True Lies and False Truths

No, this is not about the guy before Biden

We all know that no one ever tells the truth 100% of the time, right? Even the most honest, straight-shooting person tells a lie, or is less than honest sometimes. While it is correct to say that technically, then, we are all liars, I am of the opinion that each of us has a line between the lies we will and will not tell.

For example, hypothetically, if a friend or relative gives me an ugly new shirt, am I going to say how ugly it is? No, I’m going to say it’s great and thanks for thinking of me. A lie such as that would not be over my line.

But, if I tell my wife I invested our life savings in long term securities when I really gambled it away at the local casino, then obviously that would be a much worse lie. I’d never consider crossing that line.

I believe there are degrees of lies, and degrees matter.

Tell a Lie or Tell the Truth?

Some years ago, we had a dog named Tex. My wife and her mom adopted him from the local animal shelter. Tex was a shaggy, happy-go-lucky mutt who was fun to have around. Such a good, happy boy. Occasionally, though, he would do something really annoying, as pets do from time to time.

Now, sometimes Tex could be . . . well . . . gassy. Once in a while, when he was relaxing under our bed, he would let loose a silent blast of gas, and it would be fog-up-your-glasses bad. I would holler at him, like, “Goddammit Tex, you’re killing us up here!

One time my wife left the bedroom for a few minutes and I accidentally let loose with a gassy blast of my own. Let’s just say it was, uh, unpleasant. Here’s where I faced a “Tell a Lie or Tell the Truth” dilemma. I knew she was coming back any second. What would I do - tell a lie or tell the truth?

Well, I lied my ass off. I started hollering, “Tex, what the hell? You’re suffocating us! Goddammit, Tex!” My wife came back and asked, “What’s all the commotion in here?” I said, in my most annoyed-sounding voice, “Oh, Tex farted under the bed again. Maybe we should find a different food for him.” She goes, “Well, maybe we should. It is pretty nasty in here.”

Yes, it was low of me to blame sweet, innocent, loyal Tex for something I had done. But, in that instance, I opted to protect myself with a lie rather than admit the truth. And, self protection is one of the main reasons normally honest people will lie. By the way, not that this lets me off the hook, but Tex never seemed to mind that I Iied the blame for the noxious fumes in our bedroom onto him.

Tex was such a wonderfully happy boy. It did not seem to bother him at all when I told that damnable lie about him.

Lies of Omission

I believe it is quite common to lie, or not tell the whole truth, to protect another person’s feelings. We all do it without giving it a thought, even those who pride themselves on truth telling. I am aware of the saying “Honesty is the best policy”, but c’mon, nobody believes that.

In this example, I was working at the library. On a fairly consistent basis, our patrons would bring homemade treats to, I don’t know, show their appreciation for us, I guess? Anyway, we had this one patron who would make stuff for us, and often it was, ah, not good. But, in this situation, what are you going to do? Tell the truth and hurt her feelings? Nobody wanted to do that.

Of course, the downside to not being honest was that she kept bringing her awful baked goods to the library. If I happened to be on the service desk when she came in with her “treats”, I accepted them with thanks, but I did not say, “Oh boy, homemade brownies! That last batch was wonderful!” So, I didn’t directly lie to her, however, I committed a lie of omission. I accepted her generosity without being truthful, but what good would it have done to tell her the stuff she brought for us was terrible? And, I did appreciate her wanting to do something nice for us. So, I simply learned to avoid her treats. Maybe it was just me who thought her stuff was terrible, anyway.

Sure they look good, but . . .

Father and Son

Permit me to preface this next section by writing a few words about my father. I do not believe it is hyperbolic to say that my dad was universally admired by all as a good man. Dependable, hard-working, always willing to help out when needed, my dad was a solid citizen in every possible way. He did blaspheme now and then, and he had a working knowledge of most of the other classic swear words (though I never heard him say “fuck”). All this is to say that the father I knew was a good man, worthy of respect and admiration, but not perfect, and not a goody-two-shoes.

With that preamble out of the way, I’m going to tell the story of watching my dad lie to a cop. We were traveling by car from our home in Pennsylvania to upstate New York for a family thing. My father was driving and our little party included my mother, her mother and father, my younger brother and me. I was about 10, I think. (It sounds like a lot of people to cram into a car, but it was one of those seatbelt-free, battleship-sized 60s sedans.) I was in the back seat, behind my dad.

We were traveling at night because the traffic was light. From previous car trips, I learned the importance of “making good time”. I knew the plan was to zip along on the local roads because who else was going to be out there in the middle of the night? Plus my father wanted to avoid the New York State Thruway because he did not want to pay the tolls.  

I’m a little hazy on the time, but I remember it being the middle of the night and I was awake. I enjoyed watching for the road signs and seeing the lights at night, and, heck, we were on an adventure. It was all going as planned, we were zipping through all the sleepy little towns on the way, making good time. But, danged if there wasn’t a local cop out doing his job protecting the main drag in the small town of Westfield, New York.

Of course, he pulled us over. I knew we were speeding because I was watching from my perch behind my dad. I had a perfect view of our speedometer approaching 60. I don’t remember everything that was said when my dad rolled down his window, but I’m pretty sure he did not tell the officer about the plan to speed through all the podunk towns on our way in order to make good time.

At some point, the officer must have said something about how fast we were going, like, “You were doing 55 in a 35 zone,” or words to that effect. And, my dad, a man to whom truth telling was important, a man who once caught me lying about something, then put my bicycle on the roof of our trailer for a week as punishment, said to the cop, in a mixture of puzzlement and surprise, “I didn’t realize I was going that fast.” I knew that was incorrect, so, in order to be helpful, I piped up from the back seat, “Oh yeah, Dad, you were.”

Years later, when my dad would tell this story, he said that the policeman stifled a smile, then let us go with a warning. It became kind of a funny family story, but in the moment, everybody was mad at me. After the window went back up, my grandfather turned around and said, “Jesus Christ, boy, what the hell you trying to do? Get us thrown in jail?”

I was mortified. Why did I say what I said? I did not want my dad to be in trouble. It just slipped out. I knew the plan was to speed through the small towns on the way, and he was not being honest with the police officer. Maybe, just maybe, my 10-year-old’s sense of honesty helped us out with the cop. After all, he did smile and let us go with a warning. It is also possible the cop looked at the rest of us (well, okay, me) and figured my father had enough problems already without adding on a speeding ticket.

Where I almost got us sent to the pokey.

Does lying in these ways make us bad people? Well, speaking only of myself, I am often my own worst critic, and I regularly chastise myself for not being a better person. But, in instances such as these, I think the telling of small-by-degree lies would not make me a bad person. I mean, lying to protect oneself from social embarrassment, or lying to protect others, or even lying to avoid a traffic ticket, cannot be considered the same as, say, seriously damaging our precious democracy with a cascade of lies about winning a presidential election that actually was lost by millions of votes, and then piling more lies on top of that, thereby inciting a mouth-breathing group of idiotic cult members to riot in the building where our lawmakers were doing their constitutional duty, and which culminated in a violent insurrection where people actually died. That would be some serious-ass lying right there. (Sorry about that, it just slipped out.)

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