When my kids were small I used to make up silly stories to wind them up. My son ,now 20, has just told me that he spent years of his childhood in abject terror because I had told him he might die of poisoning if he swallowed too much toothpaste when brushing his teeth.
@fesshole My dad told me once that there were little creatures that lived in the sand beneath the shallow water at the beach. These creatures had razor-sharp teeth and would chomp the bottom of your foot.
Put me off paddling for years, that.