8.

My dad was a merman!



Or so I believed until I was ten or eleven years old. Long after I found out that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny weren't legit, I believed my dad was really a merman, and if he was a merman, I must be a mermaid. (And if that was the case, I was a decendent of Ariel.)

This picture was above my mom's desk in the kitchen for as long as I can remember and I seriously thought it held a huge family secret that only showed in pictures of him underwater. I never told anyone this, not my mom or my brothers; especially not my dad. I figured if he'd tell me when the time was right. Meanwhile, I would put salt in the bathtub every year or so to see if my tail would show.

Maybe it's because of The Little Mermaid, or maybe I was just a strange kid, but I still hold onto the dream that it's all true.