July 12, 2005
-
Being Mistaken for an Honest Person (my name is Truly, after all)
© The Author, 2005Mary Ann
Once in middle school choir I was standing on the top bleacher (a prerequisite of a six-grade, six-foot Amazon) rehearsing a song about a river, when somebody farted—silent but deadly. We were all trapped with the smell, gagging as we inhaled deeply to sing through the phrase,“flowing water, gently flowing river, finding its path to the deep blue sea.” People laughed later because Mary Ann Treader’s face glowed bright red during the incident. She probably wasn’t the one to let it rip, but she was always embarrassed about other people’s cock-ups and quirks. Once at her birthday party in seventh grade she cried when Jenny drew pictures of sperms on the blackboard that her god-fearing family used to play wholesome games of Pictionary on. When Mary Ann’s mom came to tell us it was time for cake (which we were forced to pray for before eating) and saw the subversive sperms wiggling their merry way across the blackboard, she gasped. “They’re balloons,” I offered. My name is Truly, so she chose to belive me. That night a girl told us what the word “masterbation” meant and I inadvertently dry-heaved. I never lived it down. I was a late bloomer.Brianna
During middle school I had one raggedy-assed bra that my mom bought for me. It was two grey cloth triangles sewn together with straps. Somebody made fun of me for not seeing straps beneath my shirt, so I was all for the trip to K-mart to be outfitted for a bra. When I showed it to my sometimes-best friend Brianna, she showed me how to stuff it, two little lumps growing steadily each week to bulbous perfection. At the time she had no boobs either (although later she was to grow enormous knockers to hang prettily from her tall, thin frame), so I completely trusted her advice. (I was not to grow much in terms of chest lard at all.) The next week I shoved some toilet paper (not too much) into the pathetic little triangles. While changing for gym one of these days, Brianna pointed at me and said loudly, accusingly, “you stuff your bra?!?” I looked down at my sunken-in chest to see huge bits of daffodil yellow toilet paper poking out absurdly from the confines of my silly grey triangles. I looked up to see the entire locker room—including my arch nemesis Heather Combs—staring at me. “No,” I said defiantly. I tried not to rush putting my gym shirt on—I didn’t want to encourage any doubt. Brianna and I continued to be friends afterwards like nothing ever happened. No one said much about the incident—I choose to think they believed me. Brianna died two years ago of brain cancer. I didn’t go to her funeral and I regret it. I can’t think of anything else I’ve ever regretted, including stuffing my bra.Random Confessions of a Guilty Mind
I was 21 for two and 1/2 years. You might think this was a fallacy created to support multiple trips to the local watering holes like any normal college kid, but it wasn’t. I was sick of people’s relactions to a 19-year old gal who had chosen to make her awesome relationship legally binding. Trial and error taught me that 21 was an acceptable age for me to “be” when I reveled my marriage to other people (no, a ring doesn’t do this for me, since I only wear one if I’m in the mood to wear jewelry—which is only about 40% of the time). Now I often forget how old I am. I am twenty-three.Today
“How are you?”
This was said to a in a heartfelt way to a stranger on a conference call at work. Like I give a shit.
“Sure, I’d love a doughnut!”
I HATE doughnuts. Why doesn’t anyone bring bagels to work for a tasty reason to socialize that doesn’t leave your teeth feeling like they are rotting from your mouth?
“I’m in the mood to write.”
Lets call this a half-truth, or an experiment to test if my ability to have my way with words has been revived. It hasn’t.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
How honest are you?
Comments (14)
i was 30 for three years…. the first year i thought i was thirty and cried on my birthday when my son and husband sat me down and said, our present to you this year is that you’re still 29! i truly hadn’t done the math and really was 29. The next year, i was 30, but if you asked me the next year when i was 31, i would say 30… math isn’t my strong suit! if you ask me now how old i am, i have to stop and figure it out!
I could say that I am honest … with qualifications. I don’t engage in dishonesty to put anyone at a disadvantage as much as I would be dishonest to make another person feel better or somehow spare their feelings. One more example of how hard it is to adhere to any kind of absolutism, fallible and puny humans that we are.
