Oh What a Tangled Web I Weave!

Not to continue the discussion of phobias, but I did get caught in my own web today. The inevitable has finally come to pass: someone finally questioned my credentials at my new job. I made it a full week and a half before anyone asked why I am qualified to tutor statistics.

The truth is that I took Stats 221 two years ago and didn't remember a thing when I applied for the job as a tutor. The fact that I also applied for a math tutor position with the same employer should have tipped him off to the fact that this was a move of desperation rather than of appropriateness, given that I haven't even taken one math course since I graduated high school in '99. I have spent the last six days feverishly studying the course manual and textbook, hoping that no one would call. Thankfully only one person has, and she just had keyed the answer in wrong. What luck for me! Disaster averted! But then History Buff just had to ask, and I was forced to confess.

This incident reminded of some other times I was named the charlatan, revealing a life of suffering for my lies.

The Mission Lie
My companion was complaining ad nauseum about his father and how stupid it was that he only put up one string of lights at Christmas.
I turned to him and said in a resentful voice, "At least you have a dad." A few more seconds of the hurt face did it. He quieted up like a big mouthed girl in a room full of horseflies.
Weeks later I was explaining the latest news from my seldom-heard-from dad when he whipped his head around and said, "Hey, I thought you didn't have a dad!"
"Oops. I mean, just kidding?"

The High School Lie
In high school my friends and I went to buy candy bars in the lunch room (this is before the price hike that caused my friend Heff to exclaim, "What the crap!" the first time I heard that exclamation). DJ hadn't noticed that I had bought a Twix just like his, so when I took his off the table and started to open it, he just thought I was joking. When I started to sniff at it, he looked uncomfortable, and when I started to eat it, he only bored into my skull with his gamma-ray vision. What's worse is that KK, the girl we both liked, knew I had another Twix in my lap, so she was laughing hysterically. When I produced the second bar, it made little difference in his emotional state. The lying apparently scarred him. In fact, he changed all his classes the next semester because I was in them. But the joke's on him: I went with KK to the prom, and they stopped talking entirely.

The Formative Lie
I told my eighth-grade homeroom teacher that I had to go to a club on Day of the Arts, that day of the year when there were no clubs, because I wanted to go see the rock band that was playing in the auditorium. Woods and I gave her the opportunity to take the class there, but she refused; really we had no other choice. She let us go to our respective clubs, and we snuck into the back of the auditorium to see the show, reveling in our rebellion. It was a slow shock, you know, the kind that comes on you none of the sudden, when we realized that the people filing into the row on the other side were the members of our class. We darted from our seats to the other door and waited until the whole class was seated. As Woods popped her head into the hall, we were certain she was spotted. We made a run for it, returning to our class, ready to explain how there were no clubs that day. The teacher came back to the class, and as we opened our mouths to explain, she said, "I don't want to hear it. Just go with the class." That was better anyway, since I accidentally left my bag in the auditorium.

The Conclusion Lie
So there it is, the root of my lying habit is in my love of the arts. It's what began it all. And what has it gotten me? Only a free rock concert, a date to the prom, a bit of much needed respite from the blabberings of an ingrate, and a sweet job. Experience surely is life's greatest teacher. I'll never lie again.