Lies or stretchers I told and got caught

Subject: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: GUEST,Peter T.
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 11:40 AM

Following on from an earlier thread, I thought it might be worth recalling that one or two of us have been caught out over our lives telling things that weren't exactly true, to get out of scrapes, or improve our image, or whatever. I can recall many years ago being at a dinner party (in England), where an eminent professor (I had no idea he was eminent) brought up a book of Heidegger's I had not read, and feeling that I had to be part of the conversation I began discussing the book as if I had, and eventually he turned on me and said: "You haven't read the book, have you?" And in front of 7 people I had to admit that I hadn't. They laughed, and started talking about books they hadn't read, but it was a very embarrassing moment, burned into my brain, I can remember the shape of the cutlery -- I never ever talk about books I haven't read any more. Learned that lesson!!!yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 01:59 PM

Whew! This might call for a lot of PMing!

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 02:30 PM

Ah PT, I am so glad you went ahead and started this one! I have several (hundred) instances of outright prevarication from the small to the "Major Whopper" category and I reckon I can tell a few here. But first let me repost this to assuage the guilt of everyone who has ever lied about something................

***********WHY LIES ARE BETTER THAN THE TRUTH**********(A Scientific Comparison)
written by the late Allen Sherman in The Rape of the A.P.E.

I. CREDIBILITY: All lies are designed to seem true. The expert liar carefully uses elements that seem probable and logical and therefore easy to believe. On the other hand, The Truth is often illogical, wildly improbable and hard to explain. Summary: Lies are more believable than the truth.

II. RELIABILITY: The Truth is spontaneous, accidental and unpredictable. Lies however can be planned in detail long in advance and are thus guaranteed to turn out just as predicted. Summary: Lies are more dependable than The Truth.

III. ECONOMY: To be The Truth, an account of a given event must be completely accurate. This requires painstaking resourcefulness, expensive research, time consuming attention to detail, complex logistics and thoroughness. In spite of all that, some people will believe it and others will not. A lie will produce the same results without all the fuss and bother. Summary: Lies are simpler than The Truth; Lies cost less than Truth in time, money, and effort.

IV. VALUE: The Truth can be found anywhere; it belongs to anyone who finds it, absolutely free. Lies are custom-made, often by experts, and the best ones are highly polished works of art. Summary: Lies are worth more money than Truth. Have you ever heard of anybody bribing a witness to tell The Truth?

V. RESPECTABILITY: A) Great fortunes have been made by selling Lies to the public. The people who sell these lies are often grateful to the gullible consumers, so they endow libraries and universities and cultural centers. B) Nobody ever made a fortune selling The Truth. First of all, as already stated, The Truth is free. The only people who will pay money for The Truth are people who are being blackmailed--and they are only buying The Truth so they can hide it before anybody else sees it. Summary: Lies lead to libraries and universities, while The Truth leads to blackmail.

VI. STABILITY: A) Take 1000 parts Truth, add 1 part Lie. Result: A Lie. B) Take 1000 parts Lie, add 1 part Truth. Result: Again, a Lie. C) Note that you can make a Lie out of The Truth, but you can't make The Truth out of a Lie. Summary: Lies are stronger and last longer than The Truth.

VII. IMAGINATION: In reporting The Truth, a person must research the precise facts and stick to them exactly as they occurred. The liar can report the same incident without doing any research, merely saying whatever comes to his mind and filling in "details" according to his fancy. Summary: Lies are more creative than The Truth.

VIII. RECOGNIZABILITY: People are accustomed to hearing lies all the time. Summary: If you tell The Truth, people will think you are lying and if you convince them you are telling The Truth, they will become suspicious. (Why is he suddenly telling The Truth? What's going on?)

