Common Misconceptions

As a public service, I've decided to dedicate this installment of the column to clearing up some popular misconceptions that have persevered over the years, due to superstition and our lame-duck public education system. You're welcome. It's important both to have an informed society, and for people to stop asking me this crap when I'm trying to wash my car. So let's take a look:

Pizza was invented by the Chinese.
Okay, this one is just stupid. Ever try to order a pizza from a Chinese food place? I rest my case. This rumor was started by McDonalds back when pizza delivery started to get really popular. Their business was hurting, so they started spreading the rumor that pizza was Chinese, not Italian, playing off of the public's ingrained mistrust of the Chinese. After all, if pizza was Chinese, it could have all kinds of crazy stuff in the sauce that white people don't even understand. Better to trust the Italians, I suppose, and their penchant for putting boiled pig assholes in everything. It's somewhat surprising that this myth caught on, considering that all Chinese food is pretty much devoid of cheese, but I guess it follows the truism that the biggest lies are the easiest to believe.

Dogs can't eat chocolate.
Another bullshit claim, dogs love chocolate. Fat women shouldn't eat chocolate, but it's fine for dogs. The only time dogs shouldn't each chocolate is when they're on the couch, as chocolate stains are really hard to get out. So, I suppose if you've got a show dog that stains easily, you might not want to give him chocolate. Or at least put on a bib or something. On the dog, you're free to wear what you want. This is another excellent reason to pick dogs in brown or other colors that don't show dirt, or to get your dogs scotchguarded when they're puppies.

Cats always land on their feet.
This is true only in isolated situations, like when cats are wearing cement booties or have just been shot through a huge industrial fan. If, for example, you throw a cat out of a moving speedboat, it will land like this: feet, head, back… feet, head, back… feet, head, back. This myth comes to us from cat lovers, who actually love nothing more than pretending that their cats love them back. They love to spread stories about how smart and talented their cats are, despite all evidence to the contrary. Kind of like people with kids. The only time I've ever seen a cat land on its feet was when it fell out of a Great Dane's ass.

George Washington had wooden teeth.
A popular misconception originating from a lack of understanding of the English language of that day. Back then, saying someone had wooden teeth was just a funny way of saying their breath was stank. And Washington's breath was so bad as to defy explanation. Some historians have suggested that Washington's teeth were actually made of Roquefort cheese, a strong possibility given the poor dental science of the day. When someone had a toothache back then, the "dentist" would knock out all his teeth with a pistol grip, so as to allow all of the bad humors to escape through the patient's gum-holes. He would then fashion replacement teeth out of whatever he had handy, using everything from marbles to dice to live beetles tied down with string. This is the reason you never see any of the founding fathers smiling in their dollar bill portraits; they didn't want the money to scare children.

When you fall off a cliff in a dream, if you hit the ground before you wake up you will die for real.
This is a popular one that many parents tell to their children, and for good reason. In actuality, if you hit the ground in the dream you'll most likely just shit the bed. But you won't die unless there's someone in the bed with you who takes violent offense at being shit on. Bed-shitting has long been the bane of parents everywhere, and the primary reason I will never have children. Thankfully, this misconception has been an effective tool for parents in cutting down the cliff-falling-dream variety of bed-shitting in recent years. Kids having dreams about clowns, however, is still the nation's leading cause of ruined twin-sized mattresses.

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