. So I went to the top of the pool, and I was just about out of the water on the stairs, and I just threw up everywhere. And my mom is watching this, of course, because she's in the middle of her class, and I remember her wandering over and being like, okay, I don't know what to do now as she looks to the, like, 17 year old. Can you help? You got to do it. That lie, for some reason, stuck in my head because I believed it fully after four years old from my own experience. So I genuinely believed that. But then I realized I just don't like swimming anyway. So fair. I can swim. I can swim. That's good. I don't like it. It's a difference. There's a distinction there. All right, well, we'll leave behind the swimming pool. Thanks, man. That you hate. I don't know why. It's fine. It's not like I have fire towards it. It's not my faith. Fair. All right, so next up, a myth that grown ups tell you, carrots give you good eyesight. They don't and shout out to one Elizabeth Steve Cobb for sharing this one with me. I was College years old when I discovered that carrots every meal. Hold on. Don't jump on my jump. You're literally halfway down my bullet points. I'm so mad at you right now. I'm so sorry. Just ignore what Emma just said. Erased last minute from your mind, and I'm just going to read my little cute peppy jokes that I came up with. Uh you know what? Do it. Do it. Anyone who has shared a dining hall or buffet experience with me, knows that my definition of a salad is a pile of shredded carrots with balsamic vinaigrette. And then the next bullet point is Emma's Spanish nickname for this question Mark. Yes, Mount zanahoreo, because zanajorios are carrots in Spanish. But I remember one of the very first meals I ever had with you in our dining hall in College. Sat next to each other. You came with one thing of chicken, and you've had uh your dessert already because you need rewards for yourself, obviously. And it's just enormous pile of shredded carrots doused in balsamic vinaigrette. And it's a delicious. That's actually delicious dish. Like, if you haven't had carrots and balsamic, you need to. They're great. Highly recommend. Very good. But when I looked at the plate, it was mostly carrots and balsamic vinaigrette. And, like, pork, peanut chicken and then, like, a pudding cup. I don't remember what you had for dessert, but I was distracted by this mountain Oreo. So after that point, there was no getting around the nickname. It had to stick. Yeah. So for those of you that might be listening that don't know me in real life, um I have glasses. So I always thought that was really ironic uh that I eat a lot of carrots and my vision is not great. So it turns out that this idea of carrots equal in good eyesight actually stems from some good old fashioned World War II propaganda. Yeah. I feel like I knew this. Oh, my gosh. Are you ready to have your life filled with joy? Absolutely. I mean, maybe this won't be as exciting for you as it was for me at 01:00 A.m., but while my main source of information for this um little section was an article from the Smithsonian, it pointed me to the existence of the World Carrot Museum. You're kidding me. I'm not. I demand that we go to um visit. Where is it? It's in England. Uh yes, where? I got to look it up. But we have to go. I need to. What on Earth? What's even in it? Is it just carrots vegetables? Also, the website is the most 90s things. Oh, no. Is it a black background? No, hold on. Loading background. Curls. Mt. Oh, my God. You want to have my mom bar thing? I just. Uh okay, I'm going to show Emma, and then I'll put a screenshot on the Instagram. But look at it. Oh, my God, it's so lovely, but simple. It's delightful. It's great. The World Carrot Museum doesn't say where it is because I want to shout them out. I'm looking. I'm looking. They're on Twitter at Carrot um Museum. There's a link to um ask a carrot question. I'm sorry. Okay, let me ask. Wait, are we asking the carrot the question? Okay, wait. Okay, so there is an actual Museum. There's a ground plan on the website. They haven't built it. Well, maybe they haven't of it. I don't know. Um oh, my God. I'm trying to figure it out. There's so much going on. Okay, let me look it up on Google Maps. So it's in Crosshills Keiley like K-E-I-G-H-L-E-Y. Sounds like Kaylee. Okay, uh so unclear if it's just a source of information or an actual Museum, but if it's an actual Museum, we need to go. Absolutely. Is it close to any cities that we would be able to fly into? Let me Zoom right on out. Is it in, like, Northern England? No, it appears to be uh close to Leeds. Maybe it's somebody's house, but they have a ground plan, so I don't quite know. That's fairly Northern now, but anyway, that was a tangent, but I was just really tickled pink um by the existence of the world. Carrot music. That's lovely. It truly is. All right, but back to World War II. Yes, sorry. And the carrots