I’ll never forget it. It happened in one of those hazy cafes with the old brown drinking glasses and wooden seating booths. Tears streamed down my face as the seams of my heart snapped because I couldn’t finish my Mickey Mouse pancakes. My sensitive four-year-old heart was falling apart because my mother told me if I didn’t eat all my pancakes before we left, they would cry, and the idea of inflicting sadness upon my breakfast food broke me. As an adult, I get it. My mother was only trying to get us out of there before the end of time, and she’s not the only parent to tell a colorful lie to encourage compliance. I’m also far from alone in my experience. The internet hasn’t forgotten the outlandish fibs their parents told them as children either, and many have grown up to fabricate their own and share their stories online.

Chuck E. Cheese Is An Exclusive Club
If you wanted to hear your kids instantly erupt in a cacophony of pleas for pizza and video games in the 90s, all you needed to do was drive by a Chuck E. Cheese. They didn’t care that the big grey mouse and his creepy animatronic band looked like they were ready to send your soul to another dimension.

It was all about feeding “one more dollar” several times over to the token machines so you could earn enough tickets for that cool lava lamp but only walk away with a sticky hand and a Tootsie Roll after feasting on mediocre pizza. Angel Sarchett saved her wallet and sanity by telling her kids it was much more exclusive than it is.