A childhood belief about places

When I was 6 or 7, my dad was temporarily relocated to Austin, Texas. (We lived in Dallas at the time.) He would commute back and forth on weekends, but one day, my mom, brother and I actually drove down to with him to spend the week. I was so excited to be going--I had never been "out of town" in my memory--so I was repeatedly asking my dad, "Daddy, what's Austin like?" He couldn't communicate to me that it was just another city, and I was relentless in my asking. So, to give me a ridiculous answer that I would laugh at and maybe give up on asking him, he told me, "In Austin, there are lots of wild animals. And everyone eats nothing but breakfast cereal." I was shocked. "Really?" I asked. He thought it was so funny that I actually believed him that he told me all about it, and how everyone's favorite meal is a really cool breakfast cereal thing called fruit soup. When we passed a deer crossing sign, I knew that had to mean that it was true: there WERE wild animals in Austin. I was so disappointed when we got there and there were no wild animals and we ate plain old hamburgers!