The Lies I've Told Lately
I lie a lot, it’s how I get by. Once I lied to rail guards about my cat dying, telling them instead I was sobbing because my brother had just passed away. When I was a teenager I lied for a year about sponsoring a child, creating a name, identity and even making up a country from whence he came. It’s not like I lie about big things, just weird little lies that make life more exciting or get people off my case about shit. And here is a random sampling of the lies I’ve been telling lately.
That I’ve read that book/seen that show/listened to the lame podcast you recommended. Look, I know this is a popular meme, but I often lie about having read things. And seen things. And listened to things. There is this thing I like to think of as “friend homework”. It is when your friends recommend things to you like books and movies and shows and music, and unless you’re one of the very select few who’s taste matches mine, I’m going to hate whatever you recommend. But as a good friend I will persist and watch/listen/read it to placate you and demonstrate my love for you. But sometimes I run out of time to do all my friend homework as I’m, you know, living my fucking life, so I just pretend I’ve done it. This constantly results in me lying to your face and laughing along as you quote things. But look closely and you’ll see a glint of terror in my eyes as I wait to be found out. One time, I actually asked for a sci-fi book recommendation from a friend (I asked for it, how dumb am I?!) and he literally did me a choose-your-own-adventure chart which would lead me to the perfect book recommendation. And readers, let me tell you that this ended up with me buying and attempting to read literally THE WORST BOOK EVER. I don’t want to name it in case that friend reads this and I hurt his little heart, but it was a book about South African Neo-Nazis going back in time to the American Civil War and helping the South win by supplying their armies with Uzis. Fuck me dead. I tried so hard to read it but ended up just googling the ending and then had to do basically an hour long book club on it. I’ve never wanted to die more and have literally avoided that friend ever since, such was the awkwardness.
That I follow mostly sharks and nudibranchs on Instagram. This is just not true. I told a friend once that I follow heaps of sharks on Instagram because I wanted to seem eclectic and interesting when they were slagging off people following mostly celebrities which, hello, is me thoroughly. I go to bed to Kylie Jenner’s instagram and wake up to the cast of Vanderpump Rules because I am basic AF. Unfortunately, they pushed for more info about which specific accounts are the best. So I had to research the best shark accounts and now I legitimately follow a vast amount of shark accounts and actually am quite into them, so that worked out quite well in the end. But having not learnt my lesson I told the exact same lie again recently. While away on holiday, sitting in the creek at Crescent Head, the most amazing amount of nudibranchs just started floating down the stream. If you don’t know what a nudibranch is, look them up. They’re a group of soft-bodied, marine gastropod molluscs which shed their shells after their larval stage and come in a crazy array of colours. Anyway, everyone in the creek was like “oh! Look at these things” and I, forever wanting to be smarter than everyone else, was trying to convey that they were, in fact, nudibranchs. When asked how I knew, I said I mostly follow nudibranchs on Instagram. I don’t know why I thought this would give my knowledge credence when I literally hold a degree in biology, but same goes, and now I regularly look up and like nudibranch photos (there aren’t that many straight up nudibranch accounts, I don’t know why).
That I put my hair in the bin. When you’re pregnant you pretty much don’t shed any hair for the entirety of your pregnancy. This is why pregnant women often sport glorious manes of hair. But, about three months after your kid is born, all of that extra hair falls out. Practically an entire year of hair fall happens in about a month and it is gross and annoying. My family has been wrapped up in my hair for weeks now. If I ever go missing you will only have to follow the trail of hair and you’ll find me easily. And I’m always getting in trouble for it. Sure, no one wants a fine layer of hair gracing every surface of their house but I can’t help that. I keep getting told that when it falls out can I please put it in the bin. “Of course!” I reply passively aggressively, “What else would I be doing with it?!” But you better believe that there is a fucking HAIR MOUNTAIN living behind my couch. Because the bin is too far when I’ve already sat down and it’s not like I’m putting a ball of hair in my pocket for later.
That I wasn’t going to drug my child. Max hasn’t been sleeping well. Blah blah blah you know I hate talking about parenting, so cut to me googling how to sedate your kid. And it turns out Phenergan is your golden ticket, my friends. So in I trotted into the chemist and of course Phenergan isn’t on the shelves and of course you have to ask for it. After five minutes of mum and I standing there awkwardly with a back and forth, “I’ll ask” “No, I’ll ask” “No it’s ok, I’ll ask”, I eventually asked. With a very cynical look, the chemist asked me if my child had allergies, had I tried Zyrtec, what else had I tried? I managed to fumble through an array of lies about Max’s made up hives that wouldn’t go away and he was so itchy the poor little thing and nodded like it was interesting new news to me that it could make your three year old drowsy before snatching it from her hand and rapidly vacating the chemist. I haven’t used it yet, but it’s sitting on my kitchen counter like a souvenir I got at Lie Land.
So I’m sorry if I lied to you this week, or any week, but take comfort in the knowledge I do it to loved ones and strangers alike. But also please stop making my life hard and telling me to watch animated shows and read books whose titles begin with the words “The Girl...” because they suck massive balls. I’m sorry, but they do.