themselves. So the Royal Air carrots themselves, the Royal Air Force of Great Britain was testing out a new system. The onboard. Nope, um gone. The onboard airborne interception radar, or AI. And to attempt to deflect the increased success of the RAF, the Ministry of Information spread a campaign indicating that their pilot's increased accuracy was actually just because they ate a lot of carrots and leafy green vegetables. Liars. I mean, it was war time. It's a great lie, though. However, there are no indications that any Nazis um actually believed this, but it really did become like a cultural moment, if you will. There were campaigns that promoted eating your vegetables. I'm going to show Emma one, but it'll be on the Instagram. But what's happening? I um think this woman and her child told me to see in the blackout. Yeah. They liked out and the raids were happening and the pregnancy children were being sent to the countryside and all this stuff into Nania. Yes, there were slogans such as, Wasting food is as good um as giving it to Adolf. Wow. She's not carrot specific, but more time. It was very serious. And then here's some more joy for you. Okay. The British Ministry of Food, which I just love that they have a Ministry of everything. God bless. We have the Department of Agriculture. A Department uh is boring. That's fair. A Ministry of Food. Just God bless. They launched a Dig for Victory campaign, so encouraging people to create victory garden to get them to eat a lot more vegetables because vegetables were never rationed during the war like other meats or the sugar or fat. So part of this Dig for Victory campaign, they created these cartoon mascots named Dr. Carrot. Oh, no. And Potato Pete. Potato Pet. Yes. Hold on. That was way too high. I don't know where that came from. No, but it was necessary. So I'm going to show you this photo again. It'll be on the Instagram, but just look at them. How precious. Okay, they're a little creepy. Don't go too hard. I'm not sensing creep. It's more of. They look like they're can can dancers a little bit. They are kind of Fosse high styling. Yes. Thank you. Fosse. That is where I have a degree in musical uh theater. All right. And then there's a little jingle, which I would recommend. Maybe we'll cut this part out of the recording, but I want you to listen to it now, but then we can pull this clip. Okay. I fully appreciate this woman singing this jingle because not only is it perfect in very 40s. Absolutely wonderful radio, but the note she has to hit for this. I don't know what you're talking about. Potato peat is now my new audition. Imagine I go in, I'm like, hello, my name is Shannon McCarthy. I'll be auditioning for the role of Veronica Sawyer in Heather's Day. That's so great. So the truth of this carrot propaganda is um that the vitamin A in the form of beta carotene is found in carrots, can help maintain uh your eye health. And it's even improved the eye health of those that have really terrible, like malnutritious or malnourished. People who have not had vitamins in their diet. It helps their eyesight improve. But your average person in a first world country, eating a normal diet doesn't do that. I'm not going to be able to lose these glasses or unless you got some severe serious LASIK. Well, yeah, but carrots are not it, and I'm not going to develop night vision, so there's that. Uh all right. Also on the topic of, I was going to say eating, but that's not quite the right term. Um anyway, here's my segue. Emma. Yes. When was Valentine's um you, as a grown human adult person, chewed bulgum like bubblegum. Oh, that is an amazing question. I have no recollection. Right. But, you know, at some point, you got down with some bubble gum. Oh, heck, yes. But I have to get that, like, goose on the front. I don't know what it was. I got dumped up. It still doesn't make sense. It doesn't. But I remember the big League chew stuff. I loved that. But it was like, within two minutes of chewing it, it just becomes hard. We'll see. Bubblegum didn't become hard right away. It just lost flavor. There was no flavor after that, which meant that you would just eat another piece of, like, grape or whatever. But you just have a giant mouthful of very sticky gum. I could never blow a bubble. What? Uh i'm so sorry. I got one. But probably because of your jaw alignment. Yeah. There's something weird that Marsh Tom always yelled at you about. You know, I tried. I opened my mouth. We tried. So the common playground lorefromparents is that if you swallow your gum, it'll stay in your stomach for seven years. Okay. I truly believe this. I believe this. Well, Emma, I have good news for you. Scientific American says that this bit of folklore of unknown origin but almost universal renown has little basis in fact. Okay, great. I just love that even they acknowledge they're like we don't know who came up with this, but everyone knows it. But everybody