Caught in a lie!
Okay - I'm sorry, I'm sorry , I'm sorry. To all of you who have emailed me asking me for an updated blog, I apologise for the delay and I am so flattered that all three of you cared enough to look for it (three people is a bigger number than no people so a big fat raspberry to any of you who are laughing at my exaltation).
The truth is that after five years of living in this house I am finally trying to get the garden into a little bit of shape and I have been out every night for the last month painting the garden fence. It has 28 panels and is such an awkward shaped fence to do which is why it is taking me so long. It has stakes in front and behind so I have to paint our side and then get my hand in through the stakes and paint the neighbours half of the fences that is facing us. If my description isn't helping then save yourself the bother of trying to decipher it and just look at the picture.
It's a nightmare. I've had hubby out helping me a few times but to be honest he takes forever and I find that I am just quicker doing it myself. He will be highly offended at this statement so to save him giving out to me, I will just give you the excuse that he gives me and you can make up your own mind as to his usefulness. He claims that I give him the rubbish painting brush! I'll say no more....
Anyway, we've had fun outside chatting to each other without the telly or the kids distracting us but the other night, the discussion took an unusual turn.
The conversation began by hubby praising me for being such a good liar. Well, perhaps praising isn't the right verb to use as to be perfectly honest, hubby is such an honest soul that he finds my ability to tell the most bare faced porkies without batting an eyelid a bit appalling but I am oddly proud of this gift so I tend to take any reference towards it no matter how derogatory as a compliment.
The truth is that I am not actually a liar by nature (no honestly, I'm telling the truth this time). I despise people who are full of nothing but deceit at the core of their being and I see them as cowards and selfish individuals. I however, am a big fan of 'the white lie'.
You know what I'm taking about. "Oh my God - Have you lost weight?" "That dress looks AMAAAAAZING. Seriously, grey really suits you." "Your baby's head is not too big!"
The reason hubby was praising me/giving out to me (whatever) is because that I tend to take the white lie a little bit further than it needs to go and I can be very believable - scarily so. An example would be "Oh, I'd love to mind your kids today but I have an ingrown toenail and I'm having it removed so I can't." I can even go as far as limping for a few days after telling the lie and grimacing with pain just to add an edge to it. Hubby wants to know why I can't just say I'm busy but the truth is, I find elaborating and putting a slant the story so much more fun and who am I hurting really?!
My mother is a genius at this (I can only assume that that is where I inherited my gift) and only recently swore blind to me that some distant cousin at a party told her that I look about sixteen. I have a new fringe cut that she likes and I don't and she is trying to stop me growing it out. She was so believable though, screaming at me "I swear!! A child is all they thought you were - A CHILD!" that if it wasn't for the fact that I am going to be thirty five in a few weeks time and I look every bit of it and I also had my two children with me (I would have had to have been twelve when the first was born to be sixteen now), I very nearly believed her (I so wanted it to be true).
The first time hubby got wise to my 'gift' was when we were dating and I had brought him home to Ennis to meet my friends and family. We were meeting the gang in town but there was something on the telly that I wanted to watch first and I refused to budge until it was finished. When I got a phone call from my best friend Gillian wondering where we were I answered her accusingly "Where are we? Where are you? We've already been in Knox's looking for you and now we are down the other end of the town. It'll take us ages to walk back." We were of course still just sitting on the couch. Hubby's mouth opened and he just stared at me. "Why....Why.... didn't you just say that we would be there in a while?" He stuttered. How could I explain to him that I just didn't want Gillian to think that I would put a television program before her. A little white lie makes us both feel better. I tried to explain it to him but he didn't get it. In fact, he still doesn't.
"At least you've never lied to me" he said the other night while painting our fence and I quickly looked down at my feet and didn't answer. A few seconds past. "Oh my God" he gasped - "YOU HAVE!"
"A little one, a little one. That's all. I Swear. I'm sorry, I'M SORRY - just don't ask me what it is!"
It was too late. The cat was now firmly amongst the pigeons.
Two years ago we purchased a new car. Well I say new but it was actually second hand, it was just new to us. It was to be a little run around for me while hubby got to drive the lovely Mazda 6 to work every day. All went well for the first twenty four hours until I unwittingly drove the new car into a wall (the mat went under the brake so not really my fault). I got home in one piece with only a few hundred Euro worth of damage to the car but hubby was unimpressed. I have terribly bad spacial awareness (I can never tell how much room I have at each side just by looking) and this was not the first time that I have bumped or scraped one of our cars (fifth or sixth I think - and I'm not even including my parents car in that figure). He didn't say much, but hubby is like my father as in he doesn't have to. He silently fumes about the place when annoyed and even the neighbours can sense his discontentment and salute us nervously at around those times not quite knowing why they feel that way.
Feeling as though I was a bit hard done by due to his lack of sympathy towards me, I held out my hand for his car keys and told him that I was taking the Mazda. "Oh no you're not" he stated, "You're too shook up after crashing the Skoda and you're not driving anywhere"" I know exactly how shook up I am" I sniffed defiantly "And I am taking the car".
