There's the "it's easier if you don't know the truth" lie ("No, that really looks good on you"), the "I don't want to talk" lie ("I'm fine."), the "get out of stuff lie" ("Something came up").
But my favorite is the "oh shit, I'm in trouble" lie. These are the most interesting because once you start, you just can't stop. It's like quick sand; you just keep getting deeper and deeper until you can't climb your way out. Even when you know you're busted, you just can't seem to stop. LORDY THE WORD VOMIT.
My hall of fame-r in this category was from my fourth grade self. Little background for you, science and I hate each other. Probably closer to despise. Loathe. You get the picture. Even in my tot years, I didn't get it. We were on the dinosaur chapter and I was just lost. I mean, think about it. How is a 9 year old supposed to wrap her head around the idea of an enormous creature that just doesn't exist anymore? No explanation, the beasts just vanished. Riddle me that.
Anyways. At the end of the chapter, we had a test. And it was haaaaard. I remember nervously rearranging all 2,800 lip glosses that were lined up inside of my desk (a girl's gotta have options) as I waited for Mrs. Gallo to waddle her way over to me to hand back my test. Talk about a mental image. When she finally plopped it down in front of me, I slowly turned it over to peak. On the top of it was a big, fat, red F. As the tears started forming in my sweet little eyeballs, I started to think about how I was going to explain this to my mom. And I came up with the perfect idea. I would turn the F into an E. E comes before F, so obviously it's not as bad. I mean, it's bad. But it's not F bad. So I took out my red pen and sneakily added that extra line at the bottom to magically transform that horrible letter. Our teacher made all us bring of our tests back the next day signed by a parent. What would I do when Mrs. Gallo noticed a different grade on the top of my paper? I hadn't quite figured that out yet. But I'd cross that bridge when I got to it.
Later that night as my mom was sitting on the couch, I came up to her with my test in my shaky hands. Before I even handed it to her, I lost it. I was balling. I started to explain to her how hard the test was and that I just didn't understand what was going on. And then I hit her with the bomb: "I got an E." She started laughing hysterically and asked me to repeat what I just said. Between sobs, I managed to say "E". She also managed to get out, in between laughs, "Honey, I don't think they have E's". "BUT MRS. GALLO DOES", I rebuttled.
Now I don't remember what happened next. I guess I probably should have followed up with momma before writing this. But it's funny, we all still think we can get away with the lies we tell. No matter how bad or how poorly planned. I just remember how confident I was that this would work: I could totally pull this one over on her. What a funny, weird little knobby kneed girl I was. A dinosaur-hating girl, at that.
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