talks about it. Yeah. So here's your big word of the day shout out to Grace anatomy for hopefully uh getting me to say this right. Gastroenterologists state that they see no evidence of any abandoned gum during routine colonoscopies and other procedures where they're up in your intestines checking stuff out. Lovely. So that's good. That's good to uh know. And apparently usually items the size of a quarter or smaller in your average healthy person, items of that size will just pass through without a problem. If they're bigger than um that's when you might get into some issues but most gum is totally fine. I don't know if it was me or if it was Liam but one of us um swallowed a Penny. My mom freaked out because she thought that it would stay in our system forever. She was genuinely a little scared she would have been permanently uh lucky. I guess every time I jump, it flips. That sounds like a children's picture book. It does. I like that, mom. If you eventually ever listen to these because currently she doesn't. I know she's busy, but if you ever listen to these can you please confirm whether or not it was me or Liam or if that's something that I apparently ascribed to myself that never actually had a voice memo? Seriously.
Speaker A: So uh this is a random fact that really. I don't know, it just like, made me laugh at 01:00 A.m. When I was doing this research. I love that you were doing this, like, slap happy. This is it's. Nanorocks. I'm still at the time of recording it's the final week, and I just hit the halfway point last night. So proud of you. This week is going to be a.
Speaker B: Little at the halfway point.
Speaker A: Loopy Dupey. And I've been doing this story for two years. Hey, sorry. This is a positive space, all right? Just a little random tidbit. The Food and Drug Administration. So the FDA defines chewing gum base as a quote, nonneutral. I can't even say it. It's like nonnewrative masticatory substance, which is the most government way to say not healthy for you. Chewing substance. It ain't healthy, but you can chomp. Yes. Um so swallowing gum only presents a danger if it's happening a lot. So if you chewed and swallowed the entire pack of bubble Yum or Bigly Chew because it would all just long together, or if it's being swallowed along with other nondigestibles. So the article I read said that they saw a case where someone had swallowed gum. I believe it was a child because that makes sense. That children would do it more, but also had swallowed sunflower seeds, but with the shells on. So it had formed like a little porcupine in their body. But they were fine. They were fine. So there's that. Oh, golly. So maybe don't chew your gum, but if you accidentally like, hiccup, or if you're afraid you're going to get caught in school chewing gum and you just real quick, you'll be fine. Okay. And then the last one, which is the source. It's the topic that got me started on this whole thing. I'm so excited. I don't even remember how this came into my brain. I think maybe I was just, like, doing my hair or messing with my hair. And I remembered that as a child. First of all, I rocked a lot of pigtails and side braids, except uh for my infamous white blonde six year old Bob that my mom was in love with. Wanted me to have a Bob as six year old Bob too. And it was only wipe on because I went outside so much. How times have changed. As a child, I would suck on the end of my brain, dude. And I don't really remember consciously. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to do this, but I guess I didn't suck my thumb as a kid. I guess that was my comfort thing, right? And Emma's twirling her hair right now. It's also making me really nervous as I genuinely believed what we're leading towards. I think this is something that I genuinely believe this and it scared the crap. Wow. So I don't really remember it being a conscious choice, but my parents would tell me horror stories of little girls who had to have surgery to remove giant hair balls from their stomach. I guess it worked because I don't really remember doing this into upper elementary school or anything beyond that. So according to one source, this, like, hair sucking or they categorize it as, like, hair eating, which I'm like. I think those are two different things. Very different. Very different. It's part of an uh impulse control problem which can be linked to anxiety. Checks uh out because I was a very shy child. And, hey, we got anxiety. We're still. So this source recommended redirection tactics if you have a child in your life that's dealing with this. So either, like, pulling the hair back, getting them a fidget of some sort, just distracting them so that they wouldn't do that. Okay, so remember the tall tales my parents told me about? Yeah. Not fake.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker A: Not fake whatsoever. And this is why my search results are messed up now.
