Liar Liar, Pants on Fire!

Apparently...there's a reason those pants are blazin'...

A few years ago, my mom said to me, completely out of the blue, that liars go to hell. She said, "Did you know that? Did you know that liars go to hell? It's in the Bible." I was thinking, Oh no...what is she talking about? Did I lie to her recently? Did she find out about some lie I told when I was in high school? Where did this come from...

I just said, "Yeah, Mom, I know that..." And she said, "Well, I didn't! I was just reading the Bible last night and read it! There it was. I mean, I always knew that lying was bad, but didn't know that it said liars go to hell. But it's right there in the Bible." Later, my aunt and I were teasing my mom about something, and I learned she did the same thing to my aunt! And had her wondering where that was coming from and if she had lied recently.

Honesty is the most important thing to my mother, it always has been, and that verse validated feelings for her that she'd always had. She passed those feelings down to me. No matter what, honesty is the most important. Be honest in relationships, be open and truthful with those you love, live your life with honesty and tell the truth at all costs.

When I was little, I think I was 7 or 8, my father was briefly married to a woman named Jane who had a spoiled daughter named Chelsea. We didn't get along that well. She was a jealous child - always taking the toys I was playing with even when she didn't want to play with them, wanting whatever I had, always vying for attention. She had a little crown thing with a veil that she used to wear around the house (she really thought she was a princess), and one day she cried to her mother that it was broken. Her mom got angry because she had a temper problem and I guess the stupid thing cost a few bucks. She asked how it got broken. Chelsea said I did it.

So Jane asked me, "Did you break Chelsea's crown?" I said no, and she asked again. Then I thought, Well, the room is messy...maybe I did it by accident? So I, very truthfully, said, "I don't think I did it. But it's possible that I might have stepped on it by accident and just didn't know I broke it." And that was seen as an admission of guilt so I got timeout for the afternoon. I cried and cried. I remember being so confused because I was just telling the truth like my mom said. Later, Chelsea told me she broke it. She was a little bitch.

While my mom is right, it is most important to always be truthful and honest, sometimes you're not rewarded for doing the right thing. Sometimes you're even punished. My former roommate is not an honest person. She told me things she did to other people that they never knew about. She told me about telling people one thing, but actually thinking or feeling another. She told me things that she wouldn't tell most people, which is good I guess, but it means that her other friends don't really know her. I can understand, of course, why she wouldn't tell people those things because they'd think the thoughts I do - that she's not nice or considerate.

It hurts me, though, that she acts one way when she's just around me than when other people are around. She puts on a show for people, and they fall for it. Dishonest people can charm the world, but not forever. That's what I tell myself anyway. Though you know what my mom says...