His will was no match for mine and within minutes I was reversing the car down the driveway straight into the fence where crack; the fence snapped in two.
Crap!!! There was no way in hell that I was owning up to this.
I decided to say nothing and concocted a plan. The following day we were watching a DVD with the kids when i stood up and looked out of the window and gasped "Oh my God - what the hell happened to the fence?" Hubby leapt up and matched my look of horror exactly. He looked at the fence and back to me and back to the fence again with a giant question mark on his face. "The people across the road" I stated suddenly. "What?" he questioned still staring at me looking slightly confused. We had a few rowdy studenty type people renting a house across the road and they threw many a party. Here was where I was going to cash in. "They had a party last night and I heard a few people rowing. I'll bet you anything that they broke the fence." "Well then, they can bloody well pay for it" spluttered hubby standing up with every intention of marching across the road to confront them. "You can't, you can't", I soothed, "You've no proof. Bastards though!" "Bastards!" hubby agreed.
I kept it up for years. Tsking every time I walked past the broken plank of wood and throwing the poor students the odd obligatory dirty look. I even told my friend Claire the story and it just so happened that she knew the landlord of that house and repeated the story to him. He then arrived at our door and offered to pay to get it fixed but I refused (See, I'm just a liar - not dishonest). Hubby was flabbergasted when I turned him down but I gave some story about how the landlord couldn't be held responsible for his tenants actions and Karma and all that and thankfully hubby agreed to let it go.
The problem is that throughout this whole time, he never once suspected me of having a hand in the broken fence until the other night. I was saving the story for my death bed but now I had somehow let it out sooner than I intended. I hesitated waiting for him to shown his indignation and perhaps fury towards my treacherous nature but to my surprise, he found it absolutely hilarious and laughed his head off. In fact throughout his guffaws he just kept staring at me with new found admiration. He just could not believe how convincingly I had lied to him and since then has been asking me to tell him stories of other lies I have told and we have both been in knots of laughter at the pure audacity of them. He has finally begun to recognise my 'gift'.
Now here is my new dilemma. Will I publish this post or not? If I don't then I have no blog for my three fans to read (ha, ha - fans! I can't think of another more appropriate word. Interested parties maybe?) but If I do then I am sure to be inundated with people demanding to know if I really did have a grumbling appendix that time, or what the hell really happened to the tiles on their roof? It'll be sort of like that time Superman revealed his powers to Lois lane but unlike Superman, this time, there will be no going back.
What the hell - I can handle it. Pressing 'publish post'...........NOW!
It's a nightmare. I've had hubby out helping me a few times but to be honest he takes forever and I find that I am just quicker doing it myself. He will be highly offended at this statement so to save him giving out to me, I will just give you the excuse that he gives me and you can make up your own mind as to his usefulness. He claims that I give him the rubbish painting brush! I'll say no more....
Anyway, we've had fun outside chatting to each other without the telly or the kids distracting us but the other night, the discussion took an unusual turn.
The conversation began by hubby praising me for being such a good liar. Well, perhaps praising isn't the right verb to use as to be perfectly honest, hubby is such an honest soul that he finds my ability to tell the most bare faced porkies without batting an eyelid a bit appalling but I am oddly proud of this gift so I tend to take any reference towards it no matter how derogatory as a compliment.
The truth is that I am not actually a liar by nature (no honestly, I'm telling the truth this time). I despise people who are full of nothing but deceit at the core of their being and I see them as cowards and selfish individuals. I however, am a big fan of 'the white lie'.
You know what I'm taking about. "Oh my God - Have you lost weight?" "That dress looks AMAAAAAZING. Seriously, grey really suits you." "Your baby's head is not too big!"
The reason hubby was praising me/giving out to me (whatever) is because that I tend to take the white lie a little bit further than it needs to go and I can be very believable - scarily so. An example would be "Oh, I'd love to mind your kids today but I have an ingrown toenail and I'm having it removed so I can't." I can even go as far as limping for a few days after telling the lie and grimacing with pain just to add an edge to it. Hubby wants to know why I can't just say I'm busy but the truth is, I find elaborating and putting a slant the story so much more fun and who am I hurting really?!
My mother is a genius at this (I can only assume that that is where I inherited my gift) and only recently swore blind to me that some distant cousin at a party told her that I look about sixteen. I have a new fringe cut that she likes and I don't and she is trying to stop me growing it out. She was so believable though, screaming at me "I swear!! A child is all they thought you were - A CHILD!" that if it wasn't for the fact that I am going to be thirty five in a few weeks time and I look every bit of it and I also had my two children with me (I would have had to have been twelve when the first was born to be sixteen now), I very nearly believed her (I so wanted it to be true).
