I’m a fairly gullible person, and my dearest darling father and dearest darling brother used to take advantage of that. Here are some of the more memorable things they convinced me of:

• If you’re sleeping on the beach in a swag on Tryon Island, make sure you keep your mouth closed, otherwise turtles might mistake your mouth for a hole that they can lay their eggs in. 

I spent the whole night with a pillow over my head and hardly got any sleep at all. I was 9 years old! (And not very bright, clearly!)

• At KFC, they chop the heads off the chickens in the kitchen.  

My brother told me he saw a chicken with it’s head cut off running around the kitchen and I totally believed him and started telling other people that. It wasn’t until they looked at my strangely that I knew I’d been had.

• If you stand still in the back yard while you’re hanging out your washing, a big lizard might mistake you for a tree and try and run up your leg.

I used to make sure no one was home and I’d hang out the washing while marching on the spot. I’m not sure when I realised that my Dad was joking.

• There are birds that have a very distinctive call, and it sounds like they’re saying “storm” with an up/down/up inflection. Dad convinced me that it was called a “storm bird” and that it was telling us when a storm was coming

I’m still not so sure about this one to be honest, as there often is a storm on the way when I hear them call out. I tell people the same story now 🙂

So there you have it. There’s a few examples of how my brother and father got their kicks out of messing with my head. I’d like to say I’m a bit more cluey now, but we all know that’s not the case. Or maybe I just pretend to be this gullible, just to make them happy 🙂