Briefly, with some pizazz, and with just enough detail to intrigue the reader, tell us all about a lie you told.
Here goes ...
I hate phones. Jamie hates phones. But about three years ago I was traveling back east quite often and was struggling to manage some travel plans because Jamie and I shared a cell phone. We had a landline, but when we both traveled it was hard to keep in touch. So, with some reluctance, we went to two cell phones and no landline. However, my mother-in-law was adamant about us having a landline. She used the old -- if there's an emergency cell phones won't work, and when you dial 9-1-1 it won't go directly to dispatch. So, we lied to her. We told her our new cell phone number was our home phone (we just switched carriers). We promised never to turn that number off, so if she called in the middle of the night or whenever, it would ring like a normal phone. Fast forward a year ... I answered the phone (the home phone) in the airport. Not good. There's that annoying lady announcing the white zone and the blue zone and the TSA laws and my mother-in-law heard it all. "Oh, did I dial your cell phone?" she asked. "Um." I couldn't think of anything to say. Jamie took over the call, explained the entire thing, and after only a wee bit of arguing and some back-and-forth, we were finally able to come clean. Funny thing is, now she's moving and she's not getting a landline. No need, I guess.
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When I was a little girl, let's say around 6, a dentist came to my school to talk about how important it was to brush your teeth. He came with a talking tooth (I now realize it was a person in a tooth costume). I was scared of the tooth and didn't like the dentist whatsoever. I therefore decided that brushing my teeth didn't actually do anything and that I couldn't be bothered to waste my time on such a trivial activity. My parents still thought I should brush my teeth. They told me I'd lose all my teeth if I didn't. I rationalized these threats by telling myself I was going to lose my teeth anyway, and the faster I got the tooth fairy's money, the better. Instead of telling them about my new refusal to brush my teeth, I simply stopped brushing. When they asked me if I had brushed my teeth, I lied, saying I had even though I hadn't. Sometimes they would even check my toothbrush. So before I went to bed, I would run my toothbrush under water so it was wet without the brush ever touching my teeth. This all came to an end when one night I forgot to wet my toothbrush, and my dad checked right after I said I had brushed my teeth. My parents accused me of lying to them, and were very disappointed. I fessed up and felt absolutely terrible, because I didn't know my refusal to brush could affect them so much. I then wrote them a note saying I'd never lie again, and I have brushed my teeth religiously ever since.
I strongly dislike (hate) cats. They are sneaky, unfriendly, and ugly. Worst of all they lick their butts and cough up hairballs. It’s absolutely disgusting. But, for some odd reason I will never understand, most people love cats. Hating cats is a sort of stigma in our society. So, I have trained myself to pretend to like them when need be. One such time was when I was having a sleepover in 7th grade at my friend’s house. She has a cat, Angel, who she puts on the same level as a deity. A bunch of girls were over, and they were all bubbling over how adorable Angel was. I didn’t want to be left out of the group, so I joined, adding remarks about her cuteness. When it was time to go to bed, I laid my sleeping bag out on her bedroom floor, and got in. Immediately, Angel came over and curled up on top of me. I wanted so desperately to push her off, but I couldn’t offend my friend. Plus, I had established that I liked the cat in order to fit in. I had to let that awful creature stay on me. I felt like I was trapped in a furry prison. Finally, when I was sure everyone was asleep, I tried to lightly push Angel off. She didn’t budge. With a more forceful shove, she slid off, onto the floor. Seconds later she crawled back onto me. I was so fed up, that I picked her up, walked across the dark room, placed her out in the hallway, and closed the door. The next morning, my friend woke up, wondering how her precious little Angel got lock out in the hall. I told her I hadn’t the slightest clue.
I told so many little lies when I was little. The worst one was so obvious I do not even know why I tried to lie about it.
It was a sunny day and I was eating outside on my back porch. I heated up my chicken masala from Trader Joe's and basked in the sun. Suddenly, I remembered I had some white paint left over from a previous science project and was compelled, I don't know why now, to paint the back porch's wood fence white. I only had a little bit of paint, but that did not deter me.
I began painting the fence, but just as I finished one column, I realized I had no more paint. I didn't worry about it and went back to eating my lunch. I told myself I would go buy some later.
Later that day, my mom noticed only one part of the fence had been painted and asked me if I had done it. Since she was kind of angry, I said "no, not me."
