Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Tellin' Tall Tales

Alright, FINE. So my "woe is me" post last night didn't exactly go that well. I expected (or hoped, rather) that like everyone and their brother would have some insight on the post. But Geo read it before I posted it. I said "It's funny, don't worry!" And he read it and said, "Um, it's not like funny, you know. It's, uh, just really personal." I told him he didn't know anything about ANYTHING and I posted it. Turns out, he knows a LITTLE something about some things. The reaction to the post was, uh, underwhelming, so consider it a lesson learned. Sorry guys. I'm takin' my problems to WebMD from now on.

Alright, let's get back on track. So this afternoon, as a girl was getting off the bus, she totally wiped out on the ice. She landed flat on her back and I made a huge "O" with my mouth and stifled my giggle before asking "Ohmygod, are you okay?" She laughed at herself, stood up, brushed the snow off her butt and goes "Welp, pretty glad you're the only one who saw that!" And then, for no reason at all, I just blurted out "That SAME THING just happened to me this morning! Vwoop! Fell right on my butt." Here's what you need to know: I did NOT "vwoop...fall right on my butt". I just, like, lied. No reason at all. I guess I wanted her to feel better, even though she seemed totally fine, and instead she appeared to be uncomfortable at my alleged Story-Topping.

You guys, I do that. I kind of just LIE sometimes. Little lies, itty bitty, teeny weeny lies. And only when I'm nervous. Or to fill an awkward silence. Or to make someone feel a little better by fabricating a similar story of my own. Or to make myself sound smarter. You know in Garden State, when the illustrious Natalie Portman admits HER affinity for pointless lying? She says "I don't know, it's like, it's like a tick. It's like I hear myself say something and I think, 'Wow, that's not even remotely true!'" Yeah, I think they wrote that line about me.

I remember at my first job out of college, they wanted to have me try my hand at sales. During a couple terrifying cold calls, I counted and I had lied about 4 times. Can we do month-to-month?...Awkward silence...SUUUUURE! Will you promise that I get a 78% return on my ad? ...Awkward silence...OF COURSE! LIES, man, just flat out LIES!

It's so dumb, too. During college, a friend of mine and I decided we were going to lie our faces off and decided to tell the rest of our friends that we had met Ashton Kutcher at a downtown Iowa City bar. (He used to go to the U of Iowa, in case you were wondering, so it's really not that unlikely he could have been there.) Our plan worked. People were all "You met him!? What was he like?? Did you talk to him?" I saw my friend waiver, she was considering giving the whole thing away, so I went in like gangbusters. By the time I was done talking, Ashton had complimented me on my t-shirt, he gave us advice on different majors, bought us a round of beers AND shots, and told us all how much he missed people "like us". What, I ask you, was the point of that?

Sometimes I just lie about liking something. I lied about liking Arcade Fire a few times, actually. Sorry, but I honestly am totally indifferent about them. I guess I would even go so far as to say, straight up, I don't get the hype. But, I wanted to be considered "cool" so I said I "toooootally loved their new album!" No, I didn't. I just wanted that person to like me. Everyone? I just don't like Arcade Fire. I don't. Except that one song that's in Where the Wild Things Are. THAT is a great song. The rest of it just sounds like noise. Vanilla, boring, white noise.

Um, let's see. I've guess actually been pretty truthful lately. That's a lie. I lied about what I had for dinner last night for no reason at all. It was so dumb. I wanted my friend to think I had been eating really healthy, so instead of telling her I had 3 breadsticks and some pizza that Geo had leftover from lunch, I said I made a Cobb salad. I'm not even entirely sure what goes IN to a Cobb salad.

When it comes to little things like that - making myself seem healthier or more eclectic in my music tastes, or when I'm trying to be interesting or sympathetic - sometimes, yes, I lie. Should I have admitted all this? Probably not. But I assure you, every single word I write on here is straight up, in yo' face, TRUTH. Okay, that might be a lie. I don't know. I really haven't been paying too much attention to what I write anyways.

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