Verdict: Leprechauns are not real.

I know St. Patrick's Day was a minute ago, but I watched the Boondock Saints last week so, that got me thinking about all things Irish. One of those things being my elementary school art teacher, Ms. Morgan. Something especially Irishy about her remains burned in my brain. I was five, a wee kindergartner, with a malleable mind, waiting to be lied to. That year, Ms. Morgan, decided it would be an excellent idea to tell all us kiddos that leprechauns were real. Now, mind you, at that time in my life, my only references to leprechauns were

THIS:

and

THIS:

So when she told us that leprechauns were alive and among us, I pictured them as some combination of these two creatures. To help you get a taste, I helped makemebabies.com be the most useful it's ever been. 

BAM. 

Now that that's settled, I urge you to mentally insert that petrifying image into my retelling of a gross lie. LIES, rather. I shall now list the LIES that were told to SMALL CHILDREN about MYTHICAL CREATURES. (One of my biggest pet peeves.... Don't even get me started on Santa. I've blogged about him already.)

We were informed that:

1. Ms. Morgan was half leprechaun and possessed magical leprechaun powers.

2. Her brother was FULL leprechaun, and thus, miniature, and was running around the school, in need of being TRAPPED.

3. Leprechauns COULD be trapped by a device consisting ONLY of a toilet paper roll, some pipe cleaners, and a string! She had each of us make a trap and take it home to try it out on our own pesky leprechaun populations. (I can't, for the life of me, remember how this trap functioned, but I do remember that we used chocolate gold coins as bait.) You can be certain I set up my trap on the daily and did not once catch a single thing.

4. Anybody who had gold rings around their pupils had leprechaun blood. I, having such eyes, felt far superior to those of my classmates who lacked gold rings.

5. The "FOOTPRINTS" cut out of CONSTRUCTION PAPER that were found all over the school were from REAL LEPRECHAUNS.

Whatever. I'm bitter. I should get over it. I'm trying! This always helps:

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day.

What lies were YOU told as a kid?