My Mum says she won't tell a lie. Now this was most annoying when I'd want her to get rid of one of my many admirers. I'd say, 'tell him I'm out'. But she wouldn't. 'I can't tell a lie,' she'd say. So rather than me being able to prepare a gentle brush-off speech to be delivered in privacy, the poor lads would end up being hastily rejected in front of my Little Sis, who would then broadcast the whole thing around school.
Little Sis, being cut from the same cloth as my Mum, would play along with this kind of thing. She'd go into the garden, so then my Mum would say, 'she's not in,' conscience clear. I refused to do it, because what's the point in obeying the letter, rather than the spirit of the law? To my mind, she was lying just as much for Little Sis as she would have been for me. This may be why I've never been the favourite child. Oh, but I'm forgetting, my Mum says she doesn't have favourites, and she doesn't lie, does she?
It thus also follows that being in prison is 'working away'; that getting baptised is 'joining a cult'; that having a psychotic breakdown and abandoning your children at Christmas is 'getting a bit upset'; and that arguing with Little Sis is 'being silly, she never means it, she's harmless.' That last is like saying a shark that's taken your arm off didn't really mean it. It probably didn't, but it still bloody hurts.
But how can anyone tell if they are lying to themself? I suppose by accepting that I am a liar, I'm trying to prevent myself from turning into my mother. Or is an attempt at justifying dishonesty a different sort of self-delusion?
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