You Never Sausage A Place!

While sitting in traffic on my way home from the office the other day, I was reminded of a giant lie my parents told me as a child. There was no malicious intent by telling me this so called fib. In fact, they had the noblest of intentions. That is, shielding me from Pedro's hot-bed of poisoned propaganda. A place you may know as South of the Border.

What kid in their right mind would not want to climb up that giant sombrero and look over interstate 95 in all its glory. And who could resist the World's Number 1 Miniature Golf or Hats Around the World. And what is an Africa Shop?

Anyway, the lie was this: "Oh Alan, South of the Border is just a giant laundry mat". And for many years I believed it and the lie effectively killed my desire to visit Pedro and friends. I was certain that the Silver Slipper was chocked full of 75 cents a load washing machines and dryers. And so, the beat goes on, in that every time we pass by the Sombrero on our way to Florence, my girls are told the lie. Not so much to protect them from the subtle racism of a drunken "Too Moch Tequila" bandito, but simply because it's fun for me. And as anyone knows, those are the best of lies.

What is your favorite parental lie of all time?

I Gotcha Where I Wantcha...

I remember hearing an interesting little story about two young boys and a haunted house when I was a child . I had the chance to tell this story to a bunch of little girls during one of my daughter's recent sleepovers. You may recall the same story that goes something like this...

It was a dark and stormy night when little George decided to make a name for himself. He bet his best friend Jay that he could enter the old Vick house and return unharmed. Jay pleaded with his friend not to go, for years before a young boy named Rick had entered the abandoned house and never been heard from again.

"I'm not afraid of any old house", said little George. And if the truth be known, he wasn't. That is until he got to the rusty front gate of the house. The house, dead and cold, sat silently on the hill. Its broken out window panes stared at George, just as a hungry man stares as a Vienna sausage. The large front door waiting to swallow him whole.

George stood there alone, hoping to be called home by his mother. Or even asked to stop playing around by Jay. But Jay was the truest of pansies and had stopped short about a block back.

"Just as well", George muttered, his hand on the gate, "I'm going in..."

That's when he heard it. A low mutter coming from the upstairs window- the eye that had peered into his soul moments ago.

"Gotcha where I wantcha. Now I'm gonna eatcha."

Yada, yada, yada, the story goes on... for reasons unknown, George enters the house... hears the phrase several more times until discovering the young boy missing all those years ago, sitting in a closet with a green booger on his finger- "Gotcha where I wantcha. Now I'm gonna eatcha."

Back in the day, circa 1977, this was a real killer of a story. It ranked up there with that famous limerick "Me Chinese, me play joke..." or "King Kong played Ping Pong...". Anyway, somewhere through time the effect of that joke was lost. I, however, still remember them all with great affection. Perhaps you remember some of your childhood jokes. Can anyone out there tell me "Why Peter Pan can fly?"