Psychological Experiments

Today's Skype conversation (my parents Skype every Sunday):

Dad: I saw a newspaper article a few days ago that was rather puzzling.
Dad: It was about celebrity moms talking about what books they read their children, and what their favorite lines were.
Dad: not once was "String, or nothing!" mentioned, and no one mentioned "Three rings for the elven kings under the sky" Isn't that strange? What else would you read your children?
Antares: That is odd. I thought "String, or nothing!" was everyone's favorite line.
Antares: but you didn't read them to David.
Antares: Did you experiment on us? Was he the control? Are you going to write up the results?

My dad seriously did read me Lord of the Rings when I was little. We started with The Hobbit when I was in kindergarten, and finished Return of the King when I was in fifth grade. Apparently, I could not pronounce the orc's names, so we used shorter nicknames for them. Watching the movies years later was a totally weird experience - I remembered the name Strider, for example, but Aragorn meant nothing to me. David doesn't read anything that isn't standard Hero's Journey fantasy/sci-fi. I bet this is why. Childhood Lord of the Rings deprivation.

As awesome as that part might have been - seventeen years later, I am still bitter about being given a copy of Dogsbody, and then, a week later, being told that I couldn't have a puppy until I was all grown up (that is, like, a million years away when you're seven. Not to mention I am grown up now and I still can't have one.) If my parents complain about the quality of the care they receive in old age, I intend to remind them of that little incident. They did give me a telescope when I was 18, but I have stewed in my bitterness for 17 years now, especially since I can no longer name my dog Sirius. So much repressed rage.