I think I was born with a grifters gene, because once I learned the tooth fairy gives money, I told my parents that a tooth fell out at school, and I lost it, but will the tooth fairy still come? And sure enough she did. I got money for no lost tooth.

Only worked once though. My parents got suspicious when I lost a tooth every day after that.

The cold truth being that humans in general are a really bad source for facts. They lie to protect. They lie to save face. They lie because they don't like the truth. And they accidentally lie because they don't know better. No one can be trusted in this world. You have to fact-check everything. And we didn't even have the internet back then.