The 3 Biggest Lies People Tell
{AUTHORS NOTE: You may notice this post is slightly different in format from my usual ramblings. That’s because this started out as an article that I planned to submit to the bestest comedy site on the web, Cracked.com. Unfortunately, I wrote most of this before reading the requirements for outsiders like myself to be published on the site. This is because I’m a dumbass. In short, this one doesn’t meet the criteria. I finished it anyway and here it is for your enjoyment. If anyone from Cracked is reading this and wants to publish it, let’s do lunch.}
People lie all the time; we can’t help it, it’s in our nature. In fact, it’s necessary for us to lie if we want to exist in a civilized society. When someone asks us how we’re feeling, we plaster on a faux smile and inevitably respond, “Fine.” We can’t tell the truth: that we hate them for asking that on a Monday morning and that if they don’t walk away now, our foot is going to get acquainted with their dicks at high velocity – people will assume we’re psychotic if we say that. If someone asks me what I had for lunch, I tell them, “your mom’s sweet ass.” Okay, that’s a lie (see how pervasive dishonesty is?). I usually just tell them, “I had a salad.” The truth, that I ate a bag of Goldfish crackers and washed it down with a pint of Old Grandad, is just too awesome for them to comprehend. It would quite literally cause their heads to explode.
We lie to each other so much that it becomes almost impossible to spot. However, there are three things people say that are always lies, to you, but mainly to themselves.
3. “I’m Classy.”
This often comes accompanied with the modifiers, “as shit” or “as fuck.” No classy person has ever had to insist to others that she was classy. Class is generally easy to define, yet hard to spot. It’s far easier to recognize what isn’t classy than to point out what is. That guy at the bar pounding Bud skull crushers and then belching the alphabet? Talented, but not classy. The girl with the leopard print everything and tattoo of Evel Knievel jumping his rocket cycle over her lady canyon? You want her phone number, but she’s not classy. Anyone you’ve ever seen at Wall Mart? Surprisingly classy as fuckballs. Here, let me illustrate further with a real life example.
One evening after work, I and a few coworkers headed out to happy hour at the local liquortorium. We were waited on by a young man named Sailor. Before you get mad at your brain for unfairly stereotyping this guy as a lacrosse playing, soccer watching, Abercrombie & Fitch wearing bag of dicks, allow me to assuage your guilt: that’s exactly what he was. In fact, we spent most of the first hour or so of happy hour (oxymoron?) mocking him for being a supreme frat-boy Douche Lord. After a while though, Sailor began to grow on us. He was actually kind of funny and had a very self-deprecating way about him. In fact, I downgraded him to Douche Viscount once he started throwing back shots with us. So what does all that have to do with “I’m Classy”? I’m getting to that. Christ, you’re impatient.
I don’t remember how (drinking – remember?), but we began talking about tattoos. Sailor mentioned that he just got a tattoo the night before and offered to show it to us. I admit to feeling uncomfortable yet intrigued when he unbuttoned his pants and turned around. He pulled his pants down just to the top of his ass crack and there it was, in cursive script: the word, “Classy.” See what he did there? Getting “Classy” tattooed just north of one’s coin slot is the opposite of classy! It’s ironic! At least, I think it’s ironic (someone call Alanis). Anyway, obviously Sailor was in on the joke. However, I think he missed the part where the joke was kind of on him since he, you know, permanently scarred his skin for a laugh that could have easily been gotten with henna dye. I can’t imagine a woman willingly engaging in sexual intercourse with a guy marked up like that, so enjoy having all of your intimate moments in the dark or with a sweater tied around your waist for the rest of your life. I hope he had no dreams of ever being a plumber; he’d get laughed right out of Plumber Academy with crack graffiti like that. (Can someone please start a Kickstarter campaign to fund Plumber Academy: The Movie starring Michael Winslow and Steve Guttenberg? I will love you forever if you make this happen. Plus, those guys really need the work.)
Still, despite all of the facts screaming otherwise, Sailor insisted to one of the girls in our group that he really was a classy guy. She just needed to get to know him. Such denial. Clearly an intervention was in order. I hope he got the help he needed.
2. “I’m Smart.”
This one is a little harder to quantify, but you’ll mainly see it being bandied about in comments forums on every page of the goddamned worldwide internet. For example, think of a movie you like a great deal. Got one? Good. Now look it up on the IMDB and go to the message boards. Within the first few posts, you should see one cleverly labeled, “This Moieve Suxxxxxx!!!!” The quality of the movie you selected doesn’t matter – it could be Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, or My Balls Itch: The Movie – those comments are lurking on the boards. Their sole purpose for existing is not to make a compelling, intelligent argument, but to bait you into a flame war where the original poster gets to question your taste and call you a moron. This is where you might wish to defend yourself and say, “Nuh-uh, I’m smart.” I hate to break it to you, but no, no you’re not. You proved your lack of intelligence by engaging this sack of fucks in the first place. You gave him what he wanted and he’s thus correct to call you a moron – Q.E. motherfuckin’ D. I saw someone try to win one of these arguments by writing, no shit, “I’m smarter than you, asshole. I’ve been in the Mensa since 2003!” Full disclosure here: I’m not a member of “The Mensa.” I have no idea if they issue membership cards or make you get a tattoo of a giant brain on your penis or what. I DO know that the organization is simply called, “Mensa,” without the qualifying article, “The.”
“Well,” you say, “just who in the holy fuck do you think you are? You think you’re some kind of Mr. Smarty-Smart Smart Guy or something? I hope you get the flesh eating bacteria on your ass.” Wow. Harsh words, hypothetical readers, harsh words indeed. No, I do not think I’m smart. I have evidence that proves quite the opposite.
