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Gulling the gullible is a jolly good wheeze, as we found out in Episode 139, and M from London found out many years before that:
I might have one of the best dupes…it was delivered with scathing sarcasm, but the poor girl was so dense that she has never figured out the truth!
In 2004, I was working for the Red Cross and was coming back from an education session deep in the American South. A woman (aged 29ish at the time) I was working with began musing philosophically in the back of the van. After wobbling about for a bit, she asked me that she’d always wondered what black people were called outside of the USA…
I informed her that Africa was actually a country in South America, so there was no difference and all people of African origin could safely be called African American as they were all from the American continent. She said “Oh! That’s great. It totally makes sense. Thank you!”
Well…fast forward 6 years. She still believes this and reports from friends still working with her confirm that she regularly tells the snickering public about this. It’s so generally ridiculous that no one has ever corrected her. Who misses an entire continent and hundreds of years of the slave trade at school? I guess that question has already been answered.
Good work, M from London. If any of the rest of you have done a dupe as good and as long-lasting as that, please share it with us in the comments. We’re a bit dim, so will probably swallow it whole.
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July 8, 2010 at 6:20 pm |
Does she work in TV news now, by any chance? http://bit.ly/99W0vH
July 8, 2010 at 4:36 pm |
Long, long ago when I was twelve I told my then six year old brother that my sisters and I once had another brother, one that “mysteriously disappeared” when my parents got pissed off at his behavior. A few months ago (and 13 years after the incident), my brother admitted to me that this scared the shit out of him until he was around ten or so. I laughed, and he promptly punched me in the arm for years of psychological abuse.
Also, one of my sisters keeps saying that I caused night terrors for about a year in our youth because I told her that vampires like to hide under beds. I don’t even remember this, but I believe my younger self to be capable. Wow, was I ever an asshole as a child.
July 7, 2010 at 10:43 pm |
About 6 months ago i told my 8 year old brother that kiwi fruits are actually spider eggs and the little black seeds are actually the spiders before they grow legs. He wont go anywhere near kiwi fruits anymore. Its really funny to see how he reacts when i eat the little ‘spiders’ especially as i am a veggie. He hasnt descovered the truth despite my mother trying to tell heim multipul times that I am lying