Daily Ambivalence - watermelon seeds

Not as many parents nowadays tell their kids not to do something and then give a fabricated reason as a consequence for not doing that thing. You know, some fairytale disaster that keeps the kid up at night, alone in his room, waiting for the first telltale sign of doom after he has disobeyed?

I miss those days.

So, watermelon seeds might not be the best example of this but is there even one person over 40 who wasn't told when they were young that if you swallowed a watermelon seed it would grow in your stomach?

I say this might not be the best example of fabricated doom because whenever my mom told me this I always thought it sounded great. Who wouldn't want a watermelon patch growing in their stomach? I love watermelons.

But nowadays parents don't tell their kids lies about watermelon seeds. They don't tell them if they play video games too much they'll go cross-eyed.

It makes me fear for the future. Years from now at some distant Thanksgiving when the kids are grown, the conversation will go something like this:

"Ha, ha, Dad, remember when we were kids and you used to tell us that . . ."

And then the kid will realize his dad never did tell him about watermelon seeds or chewing gum staying in your stomach for seven years and he won't be able to finish the sentence.
Eventually people will stop celebrating Thanksgiving because there won't be anything to talk about at the dinner table.

I hope I'm dead by then. I love Thanksgiving.

Watermelon seeds . . . eh.