Yesterday was our Halloween barbeque, which was a lot of fun. One activity we did was set up boxes with pictures of fingers, brains, worms and eyeballs on them. Inside were sausages, prunes, noodles and peeled grapes, and the kids were really quick to figure that out. The adults tend to have a better imagination and pulled some really icky faces when dipping their hands in the boxes.
Two of my students, both in their twenties, can be pretty gullible sometimes. Today in class, they were trying to explain the activity to another student who didn’t come to the barbeque. I jumped in and said:
“Oh, it was so funny, the kids thought they were grapes, noodles and prunes, but actually they really were eyeballs, worms and brains!”
The two girls sat up in horror. Had they really dipped their hands in a box of worms? I pushed it further explaining how we had contacted a farm and got leftover eyeballs and brains sent to us. I told them this with such an honest and serious face, that they truly believed it. It wasn’t until I said the fingers were really fingers that they realized I was joking.
My favorite gullibility test is the “Magic-eye tie”. I have this shiny tie covered in lines of elephants which I explain is like those posters that if you stare at long enough you can see a hidden picture in the center. I’ve done this trick on most of my students and they fall for it every time. It’s hysterical. They just stand their with their eyes wide open staring at the tie. I let them do it for a full two minutes before telling them I’m joking. If you haven’t tried this one before, go and find you most bizarre tie… now!
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