The first time hubby got wise to my 'gift' was when we were dating and I had brought him home to Ennis to meet my friends and family. We were meeting the gang in town but there was something on the telly that I wanted to watch first and I refused to budge until it was finished. When I got a phone call from my best friend Gillian wondering where we were I answered her accusingly "Where are we? Where are you? We've already been in Knox's looking for you and now we are down the other end of the town. It'll take us ages to walk back." We were of course still just sitting on the couch. Hubby's mouth opened and he just stared at me. "Why....Why.... didn't you just say that we would be there in a while?" He stuttered. How could I explain to him that I just didn't want Gillian to think that I would put a television program before her. A little white lie makes us both feel better. I tried to explain it to him but he didn't get it. In fact, he still doesn't.
"At least you've never lied to me" he said the other night while painting our fence and I quickly looked down at my feet and didn't answer. A few seconds past. "Oh my God" he gasped - "YOU HAVE!"
"A little one, a little one. That's all. I Swear. I'm sorry, I'M SORRY - just don't ask me what it is!"
It was too late. The cat was now firmly amongst the pigeons.
Two years ago we purchased a new car. Well I say new but it was actually second hand, it was just new to us. It was to be a little run around for me while hubby got to drive the lovely Mazda 6 to work every day. All went well for the first twenty four hours until I unwittingly drove the new car into a wall (the mat went under the brake so not really my fault). I got home in one piece with only a few hundred Euro worth of damage to the car but hubby was unimpressed. I have terribly bad spacial awareness (I can never tell how much room I have at each side just by looking) and this was not the first time that I have bumped or scraped one of our cars (fifth or sixth I think - and I'm not even including my parents car in that figure). He didn't say much, but hubby is like my father as in he doesn't have to. He silently fumes about the place when annoyed and even the neighbours can sense his discontentment and salute us nervously at around those times not quite knowing why they feel that way.
Feeling as though I was a bit hard done by due to his lack of sympathy towards me, I held out my hand for his car keys and told him that I was taking the Mazda. "Oh no you're not" he stated, "You're too shook up after crashing the Skoda and you're not driving anywhere"" I know exactly how shook up I am" I sniffed defiantly "And I am taking the car".
His will was no match for mine and within minutes I was reversing the car down the driveway straight into the fence where crack; the fence snapped in two.
Crap!!! There was no way in hell that I was owning up to this.
I decided to say nothing and concocted a plan. The following day we were watching a DVD with the kids when i stood up and looked out of the window and gasped "Oh my God - what the hell happened to the fence?" Hubby leapt up and matched my look of horror exactly. He looked at the fence and back to me and back to the fence again with a giant question mark on his face. "The people across the road" I stated suddenly. "What?" he questioned still staring at me looking slightly confused. We had a few rowdy studenty type people renting a house across the road and they threw many a party. Here was where I was going to cash in. "They had a party last night and I heard a few people rowing. I'll bet you anything that they broke the fence." "Well then, they can bloody well pay for it" spluttered hubby standing up with every intention of marching across the road to confront them. "You can't, you can't", I soothed, "You've no proof. Bastards though!" "Bastards!" hubby agreed.
I kept it up for years. Tsking every time I walked past the broken plank of wood and throwing the poor students the odd obligatory dirty look. I even told my friend Claire the story and it just so happened that she knew the landlord of that house and repeated the story to him. He then arrived at our door and offered to pay to get it fixed but I refused (See, I'm just a liar - not dishonest). Hubby was flabbergasted when I turned him down but I gave some story about how the landlord couldn't be held responsible for his tenants actions and Karma and all that and thankfully hubby agreed to let it go.
The problem is that throughout this whole time, he never once suspected me of having a hand in the broken fence until the other night. I was saving the story for my death bed but now I had somehow let it out sooner than I intended. I hesitated waiting for him to shown his indignation and perhaps fury towards my treacherous nature but to my surprise, he found it absolutely hilarious and laughed his head off. In fact throughout his guffaws he just kept staring at me with new found admiration. He just could not believe how convincingly I had lied to him and since then has been asking me to tell him stories of other lies I have told and we have both been in knots of laughter at the pure audacity of them. He has finally begun to recognise my 'gift'.
Now here is my new dilemma. Will I publish this post or not? If I don't then I have no blog for my three fans to read (ha, ha - fans! I can't think of another more appropriate word. Interested parties maybe?) but If I do then I am sure to be inundated with people demanding to know if I really did have a grumbling appendix that time, or what the hell really happened to the tiles on their roof? It'll be sort of like that time Superman revealed his powers to Lois lane but unlike Superman, this time, there will be no going back.
What the hell - I can handle it. Pressing 'publish post'...........NOW!
I can easily see through ur lies! U can lie away and I'll know....I just humour u and let u think ur a lying mastermind!
ReplyDeleteI have done the fence thing before also but i got caught out. Ooopss
ReplyDeleteAm I the only Corrigan who missed out on the lying gene? I cannot tell a lie to save my life! Honest to a fault, I've been told. I think the best liars are also the best actors. It kind of goes hand in hand, making yourself believe something fictional. Needless to say, I cannot act either, but my efforts at drama are quite hilarious so I can still entertain!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that the others will thank you for that Alison but sure, if they give out then you can say that you were just being honest.
ReplyDelete