FIBBER, FIBBER

The Democratic strategist exclaimed with confidence, “Politicians lie. Everyone lies.” He was defending the lying lies of a lying politician he was preparing to lie about. If you follow this guy’s statement to its logical conclusion then this guy is lying about the lying. Right? I mean if everyone lies, and he has to be included in the set of humans we refer to as everyone . . . well . . . I felt my grey matter start to cramp just thinking about a world without the certainty of truth telling. (That could be a lie. How would you know?) In our family we tell the story of The Big Fat Liar, a tale of a young man my husband encountered on a Boy Scout camping trip. The boy in the story was told to stop jabbing sticks in the campfire and catching them on fire.  “Stop catching sticks on fire. Go to bed,” my husband said. The kid nodded. Later that evening, on a quick trip to the potty, my husband saw fire stick boy; he was holding a flaming, smoking stick torch over his head like an invading Visigoth about to burn down the village. “Hey, I thought I told you to quit catching sticks on fire.” “I’m not catching sticks on fire,” the kid said, while holding a burning stick in his grubby Visigoth hand. “Then what’s that in your hand?” “Nothing.” “Okay, let’s go slower,” my husband said. “Do you have a hand?” “Maybe.” “Is there something in it?” “In what?” The kid tried looking confused, a favorite stalling tactic of big, fat liar types. “Is there something in that thing hanging at the end of your arm?” The kid looked up at his own hand. “Yes,” the kid said. “Is it a stick?” “Maybe.” “Okay, let’s try this. Are you holding a recently detached hunk of wood from a tree trunk?” “Yes.” “Is it on fire?” “I don’t know.” The kid is probably a politician by now. It’s exhausting, trying to sort out the wicked web of half-truths and big, fat whoppers that everyone is telling. At Rollins College, where I occasionally go to make straight A’s—true story, we have an Honor Code. It’s thirteen pages long and includes a section defining fibbing. There are nine bullet points just to define terms. True story. Nine bullet points and THIRTEEN PAGES!  The Ten Commandments has ten bullet points and was carved on stone, thus saving paper, trees, ozone, and Mother Earth. Beat that, Honor Code! Beat that! Linda (True That) Zern

MARKETING 101: Get the Word Out There!

OVER EASTER

Easter is a lovely Christian expression of faith and love and hope eternal. Oh Death, where is thy sting? And then we hunt Easter eggs.  Let the race begin. At my house, we don’t give gifts to children for Easter. The gift is that Jesus of Nazareth walked out of a sealed tomb—alive!  As gifts go, resurrection is pretty stunning. But then we throw eggs into bushes and candy under the garden bridge and say to the children, “Go. Hunt. Gather!” Around here, the Easter Bunny YaYa tosses bags of candy under spring flowers for the children to find with the express instruction, “If you find a BAG of candy it’s for everyone—not just for you. We will pour it into a giant communal bowl of Easter happiness and,” I add, holding my breath dramatically, “share.” They all nod. But still, a whole, unopened bag of Skittles just for me, me, me. It’s tricky. The children, who are the parents of the children, accuse me of fomenting rebellion with my one for all and all for all approach. Their solution is to throw empty, plastic Easter eggs about and hope the kids don’t notice the hollow sound when they pick them up. Several of the children, after finding their empty eggs this year, brought them to me and wanted to “cash them in.”  I pointed to the giant bowl of Easter happiness candy. “Share,” I said. This year I only had to snatch one bag of M&M’s out of one young man’s hands. Not bad, really. Could have been worse. I could have had to chase that crazy kid around the yard and rip the bag of candy out of his hands. The older I get the less I enjoy the holidays. I like the regular days where we’re supposed to be grateful, happy, kind, loving, and Christian—because we’re supposed to—not because we’re looking to cash in our golden eggs. Linda (Back to Work) Zern