The drawback of bagels at work is that they feel like a whole meal, and inevitably any office with bagels will be left with a bunch of half-eaten ones. Donuts, in my experience, can be inhaled quickly and easily with one hand while performing any other workplace task.
How honest am I? Seems like a simple question, but I’m not sure how to answer that. A lot of times by first reaction is to lie. Then I have to stick with it. I remember telling one lie when I was four and losing sleep over it. I was at preschool and I called home from the phone in the lady’s house who taught preschool. The phone was off limits and I can’t remember why I did it. Some kid grabbed the phone out of my hands right when the teacher saw us. I said he dialed my house and I never touched the phone. The kid had to stay inside for playtime. I know I’ve told worse lies than that but that’s the only one I can remember feeling guilty about.
I don’t feel guilt, but I really don’t like myself when I’m dishonest out of fear. Most fear of what my parents will think of me.
Hm. I just remembered in high school I used to make things up all the time. Ha ha ha! They were so lame! But I thought it was so funny. I’d tell people the most random things. I once told my friends that my neighbors had a goat in their backyard as part of their emergency food storage. I told people I had some weird surgery on my leg. Man. I can’t even remember what I told people. I barely even remembered that I made stuff up like that. I still do that to my sister, but over really little things. And it’s more of a game. Like I told her I saw Gillian Anderson in an old Law and Order. Then I’ll wait until she tells someone else to tell her I made it up. I don’t why I think that’s so funny but I do.
Your examples were great. My family prays before we eat anything. Even cake. And I had to explain to my sister what things like masterbation and erections were when she was 17. My parents never told us anything (I just refused to take ‘you don’t need to know that’ for an answer and turned to my sex-ed teacher: the library). Yet they’d be ecstatic if I was married at 19. Now that I’m 23 they’re starting to worry I might never marry. What do they expect when their daughters don’t know basic sexual terminology when they’re practically adults?! Anyway. I’ve wandered a bit too far from your topic. As always, a fantastic post.
I’m pretty honest, but if there’s something someone asks me and I don’t want to tell them, it just depends on how they ask…if they ask “are you single?” I can say yes because even if I have a boyfriend, I’m still single b/c I’m not married (of course that’s not how I see it, but that’s how it’s been explained to me). However, if they ask me if I have a boyfriend then I tell them yes or no. I’ve gotten better about saying too much to people who ask questions…I just think of an answer that would answer the question and if they take it the wrong way that’s their fault.
Peace Out and Take Care.
Atuumn
ryc: You don’t need to apologize for not posting. I read way more blogs than I post on. Sometimes I just want to post and say ‘I read this’ because a lot of times I just have no response. I love that you end your posts with questions-it’s a great way to generate discussion. Plus I’m way too self-critical when it comes to any kind of writing, even xanga posting, so I feel like I have to be witty or profound so I agonize for too long on what to write. Sometimes I feel like blogging is just an expression of self-obsession. We all comment on each other’s blogs and expect them to reaffirm our own self-fascination. I love reading people’s blogs more than writing my own entries. Roaming around and voyaristically peeking at their lives. A lot of times I’ll subscribe to someone I never respond to just to remind myself to read their posts.
And all my look and feel experiements are probably on hold for a while. I went Premium a month ago and went a little overboard with the extra modules and photo uplooading. I really like what I’ve got now. I think I’ll stick with it.
Thanks for your comments and your updates!
someone actually brought bagels in to our office today! thank god, because doughnuts give me wicked heartburn. my birthday is on monday and i’ll be 40. again.
loved today’s post.
This was a great post, I really enjoyed the stories.
ryc: On the 1990s trend of marketers asking consumers to “rebel” by purchasing their product, I actually address this in my thesis, thanks in part to your fellow Chicagolander Thomas Frank. An excerpt:
But the sudden attention marketers showered onto Generation X received its fair share of criticism, often from its targets. Thomas Frank, co-founder of the irreverent magazine The Baffler, ridiculed corporate attempts to cash in through playing to the apparent nonconformity of Xers. “Corporate America,” he wrote in one essay, “is no longer an oppressor but a sponsor of fun, provider of lifestyle accoutrements…” Rule-breaking and being different were the new value-added in Corporate America, but so many companies jumped on the bandwagon that the tactic proved hollow and unintentionally amusing.
