Out of Pod Experience

And it's especially OK to tell your kids that the boogie man will get them if they don't start behaving. (Who is this boogie man, anyway? Why no images of him? And any relation to funk/disco music?)

I used to picture a goofy cartoon guy doing a "boogie" type dance when I would think about the boogie man. I was still scared of it but that's what popped into my head when I was a kid.

hhrl diisal?? dsjjdklk elld lld !!!! kfkd;d ehlp ehlp! fhklwpepm ddf efefe
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feffef ddfdd


dfdfdddd ddd slgrotolloell ?

Spoiler, Santa is really Odin.

i knew the stork story was bullshit even at a young age. my brother is 10 years older than i am. he had dirty magazines he hid in his closet. i figured out what was up pretty early lol

Ok, here it goes...

- Tooth fairy does not exist in the culture of my country. Parents just give the money to their children when the tooth is out

- Storks for bringing little brothers and sisters exist in local culture. However, instead of believing in that story, I remember that I knew where my brother is, but was somewhat confused about how is he going to get out of there (I was 4 )

- Santa was always a shady and at least questionable character. I had my doubts, but two events totally confirmed them. Just a note, since I live in an orthodox church country, Santa gives presents for New Year and Christmas is mostly religious holiday for "grown ups" :
1) One year when my kindergarten group was receiving presents for New Year, we were all supposed to take a picture with Santa individually. I still remember the horrible alcoholic breath of that "Santa" However, that only confirmed my doubts that there were fake Santas, as surely someone who is supposed to be nice and give presents wouldn't smell of "Rakija".
2) What definitively confirmed it was the next year. I grew up in hyper-inflation. Just to give a hint of what I'm talking about:


(source)

In an environment like that, I had to know, as a pre-schooler, how to calculate using billions in order to be able to buy candy , so I was aware of what inflation and devaluation was and knew which forms of money existed. That year, my father somehow got his hands on a certain amount of bank cheques, which were rare at the time even though they were, at the time, the only legal way to spend money directly from your bank account (without picking up the money from the bank yourself, of course). The real beauty of it was that you could write a date on it and the money could not be claimed before that date. Given the inflation rates and the fact that most of the stores were owned by the government (big thanks to communism), if you set a date a month from when you are buying stuff, the inflation would bring the final amount to pretty much nothing (313,000,000,000% remember) even if you spend the same amount multiple times and go in red when the cheques are processed. So, the only "victim" in this was the government itself, who was responsible for the situation anyway.

Since I already knew how bank cheques work, my father just brought the cheques one day before the New Year and said:
"Son, you are going to pick now whatever you want for your New Year's presents. This year, it will really be Santa who is going to pay for the stuff."
We both laughed.

Actually, that was the best New Year in my life

If finding out Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy aren't real is so traumatizing to you then you need a psychiatrist, not an Eve account.

A man who always tells the truth is not an honest person, he's a sadist.
Believe it was Heinlein who said that in one of his books, always struck me as a nugget of sagacity.