Who’s Fooling Who?

Something occurred recently that caused me to wake up this morning that made feel the need to write about it. The incident was that someone that I had trusted lied to me. It was nothing major, just something that bothered me when it happened. I know people have cause to lie to one another for various reasons. The reason this lie irritated me so much was the type of lie that it was. This variety of lie really bothers me.

Maybe I should explain a few different sorts of lies that exist in my world.

Located on the right-hand side of my blog, right below my blog list is a section labeled Favorite Lyrics. These are lyrics from various songs, which for various reasons, mean something to me. Below the picture of Bruce Springsteen are two lines from his song, The River:

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true

Or is it something worse?

This sort of lie is probably the most innocent and least harmful. Usually the only person affected by this is the person creating the fabrication. It is fairly commonplace for people to want something so bad that it almost seems real to them. If not taken any further it shouldn’t affect others.

However, if it is taken to the next level, it can become something worse. This is when a person’s lie becomes acceptable to them and in their own mind it is reality. This has the potential to become a real problem. Perhaps this t-shirt will help illustrate what I am trying to say.


This may appear to be only a witty line from a Seinfeld episode, but stop and think about it for a minute. Don’t we all have people in our lives that actually believe their own bullshit? I know I do, and they will remain nameless in this particular column. Like George Costanza said, “Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.”

As bothersome as this form of story telling can be, it’s not the one that resulted in me being agitated enough to write about it. The title of Judge Judy Sheindlin’s book best describes this style of deception.

“Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining” says it quite succinctly.

As far as I am concerned, you can be as dishonest as you feel you have to be, but please don’t think that I am so stupid that I won’t eventually figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately that is what happened to me and it hurt because it came from a person that I thought was a friend. Sorry, Emil and Milly Vagnoni didn’t raise any dummies.

To borrow a line from another song, “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be." Until next time…from the booth.