Speaker B: Oh, my God, you guys, I'm so scared. I thought you were going to give me some really good news, because this.
Speaker A: Is something that I genuinely leaved as a kid because I have been twirling my hair. I've been playing with my hair for so long, um ever since I was little. I had this one doll. Her name was Nina. And I destroyed this girl's hair, and she looked like Angelica's uh doll from Rugrats. I'm not kidding. She genuinely did like, her hair stuck out at every angle. There was hair missing because I would just play with it. I had one of my grandmother's wigs as my first toy that I slept with. I'm not kidding because I had that anxiety thing of I need to twirl. Oh, my goodness. So this has happened my entire life. And when I was getting into middle school and stuff, my mom would try and get me to stop because I would suck on the ends of it. And I also only do it with my left hand because my right hand is my dominant. And currently, because I still do it at 27, I dropped a ten pound weight on my ring finger, my left hand ring finger at work the other day, and I twirled my hair. And every time I do it right now, it hurts so bad. Maybe you'll accidentally train yourself out of.
Speaker B: It the next couple of years later.
Speaker A: But, like, I had this horror story in my brain. My mother told me. My father told me. My uncle told me. I remember my uncle sitting on the couch and being like, you know, this girl had to have surgery because she ate her hair. And I was like, oh, I don't ate it. Yeah. Oh, my God, um I'm so scared. This is a bait and switch, you guys, because this is true. So the National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is in Silver Spring, Maryland, so we can go. I don't think you'll want to. Never mind. So they have a collection of hairballs. No. Um or I should have looked uh up how to pronounce this Trico or trichobizores from various mammals, including humans. That is absolutely terrible. I couldn't even think of a word. Well, okay. So at this point in my research, it was two in the morning. I started this section and went, Nope. And so I finished it this morning. Repulsive. So be source, not just the Harry Potter uh potions thing. Yes, apparently. Okay. In fact, April 25 is National Hairball Awareness Day. No, it's for cats, Emma. I'm going to cause her. I think she might have a heart problem. She's been on a real emotional journey.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker A: Um national Airball Awareness Day for cats. It doesn't specifically say for cats, but I did have to Google it because I had the same reaction that you did, literally in my notes I put at 02:00 A.m. This morning doing um research. This discovery was much more alarming. So I Googled it. It's in reference to cats and to remind pet owners to be responsible with grooming of their animals. No, I'd like to think that every year the cats around the world line up their favorite hair balls and present them to people to say, Be aware, um Emma.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: Because I had to suffer. No, please don't show. I will throw up on you.
Speaker B: I will throw up on you.
Speaker A: It's just one picture and it's not okay.
Speaker B: Oh, my God. No. You know what that looks like?
Speaker A: Giant turd.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: Well, folks, I promise I'll put this at the end of the Instagram Photo, so if you don't want to see it, I'll put a content word. I'm so repulsive.
Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A: Um yeah. And that's why I had to stop at 02:00 A.m. At two in the morning. Let um me scroll back up to my notes so you don't have to look at that. But good news. Most of these hair balls, these bezores, can easily be removed with surgery and everybody is fine. So that's good news. Sorry, you can put out that really long. I got so overwhelmed by your reaction.
Speaker B: I'm so sorry.