Obviously she could figure it out was me, but I did not want to face her anger at the time. However, the lie just made her more angry than she would have been.
When we were six-years-old, my sister and I had a pet goldfish. His name was Orange and Michel basically took care of him. One day, I guess in her excitement, Michel overfed the poor creature. She poured enough fish pellets in his bowl to feed a whole family. Orange enjoyed them way too much because the next day he was dead. When Michel and I discovered our deceased fish, we told our mom. She flushed it down the toilet. In front of us. Capitalizing on this opportunity, I told Michel that she had been a bad owner. That the fish would haunt that toilet. That it would get her. She believed me and avoided that toilet for a week. My fun was over, though, when my mom started asking questions. She told Michel about my lie and I was left to come up with a new one.
I was at my friend’s birthday party in pre-school and we were playing pin the tail on the donkey. We were all dressed up as princesses and the blindfold being used was a light purple scarf. There was a prize for the person who won, and I guess I really wanted that prize because when my turn came and a mom wrapped the scarf around my eyes, I could still see through the light material of the scarf but didn’t fix it. Instead I walked up to the wall and put my tail in the exact right spot. All of the other tails were scattered across the poster and when my turn was over, the mom suspiciously asked if I had been able to see through the scarf. I lied and shook my head no. I’m sure all the adults knew I had cheated, but because I didn’t confess I won the prize. I do remember feeling guilty after lying but don’t remember what the prize was.
My mom has always held the leash a bit more tightly than others. When I first got an iPod, it seemed natural that she would ban explicit music, which I suppose was a reasonable ruling at the time. By the time I got to eighth grade, though, it was starting to get a little ridiculous. I argued with her occasionally over the rule, before deciding that I was just going to ignore it. She still demanded occasionally that I show her my computer so she could check my iTunes library, even though I insisted all of my music was whatever the PG equivalent of music was. (She even read my email while I was at school, not knowing I could tell when she had.) Even though she probably had no idea what she was even looking for, I began working diligently to hide my questionable music. I changed cover art and song titles; the british alt-rock album "Who the F**k are the Arctic Monkeys" became "Who the Heck are the Arctic Monkeys" and their song titles that might give away the truth became "Track 11" or something similar. Eventually, she gave up looking, so I assume she doesn't care anymore, but I still talk suspiciously loudly whenever she's in the room and my computer starts swearing.
During middle school and the first half of high school, my mother enforced a strict work ethic. The unbreakable law of the household was to finish homework first and foremost, and only then could I be free to do as I pleased. And even then, there was a time limit. "Alright, you get eighty minutes starting now," she would say, looking at her watch. I would make the most of my "free time" by playing videogames, and I resented the rule to my core. (Nowadays, after the acquisition of my personal laptop, the rule has more or less disintegrated. If she approached me with that "80 minutes" BS now I would tell her to get the hell out of my room.) Anyways, there I was, sitting at my desk, diligently working...at leveling up in World of Warcraft. Enter mom. "Getting your work done?" she asked. "Yea," I muttered distractedly. "What are you working on?" "English paper," I responded while vigorously smashing the spacebar and number keys. She didn't buy it. Taking about five steps closer and glancing at the screen told her all she needed to know. For about a week after that, my coveted free time was reduced to 45 minutes a night.
Eighth grade second semester was a time of relaxation and at least for me, a time to goof off. Because I had already been accepted to high school that May, I did not care much for academics. Each day at school our class would play games with our teachers, slack on our homework, and indulge in our favorite activity: playing Halo in Latin class. Mr. Talboy was lenient in allowing us to use our computers during class. We seized upon this opportunity by pretending to work diligently while secretly killing each other on a Town School Halo server. Mr. Talboy even played with us on occasion; he was a 'relaxed' teacher. However, one day that May Mr. Talboy wanted us to work on a Latin to English translation. Instead I opened up my laptop and began to play Halo with everyone around me. Mr. Talboy became suspicious when I kept yelling about shooting others. He asked if I was playing, and I immediately shot it down. Mr. Talboy then went to his desk, logged onto his own Halo account, and saw KoshaBoy (me) playing on the Town server. He instantly decided to give me two work details, but I still played Halo in class everyday for the rest of the year.
