re there any lies that your parents told you as a kid that you believed for longer than you'd like to admit?

你小时候，父母有没有告诉过你什么谎言，而你相信了很久，久到你都不想承认？

When I was 6 years old, my mom bought me a goldfish, his name was King. Some weeks after King arrived we decided¹ to give him some friends, so I ended up with an aquarium² with ~15 fish.

我六岁的时候，我妈妈给我买了条金鱼，取名叫国王。国王来了几周后，我们决定给他添几个朋友，所以后来我的鱼缸里有差不多15条鱼。

Every month, one or two fish would die and my mom used to replace them with new ones. After 3 years I lost interest on the aquarium, and my mom stopped buying new fish. The only fish remaining was King, he lived for 3 years!

每个月都有一两条鱼死掉，而我妈妈一般都是用新的鱼来替换它们。三年之后我对那个鱼缸没了兴趣，然后我妈妈也没有再买新的鱼了。最后活下来的鱼只有国王，他活了3年！

Five years ago, when I was 18, I was telling to a friend how long my goldfish stayed with us, when my mom interrupted me and told me the truth: "son, your fish didn't live for 3 years, I've replaced him every time he died and you never noticed it".

五年前，那时候我18岁，我告诉一个朋友我的金鱼陪了我们多长时间，这时我妈妈打断了我，告诉我真相：“儿砸，你的鱼没活过三年，每次他一死掉我就换掉他，而你从没发现。”

My mother is creative when it comes to deceiving.

我妈妈要骗人的时候总是不按常理出牌。

'If you don't dry yourself properly after showering, your body hair is going to grow out making you look like a furry³ bear'

“如果你洗完澡后不擦干自己，你的体毛会一直长，让你看起来像一只毛茸茸的熊。”

She dropped this on a 4 year old me. The image of looking like a bear scared the living day lights out of me.

这是我四岁时她告诉我的。我每天都会想象自己看起来像只熊的样子，非常惊恐，觉得暗无天日。

Her concept was simple, the way you water plants and they grow, similarly you water your body and if you don't dry, your hair grows.

她的理论很简单，你给植物浇水，然后他们就会长大，你给身体浇水也一样，如果你不擦干，你的体毛就会长长。

Well played maa, well played!

干（sang）得（xin）漂（bing）亮（kuang），妈妈！

When I was little my Dad told me that pressing the button on the handbrake would make the car fly and that he only used it under duress⁴ as it was very very dangerous.

我还很小的时候，我爸爸告诉我，按一下手闸上的按钮，汽车就会飞起来，而他只会在情况非常非常危急时才会使用。

Back then I half knew he was teasing but now, when I am stuck in awful traffic, I gently graze the button and tell myself it's always there for me in case I need to deploy⁵ it as a very last resort.

那时我差不多就知道他在逗我玩，但是现在，当我受困于糟糕的交通时，我会轻轻蹭那个按钮，告诉自己这个按钮一直都在，就算有什么万一，我也有它作为最终手段。