IX. SUPPLY & DEMAND: In describing any given incident, only one version can be The Truth, whereas the number of Lies possible is unlimited. Obviously, Lies are in far greater supply than The Truth. Frankly, there is a great demand for Lies, if they are flattering, if they build up one's hopes, if they help one escape reality, or if they promise wealth, health, power, or potency. Nobody is very anxious to hear The Truth. The only people who demand The Truth are those who are investigating something (lawyers, etc.)--and they only want The Truth to prove somebody is lying. Summary: Lies are the acceptable medium of exchange in our society. They are in good supply and the demand for them remains strong. The Truth is in extremely short supply and even this tiny supply far exceeds the demand. Thus in our society, The Truth occupies a position identical to that of dinosaur shit.

CONCLUSION: Lies are superior to The Truth in numerous ways. Lies are ingenious; Lies make the world seem more pleasant; Lies are less embarrassing than Truth and less frightening. Furthermore, in fields such as diplomacy, statesmanship, merchandising, advertising, public realtions, and bookkeeping, The Truth is an out-and-out handicap. In friendship, Truth is harmful; in love, it is disastrous. The Truth is that The Truth has become old fashioned. Its full of odd shaped little nooks and crannies like so many old fashioned things; some people find them fascinating, but most people find them a pain in the neck. To find all the joys that go along with handling of and handing on The Truth is a labor of love, but most of us in today's society have no time for such things.

*********************************************************************

Spaw

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 02:40 PM

"Of course I'll respect you in the morning."

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: MMario
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 02:43 PM

*gasp*

'spaw! you mean the posts you've maide haven't been the complete and literal truth!?!

another illusion shattered.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 02:57 PM

With that out of the way, I can move on to the category of finely crafted lies that didn't fly......................

In the house I grew up in, the garage was never used for a car and had become more of a storage area than anything else. Thanks to the layout and some shelving, the garage door itself was rarely opened and we entered only from the kitchen to get something or put it away. Between the shelf and the garage door was a small strip about 3 foot by 10 foot where the mower and some garden tools sat. Since I was the one who cut the grass and generally got the tools for my Mom or Dad, it was pretty sure no one else would open the door.

In Ohio back then, you could ride a motorcycle at 15. So just past my 15th birthday, I took my money I had been saving and rode a bus down to Klamfoth's Honda where I purchased a BSA Lightning. Having never ridden before, it took me hours to make the trip home on side streets and stopping to practice in parking lots. I knew that neither of my parents would be home til evening so I finally arrived and parked it in the garage.

When they got home, my Dad went out to get something off a shelf in the garage and came back in saying he smelled gas in the garage and headed out to check on the mower! I about shit...........BUT it was okay!! I had this great cover story about how I was letting my friend Randy keep his new motorcycle at our house since there wasn't room at his. Dad finds the bike, I tell them the story.....and they bought it! At least for awhile.......I was told not to mess with it and definitely not to ride it. So for several weeks this went along pretty well with me sneaking the thing out and back, even coasting down the grade home once so as not to alert them.   The big problem I forgot to address was the fact that although our parents only vaguely knew each other, the DID kow each other and of course................

I got to keep the bike, spent a month grounded though. I guess they saw that I was hell bent on having one and it was one of those battles too late to fight. I will never forget though what my Dad had to say when I finally admitted it was mine........Looking me straight in the eye, he said, "Boy, I'd just as soon you bought a coffin."

Spaw

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: CraigS
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 04:30 PM

It didn't quite happen to me ... but I was at Cambridge Folk Festival about 20 years ago having a conversation with some people who really knew about guitars, and I mentioned the Gibson Roy Bookbinder model. I actually meant the Nick Lucas model as played by Roy Bookbinder, but my teeth were in the wrong gear as usual. There was this guy who was trying to drop into the eminent company I was sharing, who started bullshitting about this non-existent model to anyone who cared to listen - but no-one did care. I had mentioned it as a casual remark and was trying to have a 1-2-1 with someone else. Everybody in the group rapidly made excuses and walked off, including the guy I was talking to, leaving me alone with the bullshitter, who was still rattling on - but I hadn't been listening. "What are you talking about?" I asked when I found he was the only person left to talk to. "The Bookbinder guitar" he replied. "That was a slip of the tongue" I said. "I meant the Nick Lucas model". Then it dawned into my consciousness what had happened, and I walked off, leaving him wailing plaintively "But there was a Bookbinder guitar ..."