Two years ago, the summer that The Hangover was first released, my family was in South Hampton staying with family friends at their second home. Between our two families, there are four kids: myself, Robin, Molly, and Simon, aged 15, 15, 13, and 11 respectively at the time.
Molly, the daughter of the other family, suggested that we go to a movie one night - she was deadset on The Hangover, even though Robin and I already seen it. We had enjoyed the movie, so we were fine with seeing it again.
We told our parents that we were going to see The Proposal instead, which was a pretty dumb idea in the first place, and off we went. By some miraculous stroke of luck, even though none of us were old enough to buy tickets to an R movie, Molly and Robin's cousin happened to be there, and he bought the tickets for us.
... a couple hours later, there I was, covering my 11 year old brother's eyes as a fake penis flashed across the screen, marking the end of the movie.
It would have been a perfect (ish) crime, except someone left the movie stubs in their pocket, so there was a big confrontation.
... I need to check my pockets more carefully in the future.
I once lied to my parents by having people over at the house behind their back, while they were out at a dinner party. Technically, I wasn't babysitting my younger siblings (being that they were old enough to look after themselves by that point), so I left the house with my friends and hung out in town for a little while, then returned home and watched a movie. The friends left before my parents even began the trip home. In hindsight, unlike many of the other stories posted here, I did not feel guilt over what I'd done. Nobody had been hurt by what I'd done, I didn't do anything harmful to myself, and I had a nice evening with friends. I simply had to lie because of my parents' rule that nobody was allowed at the house while they were gone.
I was a very curious child. One day, when I was four or five and had just figured out how the locks on doors worked, I locked myself in the bathroom at my house. I opened all of the drawers and cabinets and examined the contents, removing the lids of the containers and occasionally dabbing lotions and creams on my body.
One of the bottles I found was especially intriguing--it had a ball on top of the opening, unlike any of the others I had found so far. I quickly figured out that if I rolled it on my skin, it dispensed a liquid. Amused, I rolled the bottle all over my arms and legs, coating myself in a sticky, scented material.
I finally left the bathroom a few minutes later. When I passed my mom in the hallway, she caught a whiff of my discoveries. She stopped me and asked (with raised eyebrows) if I had been using the bottle of deodorant in the cabinet. I shook my head furiously. What was she talking about? I certainly didn't know. My mom gave me a knowing smile and offered to help clean me up, but instead I ran into my room and buried myself in my blankets. For the rest of the day, I smelled shower fresh.
I was a Girl Scout growing up, and the highlight of the gig was selling cookies. Once a year my living room would be overflowing with boxes of Trefoils, Samoas, and of course, Thin Mints to deliver to all my friends and acquaintances. My parents always rewarded my hard work with a few boxes for the family; my sister and I would eat nothing else for the next week. It was better than Halloween.
One year, however, my parents decided they were done with Girl Scout cookies. Too addictive, too unhealthy, and we were only allowed one box to share between both my parents, my sister and I. I begged and pleaded, but they stayed firm. I was devastated. I emptied my piggy bank and bought all the boxes I could afford (3) without telling anyone and hid them in my dresser drawers.
I was so afraid my parents would find out and scold me that I could never actually bring myself to eat the cookies. One day when my parents weren't home I buried them (unopened) in the bottom of my trash can. That afternoon my mom came home from work with a box of Somoas each for my sister and I, because she felt bad for keeping us from our yearly treat. I was so certain it was karma for doing the right thing and throwing mine away. Never have Samoas tasted so good.
During senior retreat, I had been paired up with someone to remain unnamed for the blindfolded walk. I was supposed to wear my white bandana across my eyes, and have this someone (Berk) lead me through the dry baseball field, traverse the parking lot and into the awaiting cabin. I started out genuinely trying to walk blindly through the Walker Creek wilderness, but by the third branch that hit me in the head, I figured that we could cheat and get away with it. We were racing another team, so we just had to get to the cabin first. Since there was no communication, we started our trek by having me hold onto his bandana as he dragged me across the field. As that was not working well enough, I lifted up my own blindfold just enough to see the ground I was walking on.
As we entered the cabin (first, I might add), one of the teachers asked how we managed to complete the course so fast. They clearly didn't believe that "we just knew each other that well", as dodging cars and posts at a full sprint had never come up in our three years of knowing one another. We both sat down against the wall, waiting as other groups filed into the class. I shot him a look, and we both knew that we somewhat cheated and lied about it, but so did the team we were racing, and at least we won.
