Who’s lied on their resume? C’mon. I bet you have. I’ve exaggerated, sure. Extended the hire dates of certain jobs. I’ve heard myself at least once say, “I didn’t see the speed limit, officer.” And I’m sure I’ll not see it again. I don’t lie on my taxes, and I never will. I never have “anything to declare” at borders. I’m pretty straight. The wickedest I got was once considering sending my roommate in to to take an exam for me. She was both a great mathematician and a good test taker. I couldn’t really believe she was offering. I know she’d never have gone through with it, nor would I have had to guts to let her. But we both sort of mulled it over. My part was going to be to write a paper with her name on it. Which I also didn’t do. I’d like to say I had a crazy past and had some daring adventures. I haven’t. I didn’t. I goofed a few times and stumbled around with money exchange and curfews as an oversees students. But I wasn’t bad and I really wasn’t a liar.
There is a disadvantage to never having really bent the truth. I write fiction. I’m supposed to make people believe what isn’t. If that’s the case, if I’m going to make you folks believe me, I probably should have had my roommate take my GRE. I’m sure it’s been done many times by now. And I should have lived a crazy reckless life before my settled state of married, 2 kids and a mortgage. I have no tattoos and no motorbike and no punk rock friends and I don’t play drums and I don’t lie about my age and I can’t say to a fussy Maitre D’ that my name is Gorgeous Imperious without totally cracking up.
Somewhere in time I lost my nerve.
However, I don’t know that I want what the fabulous liars are rewarded with. I don’t want to get behind the velvet rope at P Diddy’s newest club or get invited to the Kardashian baby baptism or be put behind the wheel of a formula one race car. Would you? Those people are awful.
My short list of things I often think I’d sell myself for are: a free seat at Cirque du Soleil, a weekly facial, a gourmet selection of breads delivered to the house, homemade soup, a blue fainting couch, my kids to eat (cheerfully) whatever I set before them, someone else to clean the toilet, a clean car interior, a self-cleanig refrigerator, a hiking trip to France, a wine collection, a better TV, cat-hair resistant furniture.
Now that you see my list, you will observe that it is not very racy and not even very interesting. I haven’t a clue what I’d do with the enormous sum of money all those liars have. I just want someone else to sit the damn GRE for me . . . No no no. I mean clean the car’s carpets and I won’t ever lie again. I promise. Have I mentioned I am a Tirolian lace maker? No, that was a lie. I am a man from Bermuda but I go by “Kansas.”
I want to hear your lies and their results. Did they end in superb fiction? In a night in jail? In a whopper of a headache?
Mariella Mehr — Poet, Memoirist, Acivisit, Survivor Not many Roma divulge their experience of the Holocaust. Unlike the many Jewish organizations which provide documentary evidence, . . .