Lying to my Mom

Though I pride myself these days as being honest to a fault, Lord knows I've done my fair share of lying in the past.  Likely even more than my fair share.  I am going to attribute that to being the middle child...not quite sure why, but I feel that my birth order gives me some leeway for being manipulative. 

Not surprisingly, I can list off a whole string of lies that I've told and been caught in, but today I feel a bit preoccupied by three lies in particular, varying degress of "so what?", and all of which were told to my mom.


In Kindergarten
Long before I learned to respect hygiene, I had to be reminded repeatedly to bring my gym clothes home to be washed.  My mom would tell me before I got on the school bus in the morning, and ask where they were when I got home in the afternoon.  Each day I would both forget to bring them home and be unconvinced why it was important to have clean shorts.  She tried a new tactic one day, of writing me a note and sticking it in my lunch bag.  Being that I was in kindergarten and just learning to read, the note was mostly comprised of the types of hyrogliphics that children can read.  It looked a little something like this:

I remember finding that note, reading that note, and liking that note.  I remember using my gym clothes, thinking about that note, and stuffing the note into my little red gym clothes bag with the sweaty garments after gym was done.  And then I remember going home without the bag, without the clothes, and without the note.  My mom was exasperated and wanted to now why I didn't bring them home this time.  I knew I was out of "I forgot's" so I resulted to an "I can't read" instead.  It was probably one of the first lies I told my mom and I remember feeling horribly guilty about it.

I'm pretty sure I brought them home the next day.

(here's another Kindergarten lie I've told)

In Middle School
This one is a bit on the silly/irrelevant side, but it's something that's stuck with me over the years.  I found a piece of maroon chain-mail once at a secondhand store.  I don't have a good reason why I liked it so much, other than it was fun to play with and tickled when you dragged it over your skin.  I used to keep it slung over the arm of my couch and liked to drape it over my face like a mask.  No excuses, I am a bit weird.  One Christmas during middle school my mom bought me a little black cocktail purse that had a patchwork of black, silver and white chain-mail decorating one side.  She was really excited to give it to me.  She said "It was expensive, but I knew you'd love it". I didn't really like it, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I said "thanks" and tucked it into my closet where it collected dust between the metal hoops for the next few years.

Now that I'm older I've grown to like it and every time I use it I get compliments on it.  However, using it always reminds makes me a bit sad.  That one purse has become an embodiment of all the things that I never appreciated or knew enough to acknowledge for my mother.  I wonder if she was disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm over the purse that she spent too much on, thinking that I'd love it.  I know in the grand scheme of things that even though she probably forgot about it before too long, I probably never will.

Strange how sometimes the small things get carried forward with you.



In Highschool
When I was in grade 9 we were entering a new school and meeting all kinds of new friends.  My parents were quite a bit more strict than most of my friends' parents.  My dad was clear on how he felt about me dating, I still had an enforced bedtime, and it was a struggle to convince them that I should be allowed to a sleep over at a friend's house.  On one special night, I managed to disobey all of the above policies.  Tammy's mother was away for the weekend and she was having a house party that nearly all of grade 9 was invited to.  I HAD to go.  It was imperative.  My girlfriends and I collaborated and each told our parents that we were sleeping over at each others houses.  All our parents knew each other so there was no need to call, check up on us, or ask too many questions.

 In hindsight, my parents were totally right in not wanting me to go to that sort of function.  If I was a weaker girl or had shitty friends I definitely could have gotten myself into some pretty bad trouble that night.  Some examples are:  Craig got high for the first time, and Richard he put an imaginary box on his head.  Craig was near tears.  I remember trying to reason with him that that was no box on his head, but one cannot reason with a high 14-year-old.  Laura at one point was dared to get into the dryer.  She did, and she fit perfectly, even with the door closed.  Luckily we were around to prevent people from being really stupid, and she emerged safely without incident.  A couple boys then suggested she go outside with them, and we dutifully went after her once we realized she was gone.  She returned without incident.  Mark decided he need to puke, a lot, and immediately.  Very few shoes escaped without incident that night.  My first boyfriend was also at that party, but he had a hockey game in the morning so his mother came to pick him up.  She allowed him to date, so she knew who I was, and she tried to drive me home.  I lied to her too, and said I was leaving soon with my girlfriends, but in fact we just spent the whole night at the party. 

For whatever unprecedented reason the universe came up with, early the next morning my mom needed to call me at my friend's house which turned into a chain of phone calls among our parents, dismantling our lies.  When I got home that afternoon:

Mom - Did you have fun last night?
Me - Yes.
Mom - Where were you again?
Me - Jackie's.
Mom - Wanna try that one again?
Me - Um...Tammy's?

And it all went downhill from there.