I ran into my brother at the supermarket the other day. I saw him approaching so I quickly covered my shame (eight large bags of Doritos) with a bumper pack of Coke cans. After exchanging forced pleasantries he pointed at my beverages.

“You know the ring-pulls are actually straw holders?” he said.

“Oh, yeah?” I scoffed. “You mean like when you told me that milkshake comes from cows that are force-fed strawberries?”

You see, I’m gullible. I believe almost anything. Someone once convinced me not to wear my spectacles on a sunny day lest they would act as magnifying glasses and burn my eyes out of my head. For an entire summer I had to grab hold of the neighbour’s fences just to walk down the street.

I returned home and Googled the ring-pull craic: it seemed legitimate.

It took my several attempts and many bloody digits, but eventually I twisted one into such a position that it held my Minnie Mouse straw perfectly.

“Told you,” he said as his enormous head lifted his body off the ground. “We’re not kids any more, I’m not gonna make rubbish up just so you touch dog poo again.”

At this point I don’t know what I was more in awe of – that he’d learned to tell the truth or that he was such an unexpected source of knowledge. I mean, this is the guy who only switched from Velcro to laces once he hit his twenties.

“I’m a really deficient reader.” He went on.

“Excuse me?” I was sure I must have misheard.

“Yeah…in fact you need to burden your mind…..”

He then went on to tell me how he read on the internet (so it MUST be true) that, every 17th scratchcard is a winner. Apparently, the lottery people place one winning card at every 17th position. He assured me that this comes from some sort Illuminati style belief and is earning the companies millions because people usually buy them in even numbers.

I laughed and was met with a stern look:

“Think about it. You always buy two of each, don’t you?” He convinced me by widening his eyes and nodding as he spoke.

“My God, you’re right!” I was convinced. Bro had rapidly risen through the trustworthy ranks with his Coke can tales so why shouldn’t I have believed him?

I immediately trotted down to McColls and bought 17 scratchcards and headed back to test out the theory, as well as grabbing milk for Einstein.

“I only got a quid!” I snapped.

“Yes…..” He was sitting with his eyes closed and in a Buddha-esqe position at this point. “A win is a win. Try again and you’ll see. Oh, and I’m out of loo roll.”

So off I went. Another twenty squid beeped off my card and I was scratching manically as I sauntered home with Andrex rolls under each arm.

“Nothing! Nowt this time!” I raged.

He started laughing. “I can’t believe you fell for that!” he chuckled. “Still, cheers for the milk and rolls!”

“You lied!” I scoffed. “Forty quid! Now!”

“Consider this a lesson,” he continued to meditate. “A LIE hides in plain sight when you beLIEve.”