Pinocchio?

So as it turns out, I make stuff up. I didn't realize I was such a major Pinocchio fibber, but like the guy in Big Fish, apparently I need help. Very specific memories from my childhood have turned out to be nothing more than the overactive imagination of a ridiculous child. Go figure.

I remember hearing a story my Majah used to tell us about how my Dad rescued her from some pervy rapist Moroccans in Holland. I retold this story numerous times and every time it sounded more and more like an action film starring Vin Diesel. A while back we were having one of our rowdy Sunday lunches and I asked Majah to tell the story and it was so different from mine that I couldn't tell it was the same story. Somehow when I heard it as a child I imagined it as well and my fertile mind went wild. Mother gave me an inch and I took a friggin' league. I was disappointed, but I survived.

Today I found out that once again I just made stuff up and convinced myself it was fact and passed it off to others as truth. Many years ago, about 100 to be exact, I was 5 yrs old and very impressionable. We lived in the south of Brazil, I had a mutt named Canela (Cinnamon) and an old fusca my brother and I converted into our club house. We both shared a bicycle and we were forced to eat the most awful food imaginable because my Majah was a devout follower of Adelle Davis - the cruelest woman alive. I'm talking orange juice with brewer's yeast cruel. So far, so true.

Somehow I got it into my pea brain that my Fajah drew cartoon strips for an erotic magazine. I remember my brother and I messing around in his office and finding things that confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that my father made a living by drawing sex stuff. Say it ain't so. Fine, it ain't so. My father was not working for an erotic magazine, did not sit around drawing sex stuff and was not Vin Diesel. Is there any truth to anything I remember? As it turns out, Fajah worked for a magazine with varied subjects - non of which were sex related - and mostly drew political cartoons and on occasion a couple making out or so, but there was no nakedness and definitely no porn.

Now I find myself questioning everything. Like, did Fajah rescue me from a drunken bum who tried to grab me late one night when I was on his shoulders and we passed by a bar. In my recollection he punched the living daylights out of him - which wasn't difficult since he was so drunk. Then he walked into a phone booth, changed into his leggings and cape and flew me to safety. Well, the first part about punching the drunk guy at least has to be true, right? Right?