Okay, so post secret is one of my favorite sites. The secrets range from the sad to the humorous to the angering. And so, I'm starting a thread in which to put secrets.

Not the life-altering ones, mind you. Not stuff that could end marriages or cause great pain. Just...little things you've kept to yourself, perhaps small things you kept from your family or friends, or a specific person about that giant stain on the back of her dress. For instance:

When I was 12 and Discovery still aired decent documentaries, I ran into a doc called When Pigs Ruled the World. I was fascinated, and surprised and thought it was interesting, especially since my favorite prehistoric Great Beast period was the one with the giant mammals. But then I realized the date: April 1. "Oh," said preteen me with terrible, terrible preteen logic. "Discovery must be in on the joke today. When pigs ruled the earth? Ha! Good one! Those animatronics even look silly!"

And life went on. A few days later, because Discovery also reran their stuff like crazy, they aired the doc again. This time my dad was the one watching it. "Come here," he said to me, his nerdiest child (at the time). "It's pigs! Giant pigs! You'll love this!"

"Oh, yeah," I said dismissively. "I saw that one. It's their April Fools special."

My dad looked at me, a lightbulb flashed in his head, and he laughed and laughed. "That's great! That's spectacular!"

And life went on. Now, the internet was certainly in existence, but this was before "Google it" was a meme. Google was barely a glimmer in the eyes of Brin and Page. So running to the internet to verify that pigs did indeed rule the earth would not have been considered by either my father or me. But life went on, life went on, it was just a little thing.

Only, my dad is the kind of guy who, when he finds something hilarious, will tell people. Repeatedly. For years. And this, this prehistoric pig documentary produced for April 1 was, and still is a knee slapper. And I say still is because I have heard him repeat the story of the April 1 pig documentary at least once a year or so since I was twelve. The situation has changed - now in his story he's the one who caught the doc, and the date, and the *ahem* DISCLAIMER (which never existed) that showed at the end labeling it an April Fools joke. I forgive him these embellishments for two reasons:

1.) It makes a better story
2.) I was wroooooooong

As I aged into the age of the internet, something didn't sit right with the idea of this documentary as a fake. Why go to all that trouble? I mean, it had animatronics! And I knew there was no disclaimer, which I realized was typical of April Fools jokes, even of a high caliber. And if it was specifically for April Fools, why would Discovery play it on not April Fools? With a sinking sensation, I realized the truth, and sometime in my 20s I Googled the doc's name.

And I was WROOOOOOONG. Twelve year old me was an idiot. This doc was made in earnest! And now my dad has repeated this story so often, with jovial glee, getting a laugh out of most he tells (cause he tells it well, making big hands for the pigs n stuff), that I do not have the heart to tell him that the doc was not a joke. I am almost 30 and I can't gather enough guts to tell him the truth. I don't think he'd be mad or anything. It's that crestfallen look I dread - the disappointment of the loss of a great story, as well as the realization that he totally looked silly to anyone who EVER caught that doc for the last SIXTEEN YEARS. I dread the day someone says, "Oh, yeah, When Pigs Ruled the World? That one's a classic. Back when Discovery wasn't all pap."

If that day never comes, then I'm taking this secret to the grave. His or mine.

This got me thinking and for the life of me I can't think of any except for the big two.

Both of these you guys know anyway and they're not so much secret as much as I'll only divulge them if asked. My family and some of my friends are still unaware (or havent mentioned that they are aware) that I'm poly, bi and transgender. A little more secret is our current lover but that's more because we're still not really sure if it's an actual thing or a just when we are in the same country thing.

Any other secrets I have are forgotten long ago.

We had a walk-a-thon in sixth grade to raise money for the school. They used parent volunteers to mark a paper on our backs whenever we completed a lap. I had fallen in LOVE with the prize for sixty laps: a kite. A real kite, made from vinyl, not plastic that would rip the third time you took it out. I wanted that kite SO bad. Come the day of the walk-a-thon, as hard as I tried, I made it to 59 laps, just as time was expiring. But, as I stood there catching my breath and reeling in disappointment, a parent volunteer who HADN'T seen lap 59 marked on my paper marked my lap. So yeah, I cheated on a walk-a-thon to get a kite.

You guys should feel special, I've never told ANYONE that story, even twenty years later.

Oh yeah, a few years ago (the year I spent in London) it was my parents' 30th anniversary. My dad is an unromantic brick who never remembers things like this. My mom went all out and got him a Very Nice Watch (tm), possibly in a perverse attempt to set herself up for disappointment. She pretty much told me over IM that she thought he would forget, and that she would be pissed.

So I sent my dad an email telling him to get mom an anniversary gift or she will kill you, in those exact words. So he asked his friend, a jeweler, to pick out something for her that was Not Ugly. Because my dad has hideous taste.

Mom was exceedingly happy. She even sent me pictures of her present. I never told her that I saved dad's neck.

If I was your dad, I would find that even funnier.