Speaker A: Okay, so there's one other um slight exception to that. So most surgery is fine. Rarely. And this is just a direct quote from the National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is a branch of the US Army, according to the logo at the bottom of their website. I'm just going to read it directly um because I don't want to misparaphrase something about this. Rarely. Trichobazores extend beyond the stomach into the bowel, a condition known as Rapunzel syndrome. No. Often they can be difficult to diagnose, but some symptoms include cramps bloating, loss of appetite, weight loss, and bad breath. The method for removing Bsors depends on the type. Most must be removed surgically, since the twisted strands of hair become wire like and can perforate the stomach. But then I cut off the quote so I don't have the rest of it. But basically, the rest of the quote said, but some can be dissolved with medicine, with chemicals which in my brain went Draino. Yeah. Oh, my God. Um and then I included the link to their website in case you wanted to see more pictures. But obviously you don't. I so do not. I really had a suspicion that you would react the way that you did, but on the off chance that you did not, I included that. But um that'll be in the show notes if anyone is morbidly curious about human hairballs. So, yeah, in this one instance, your parents didn't lie to you. Oh, gosh. Although I would say that just stuck on the ends of your hair probably wouldn't lead to no. This website also indicated that most of the time these really large, problematic, really um gross views or from people who have I didn't write it down, but they have the mental illness where it's like a skin picking, hair picking, pulling out disease, or uh Pika, where people need to or creatures because animals can have it, too, where they just have this and stuff um that need to eat. None. None. Thanks for his anatomy, for that fun knowledge. So, yeah, you're mostly fine. Okay, great. You're probably going to be fine. Yeah. If I've been doing this now for 27 years, not eating my hair, twirling my hair, playing with my hair. If I've been doing it for this long and I haven't had that issue and you're like, okay, I'm not bald. My mother genuinely would tell me you're going to end up bald on one side of your head if you continue to do that. I'm still not bald, Ma. Still not bald. She also put that still not bald. I will say, too, there's very traumatic thing that she did to me. But I forgive her for this because I think in her head she was like, this will scare her out of doing this. But I would be twirling my hair and my mom would come up behind me and snap scissors, not anywhere close to my hair or ever even try to cut my hair or anything like that. Obviously not. But she would like snap scissors. And it would scare me so bad because I thought she's going to sniff off my hair if I keep doing it in front of us. So I would, like secretly use my hair. You totally do. And you have the entire time I've known you, I remember in College, we'd be like, sitting across the table from each other at the library and you'd be like on your computer and then with the one hand you would like, have it really close to your body. This doesn't work because it's a visual thing. It's not a Britney Spears in that one music video where she's like very uh close to me. It's a very much anxiety thing. And I've learned that as an adult, as a kid, I didn't really know why I did. It just felt good to do well. I was going to say. I don't even know what I was going to say. Ladies and gentlemen, what a great journey we've been on today. Uh i want to ask, before we end anything, was there something that you believed as a kid, that you as an adult, you're like? That's so silly. It doesn't have to be something that's like, logical or anything. Just like something that you genuinely like your shoe thing. Why is it I'm better able to come up with examples from your life and not mine? Because we've known each other for so long. Truly. Almost ten years. What? So long? Yeah, uh like uh my shoe thing. Are you going to explain? I suppose I should. My shoe thing is that as a kid, I believe that if you left your shoes out as if you had just stepped out of them, that ghosts would step into them and walk around your house. So in order to confuse them, I would turn one of them around or turn one of them upside down so that they wouldn't be able to match. And since obviously ghosts can't maneuver things in my brain, they couldn't maneuver things and so they wouldn't be able to flip the shoe over or turn it around. They couldn't walk around my house. And I don't know where that came from. I have no clue why I believe that. But to this day, if there are shoes that are either not tucked underneath something or are just standing by themselves as if you just stepped out of them, freaks me out. And if I let myself linger on it long enough, I'll go and I'll turn. It doesn't matter if I'm in my own house. If I'm in someone else's house, it might be somebody that I don't even know. I'll still knock them over. I do it every time and I don't know why. Does this also apply to decorative clogs or something? I'm sorry, do you have decorative clogs somewhere? I don't, but I feel like some people might. Maybe that's just growing up in Europe for you. I'm not sure. I've never encountered that. Well, stay tuned. We'll find out if I ever encounter it, if it's a necessary thing. Now, I want to go find some. It's so compulsive. To answer your question, I can't really answer your question. Nothing is a great way to answer. Nothing comes to mind. Okay. I'm sure I had little rituals and things with, like my stuffed animals or my Beanie Babies. Something you believed it needed to be in a certain order or whatever. It's just you being an organized human. Yeah, that's a really generous way to put it. My brain was just thinking of all the things in this house that I'm like. I do it the right way and everyone else does it wrong and I have to go and fix it. When they do it wrong, they don't know that it's wrong because I haven't told them because I'm crazy. Um no. You're non confrontational. Yes. But also a little obsessive, but that's okay. So we're done.