One fine evening after imbibing a few gentlemen’s beverages, I found myself eating cold pizza and watching infomercials at 3am as I am wont to do. This particular infomercial was for cologne called, “Realm.” Intrigued? So was I. For 30 minutes, I watched confident men discuss the benefits of applying Realm to their naked skin and beautiful women talk about how the smell of those men made the pants melt right off their bodies. You see, Realm is crammed with assloads of pheromones. Pheromones give confidence to men and turn women into nymphomaniacs, so claim the makers of Realm. Naturally, there was simply no way my intoxicated mind could resist. I fumbled my credit card (with $500 limit – jealous?) out of my wallet and called the number on the screen because the internet wasn’t a thing yet (Fuck, I’m old). As I was placing my order for cologne that I had never smelled – its scent being it’s ONLY redeeming characteristic – some much more sober part of my brain spoke up. “What the hell are you doing?” it said. “I’m buying cologne with pheromones, goddamn it! Now shut up and leave me alone,” I retorted. The woman taking my order was a little taken aback as I had apparently verbalized this inner dialogue. Still, sober brain made kind of a good point. No problem, I had this. “Hey, does this cologne smell good?” The woman said nothing. I assume she must’ve thought I was still arguing with myself. “I only ask because I’d kind of like it to smell good.” She realized I was talking to her and offered, “Oh, I’ve never actually smelled it, but yeah, probably.” What a saleswoman. A smart person, drunk or not, would have hung up and shaken his head the next day over the $50 bullet he had managed to dodge. Not this guy. “Fuck it, how bad can it be? Here’s my credit card number.”
I then promptly forgot about Realm for 4-6 weeks until one day, a strange package arrived on my doorstep. Not knowing what it was, I excitedly opened it because, hey, a package. Once I viewed the contents, I could feel my face turning crimson with embarrassment as a hazy, drunken memory wafted across my brain, along with the thought, “Well, you did it again.” Still, maybe this was the one infomercial product that lived up to its own obscene hype. I sprayed it on my wrist and inhaled…
How do I describe the smell? Okay, imagine the filthiest hippie you can imagine – you know, one with a scraggly beard, crusty dreadlocks, who never wears shoes and has perpetually black feet. The kind of hippie who always wears a plaid poncho because he believes it hides the stains (but you can totally see the stains). The kind of hippie who only takes showers on each of the equinoxes because he’s, “one with Mother Nature, don’t be such a square, man.” Now, imagine that hippie died three weeks ago and his corpse has been putrefying in a small, windowless room during a heat wave. Still with me? Okay, now you enter the room and decide the best way to cover up the stench is to pour bong water and patchouli all over the hippie corpse – THAT is what Realm smells like: musk, ass, stale weed, body odor, and decaying hippie. If you hate yourself (or someone else), it is available for sale on Amazon. Just saying.
1. “I’m a Christian.”
Oh boy, this one’s a doozy. This is where you’re either going to fully embrace what I’m saying or completely turn on me. This is THE BIG LIE. It’s often preceded by, “You can totally trust me.” If you hear it, it’s time to hide your wallet and run for the hills because you’re about to be robbed and possibly violated. [DISCLAIMER: I’m not endorsing nor condemning Christianity, or attempting to slam any particular political party, just presenting my point of view.] People from all walks of life are guilty of saying this and then doing things that are the exact opposite of what an actual Christian would do. A few generic examples:
-Politicians who claim homosexuality is offensive to their Christian ideals… and then get caught working the glory hole in an airport bathroom.
-Television preachers who solicit donations from people who can’t afford to donate… because God wants them to be rich? I’m not really sure.
-Assholes who totally cut the line that time we camped out for Grateful Dead tickets because the Ticketmaster outlet at Hecht’s in White Marsh refused to recognize the officiality of campers’ names on a hand-scrawled list… okay, this one is admittedly a little more specific. I swear one of them told me he was a Christian, though.
A Christian is, ostensibly, someone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. You know that guy, right? He was The Dude millennia before the Coen brothers directed The Big Lebowski. He showed up and said, and admittedly I’m paraphrasing here, “New shit has come to light.” An “eye for an eye” became “love your enemy;” he raised Lazarus even though he had the preexisting condition of death; he cured the lepers without worrying about copays or donut holes; he turned water into wine because it was a wedding and JC knows how to party; he even threw the money changers out of the temple because, seriously, fuck those guys.
A lot of this stuff is for the capital “B” Believers, but I don’t think you have to be religious to follow Jesus. His teachings are not a bad thing on which to model your life: be a decent guy, treat people as you’d like to be treated, always travel in a posse – these are all good things. The problem is that people conveniently forget these things when they become a hindrance to what they really want to do. Here’s one more hypothetical example to further illustrate my point:
Let’s say you’re sitting in front of your computer reading this article and you really like it. You like it so much you wish you had written it. Who can blame you? It’s fucking amazing. Your envy is understandable and also nourishes my soul (writers are a bit of an insecure lot). But what if it went beyond that? What if you started telling people you helped write it? Maybe we’re friends and you suggested I write the article. You should totally get writing credit because, damn it, you had a thought and that’s the same thing as writing. Maybe you find a way to put your name on this piece and actually place it above mine in the byline subtly implying that you were somehow more instrumental in making this article a reality. You’re a “Christian” though (so you’ve said) and this might conflict with your “beliefs.” Then again, fuck it, credit for stuff is awesome, so you do it anyway. Let me just tell you, you’d be an asshole if you did something like that – a major, major asshole. You’re also a really shitty Christian in this purely HYPOTHETICAL situation. Hypothetical.
So remember, whenever someone tells you they’re a Christian, they NEED to do that because their actions would never indicate it. In other words, they’re lying. Always.
Now, if that’s a fact, tell me, am I lying?
Rants & Anecdotes 