I have always loved reading, and as a child I had an extensive collection of Dr. Seuss, J.K. Rowling and Shel Silverstein. I adored everything stacked on my own bookshelf, and reread my favorites again and again. However, these books were written for children. I had a craving to read something adult, something sophisticated. Something forbidden. At age seven, I began to crawl into my parents' room while they were busy downstairs and search through my therapist mother's book collection. "The Good Marriage", "Raising Your Spirited Child", "The Mindful Way Through Depression", "Uncommon Sense for Parents With Teenagers" -- I lapped it all up, carefully making sense of the difficult vocabulary and relishing the pang of nervous excitement in my stomach every time I came across a word like "sex" or "drugs". I felt sure that I was acquiring knowledge far beyond my years, that I was rapidly becoming the most savvy third grader in history. I continued this secret research into the fourth grade, reading whatever books about childrearing or relationships my mother was immersed in, always making sure to re-fold the page where she had left off before creeping out of her room and into my own. Once, my mother walked in on me halfway through "Your Eight-Year-Old", and I had to pretend I'd mistakenly opened the wrong book (I'm sure she believed me). From then on I carried a Harry Potter book with me, to quickly bury my nose in if she should enter the room. Sometime in sixth grade my interest began to peter out, as I became busier and busier with homework and after school activities. About a year ago, in a moment of boredom, I decided to flip through some of my mother's books on teenagers, just for fun. When she came home, I mentioned that I had taken a look. "Oh," she said, "That's fine. I never really took that advice anyway."
When I was in second grade my mother introudced me to the movie "Coming to America". The main character, played by Eddie Murphy, is the prince of a ficticious African country, who decides to venture to New York City in hopes of finding a wife. When my mom started to notice that I idolized the lifestyle of this prince, who was pampered and obeyed by everyone, she told me that I was the prince of a large region in Sudan. She said that my family decided to move me out to the United States so that I can have a normal life, but if i ever decided to visit Sudan I ill be treated just like Prince Akeem Joffer. After hearing this news I went to school the next day and told all of my friends that I was a royal prince. The news spread quick around the school and I can see all the kids pointing to me saying " Thats the Prince"! I loved this admiration from classmates who treated me like I was famous. Later on this year I found out that my mom was not telling me the truth, but i never told anyone else that. I continued to tell everyone I met that I was the prince of a village in Sudan. Even to this day there is a large number of people in FLorida who still believe that I am a prince.
One uneventful day, when I was 10-years-old, my mom had her friend over. Unfortunately, the friend had brought her 6-year-old child, and I was put in charge of entertaining her. We went outside to play hide-and-seek and just as my boredom reached its limit, I had a brilliant idea. I pretended that the little girl was invisible. I lied to her, looked straight at her, and admitted that I could no longer see her. The little girl was ecstatic at first. I guess it was every 6-year-old's dream to be invisible, or to have a superpower at the very least.
Just as this game was heating up, my sister showed up. I convinced her to play along. And she did. We continued on with this ruse — the two of us walking down a street or two, exclaiming, "Sara, where are you?," while trying to keep the seemingly dastardly smiles off our faces.
Looking back, I know I took things too far when I started saying things like, "I hope she returns" and "she better turn off her invisibility powers, or else she will never be with her parents again." My penchant for mischief clearly got the best of me, because I continued this game for 10 minutes. Slowly, tears built up in the young girl's eyes. She was crestfallen, and I was never put in charge of a child again.
My parents were out of town. I had three days of freedom before school began again and my parents were gone for all three days. Of course I was lectured about how I was trusted and how they did not want me to throw a party while they were gone, like last time. That Sunday was a great night. The next morning I looked at my phone and saw that I had two texts and a missed call from my mom, the text reading, “call me”. I felt like throwing up but instead I called her. After cunningly explaining I was not even home the previous night and that therefore I could not possibly be responsible for the various emails and calls she had received about broken bottles on the street, my mom merely replied, “do you know that our neighbors have surveillance cameras?” I set the phone down and cursed the idiots who thought it was a good idea to throw empty bottles onto the street … in front of my house, then returned to the phone and explained that I did indeed have a party the previous night. If you always tell the truth and occasionally are rewarded with courage and honesty when does occasionally dodging the blame successfully after lying come in?
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