Speaker B: Yeah. Let's talk about more.
Speaker A: That's all I have for you today. I feel like there's going to be obviously multiple things that uh our parents have lied to me. Oh, yeah. This could be a multipart series. Oh, absolutely. Right. In seriously, if you have anything, if it's as weird as my shoe thing, if it's as disgusting as the hair thing, no pictures, please. No. If it's as silly as the cow uh making chocolate milk versus OG milk, or if you have a funny Santa related story of your own or related to your siblings uh or children or a kid you babysat. Yeah. Any of that or other lies that you feel that your parents have told you that you believed, maybe for longer than you should have, you can send us an email. We're at this podcast doesn't exist@gmail.com. No apostrophe. You can email us about this episode. About um any other episode. We would love to hear from you. Yes. And if you want to see any of the photos specifically, if you want to see that disgusting turd looking hairball or Dr. Carrot or Dr. Carrot. Actually, please go for Dr. Carrot. And don't swipe to the hairball. Yeah, skip the hairball. Maybe you can follow us on this podcast doesn't exist. That's our handle for Instagram. You can also find multiple things like um our bingo card and our link tree that has links to all of our various areas. To find us to listen to us. We are on Spotify, Apple Google podcast. Share it with everybody that you know and love. Please let them know. If you like us. If you don't but you think they will, then go ahead and send it on over. If you don't and you think they won't but you want to make them angry, go ahead and send it on over. Share it with your friends, with your enemies, with your frenemies. Please rate and review and subscribe. Um even if you only listen to one episode, please subscribe. Yes, we come out with new episodes every Friday, so if you want to tag along and you don't want us to get lost in your feed, please subscribe. And then we can all go on this journey together. Yeah. And hopefully, if you laugh with this one next week, we um have a special surprise for all of you all. For our Thanksgiving week. We are actually going to be spending it at my parents house, so it's going to be quite a bundle of joy. My mother has decreed no one's allowed to enter her house without a negative covid test, so we're still awaiting our results. But our guess is that we're all good. But we are very excited for Turkey sandwiches, which is my favorite part about Thanksgiving is the day after and a new episode with a special guest. I don't know why Turkey turned into a loop too, but I did so until uh next week with our special guest. Please remember this podcast doesn't exist.

Sources:
CNN: “Chocolate milk definitely doesn't come from brown cows -- but some adults think otherwise” by Nancy Coleman (https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/chocolate-milk-help-trnd/index.html)
The Conversation: “Lies about Santa? They could be good for your child” by Kristen Dunfield (https://theconversation.com/lies-about-santa-they-could-be-good-for-your-child-88855)
SwimmingPool.com: “7 Common Swimming Pool Myths Busted” (https://www.swimmingpool.com/blog/pool-myths-busted/)
Mayo Clinic: “Mayo Clinic Minute: Should you wait 30 minutes to swim after eating?” by Ian Roth (https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-minute-should-you-wait-30-minutes-to-swim-after-eating/)
The Smithsonian: “A WWII Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the Dark” by K. Annabelle Smith (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/)
The World Carrot Museum (http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/) Potato Pete jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ndKK3j8ms
Scientific American: “Fact or Fiction?: Chewing Gum Takes Seven Years to Digest” by John Matson (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-chewing-gum-takes-seven-years-to-digest/)
Moms.com: “20 Strange Habits That Kids Have (Explained By Scientists)” by Layne G. (https://www.moms.com/20-strange-habits-that-kids-have-explained-by-scientists/) (CW: Super gross medical photos)
National Museum of Health and Medicine: “Hairballs: Myths And Realities Behind Some Medical Curiosities” (https://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=exhibits.virtual.hairball.index)