Frank pointed to many similar advertising slogans for corporations asking consumers to be different: Both Young & Rubicon and Clash Clear Malt adopted the slogan “Resist the usual,” Dodge told us “The rules have changed,” Hugo Boss encouraged us to “Innovate not imitate,” Special Import beer expressed itself as “Just different from the rest,” and Burger King told us that “Sometimes you gotta break the rules” while competitor Arby’s observed “This is different. Different is good.” Many ads included “screaming guitars, whirling cameras, and startled old timers,” who drove home the message that rebel consumers can show how different they are merely by purchasing this product. That the advertisers did not realize — or did not care — that Xers saw little differential value in buying something millions of other people had, or that so many advertising campaigns tried so hard to be different that they all looked the same, spoke volumes about the strange mania that seized marketers during the heyday of Generation X trendwatching.
And thanks for the feisty feedback. I get the feeling that doing a review of a 1956 book in the context of sociological and historiological trends may have lost the interest of some readers. But what good is knowledge if you never use it?
Am I honest? I would like to think I am. But mostly I’m not. I tell white lies so I don’t hurt people’s feelings. I tell white lies when people ask me if I’m okay and I don’t feel like having someone know whats going on. I tell white lies to keep my mom off my back. “mija where are you?” “Umm, I’m almost at kostner and armitage.” And I’m like on irving park and harlem. I don’t know, I would like to tell people that I can’t stand them. I would like to tell people that I feel like crap when I do. I would like to tell my mom that I’ll be there when I get there, but ho hum I lie. I’m honest when it comes to the important stuff.
I also had a brianna in my life when I was a kid. Now I avoid friends who rat me out, like the plague. You know at least your lucky a friend told you what masterbation was, my friends had no clue, I found out watching Jenny Jones. It was gross. I was kinda glad my friends didn’t know what it was.
~jenn
I’m with Tim in that I will generally only lie in order to spare someone’s feelings. Lying makes me nauseous. Reading your descriptions of your childhood friends made me laugh because I think most girls had MaryAnns and Briannas of their own. Of course, I’ve chosen to cram those memories as far down into the cerebellum as I can possibly get them. A bagel constitutes a meal for me so I can see why people don’t serve them as a snack in an office – it would cause a lull in productivity.
I’m eating a donut right now….how pathetic is that? But I usually don’t eat them. I’m not a junk food junkie, but sometimes I get weak. Also, I’ve been exercising a lot lately and I tried on a skirt I bought in the spring and it no longer fits. It was just falling off of me. Unlike a lot of people, I have to work to keep weight on. Hence, the donut.
How honest am I? Too honest. That’s the problem. I can’t lie. I’m just horrible at it and everyone can tell I’m lying. I can do the white lie, sort of. But the truth is that I am known for always giving my heartfelt and true opinion on everything. A lot of people take advantage of that and some even like to bait me into arguments that I really don’t want to have. It isn’t very fun being honest by nature. I wish I could lie like the devil.
And I never stuffed my bra, because what was the point? I never filled out anyway. I remember buying one of those Wonder Bras and hoping it might be of some help and even THAT didn’t provide anything like cleavage. Nope, I’m one of the under-endowed and no one at school was going to buy into to any stuffings I try to put over on them. I’m just lucky I have a husband who prefers me as I am. :love:
Lynn
Hey, thanks for your comments the other day about Daniel’s predicament. He has to choose tomorrow if he will sign the plea bargain, but I don’t think he will because it admits to wrongdoing.
Love this post, but I can’t comment at the mo because we’re all heading out for a hike. -L
hey, protected posting today, if you’re interested.
Hey, you’ve been tagged! Don’t worry, I’m sure you can come up with something witty and creative.