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 04:36 PM

I once got caught telling a lie about a lie. I was at a festival and one of the campfires had devolved into a lying session. I didn't have an original lie that was on a par with the ones that had been told so far, so I "borrowed" one that I had heard someone else tell. I had heard it in a hospitality suite bullshitting session at a convention at least a thousand miles away and I was sure that it was original to the guy I heard tell it. Turned out it was not original. He had "borrowed" it from a Jerry Clower/Jeff Foxworthy type of comedian and one of the guys at the session owned the tape.

This occurred long before I grew a beard so there was no way to hide how red my face was.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Mar 03 - 06:46 PM

Stealing a lie ought to be allowed.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Dead Horse
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 10:26 AM

As one of the greatest singer/musicians in the country, I don't feel the need to lie about anything. But when I pass my 21st birthday I may want to revise that statement.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 12:25 PM

...if you decide to hide your sack lunches so you can be one of the cool kids at school who doesn't brown-bag it, but instead buys the cafeteria fare...

...make sure you throw the brown-bag lunch somewhere that the family dog doesn't return home with it.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: leprechaun
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 05:50 AM

Does that include putting on a wig and ragged clothes and riding a bicycle into the park where the drug dealer you busted last week recognizes you and leads all his fellow drug dealers in a chorus of, "You look different today!"

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 10:22 AM

John, that one is priceless!!!

I got one on another person and this one required a very specific sequence of events or it would have been the perfect crime. True to form though, that series took place and the crime was discovered.

It's early Fall in Ohio and the mornings are becoming cool. Marg (the mother) had bought Corn Flakes for a breakfast cereal which JoAnn (sister of my best friend Mark) didn't like. They lived in the classic older home style of small town midwest where the heat came up through floor registers in every room. For the two previous mornings, Marg had served up the Corn Flakes with a carton of milk and a sugar bowl on the table. JoAnn would reach over and dump her flakes down the register, leaving a few in the bowl. She'd add milk, drink the milk, and it looked as if she had finished a bowl of cereal, leaving only a few dregs of flakes and milk. Very smart!!!Now you have the set-up complete.

On the third morning, Marg is doing bacon and eggs and the kids are at the table. It's quite cool and Marg sends Mark to turn on the furnace. This was the 50's and only a few homes in our town had converted to gas. Most still burned coal, but Marg and Joe had made the investment the previous year. That done, Mark returned and before he sat down, his Mom said, "Mark let me get in there and serve JoAnn her eggs before she sits down. As she stood directly above the register, the blower came on and a small cloud of Corn Flakes came up with the first rush of air. Busted......

If any one thing had not fallen into place, the crime would have been unnoticed.

######################################################################

Mark and I used to go down to the crick (that's creek for you outside certain parts of the midwest) and goof around. We'd shoot BB guns, play in the woods....just being kids. The Cardinal Rule was "Don't go in the crick and don't get wet!" So Mark and I are down at the crick having a great time and we come upon a canoe belonging to one of the rich kids in town. It was at the back of their property on the bank of the crick and being 12 we 1) knew it was wrong but, 2) took it out for a "joyride." The first problem here was that neither of us had ever been in a canoe before so for the first 100 yards or so, we slammed back and forth from bank to bank. Finally we got it sorted out enough to go wobbling along. We came upon what passed for "rapids" out north of Eastport Avenue. These were simply a bit of whitewater ripples where the crick was very shallow. Instead of whooshing along, we grounded right away.

We still weren't dirty or wet and, trying to stay that way, we both took off our shoes and socks to drag the canoe over to the bank. That was enough of a ride and we figured it was best to get the damn thing back. Rightly, we decided that I would give us a big shove back upstream and hop in while Mark paddled and this got us going against the very weak current. With a little distance between us and the rapids we relaxed and wobbled our way back towards the starting point. Somewhere along the way we thought we would put our shoes and socks back on....Why, I have no idea as it would have been easier to do so after we got back. Both of us turned in unison to retrieve our shoes and the canoe, being a canoe, deposited us both in the crick. We spent a few minutes trying to locate our stuff and then righted the canoe. We decided it was close enough to it's home and shoved it up the bank. NOW, we had a bigger problem. We had broken the Cardinal Rule, falling in the crick! Stealing a canoe was worse, but if you didn't get caught.......On the other hand, we both believed that we'd be in deeper trouble for "falling in the crick!"

The 12 year old mind is truly a thing of beauty. I doubt that I have ever been more creative in my life. Logic nevers enters the equations and grand schemes are hatched out of nothing. Mark and I determined that the best plan was to go to his house which had a side door into the basement. In the basement we could use the washing machine (which we had no idea how to use) and take a shower as they had one down there! Perfect! If anyone asked what we were doing down there, we'd say we were getting ready to go to the swimming pool. Why we picked the pool I'll never know. Actually, his sisters weren't home and with any luck, his Mom would have gone uptown, which she had. Unfortunately, his Dad, Joe, was home for lunch.

Joe and my Dad had grown up together as best friends in this same town and we were continuing the tradition. Both had been boys of 12 although you tend to forget at that age that your Dad or Mom was ever a kid. We walked in the side door and got as far as the bottom of the steps when Joe called out, "Is that you Mark?" Mark kinda' gulped, and said, "Yeah Dad, just me and Pat." From the kitchen comes the next obvious question, "Whatcha' doin'?" We both stared at each other and then, in some sort of unison with stumbling and assorted "uhs" and other counterpoints, laid out our cover story. Joe didn't hesitate a second after we had stopped the senseless blathering. After all, he'd been 12, and what normal, healthy, 12 year old American male would voluntarily take shower at noon on a summer weekday? He immediately asked, "What happint? Ya' fall in the crick?"

The beauty of having a Dad who was once a boy became obvious as Joe came down, suggested we get some clean clothes and shower up. He'd throw ours in the washer and with any luck we could do all this before Marg came home. Our clothes dried pretty quickly and before Joe left, he said, "Okay guys, don't do it again. I'll tell Walt (my Dad) but we'll keep your Moms out of it....this time."

As years went by, it became a favorite story and even the "Moms" enjoyed it as both of the Dads had wisely not only told them the truth, but also told them what it was like to be a 12 year old boy. Geeziz, I hope I'm that smart as my sons grow up..............

Spaw

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 02:05 PM

Great story. Sad to remember that there were places where you could have a creek to goof off on -- We had one right in back of our suburban development which ten years later ate the creek (so I have heard from an old friend) -- kids now have no idea how constrained their world is. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lies or stretchers I told and got caught
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 10:51 PM

Not exactly a lie but a clever deception in the instrument acquisition department.   I have way to many instruments and bringing another one home isn't necessarily a good idea.
   
Anyway, about ten years ago I came across a really good buy on a vintage ukulele. I brought the thing home and knowing my wife wouldn't understand, I decided to hide the thing. Then I got this fantastic idea. The case was placed behind a chair so only the very end was visible. Then day by day more and more of the uke was exposed. Sure enough, my wife never suspected a thing. Eventually the case was opened and I was able to treat the uke as though it had been around for years. I was elated.

A perfect caper like this was just too good to keep to myself so I told a couple of my friends about the whole affair. Things went well for quite some time and then one night at out montly supper club my deception was revealed. Needless to say my wife didn't appreciate my cleaverness.

Moral of the story. If you ever pull off something of this nature NEVER TELL ANYONE.

Cap't Bob (blabber mouth)