Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Lying gets me all hot and bothered

And not in a good way.

I cannot tell a lie. It's like I'm George Washington, only without the cherry tree. And the fancy powdered wig.

When I try to lie, my voice gets all high-pitched, I start to sweat, my eyes dart back and forth, and I tend to ramble on and on and one without making any sense at all. 

Late yesterday morning I had a doctor's appointment in the suburbs. It was just an annual checkup, but one that I had to make 6 months in advance. She's like a celebrity doctor or something (Actually, she kind of is. A Chicago Bears player and his wife went into labor while I was there last time). You have to schedule appointments with her months and months in advance—it's crazy.

So my appointment was at 10:30am on a work day. I don't know what I was thinking when I scheduled it, but with really inconvenient train times back to the city, there was no way I was going to be able to make it in to work for even half a day. I had no personal days left and there was no way I was going to use a precious vacation day to sit in a waiting room...

I knew I had to take a sick day. I've never played hooky before, so I was pumped. I felt like such a badass. But as last week progressed, I got more and more nervous, especially after the dreaded layoffs. Starting on Tuesday afternoon, I had permanent knots in my stomach. I saw that I had projects due on Monday, I saw that everyone was super stressed and I kept trying to go over my "sick" excuse a million times. 

Should I say I had food poisoning? A cold? Lack of sleep? Black lung? The plague? Ulcer? Ingrown toenail? Cramps? I was freaking out. 

So when Friday rolled around, I was a wreck. I was SO nervous to tell a lie, especially to my boss. I felt like I was walking around with a huge dirty secret or something. My nerves kept building and building and building...

And before I knew was I was doing, I marched right into my boss's office late Friday afternoon and had an explosion of disgusting, nonsensical verbal vomit. In one long, run-on sentence, I told him that my doctor's office had just called to remind me of an appointment I had on Monday that I made 6 months ago and I just had to go to because I had to get something checked out and it's impossible to see her and I was going to call in sick and...

Yeah, that didn't sound sketchy at ALL. I was SO embarrassed. Luckily, he gave me the okay (along with a look that said, "why the hell didn't you just call in sick?") and I ran out of there like a scared little rabbit. And then I sat at my desk and hung my head in shame. Why the hell didn't I just tell a little white lie? It would have sounded better than the lame excuse (AKA the truth) that I came up with. God only knows what he thought I was really doing yesterday...

So I was out "sick" yesterday and when I came back today, every single person in my office asked how I was feeling. I forgot that people would notice my absence now that my office is tiny. And I didn't know what the heck to tell them. I told one girl I had to see my doctor, another guy I was too tired, a handful of people think I had a nasty cold and one guy is now wondering whether I had a run in with tainted peanut butter. Toward the end of the day, my reply was something like, "Oh you know...fine. Just one of those things, you know. Going around. Better now. Just the weekend, you know. Things like that." Completely vague. A total Michael Scott answer.

And that is why I completely suck at the game "Two Truths and a Lie". 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hahahahah you're hilarious!

erin - heart in ireland said...

that is quite amusing, though i have a really hard time lying as well, but with small things like that i am usually ok.

and yay for the george washington reference!

Ashley Paige said...

hi! i happened across your blog while blog-hopping! i am SUCH a chicken when it comes to calling out sick from work- i actually am required to call my boss at home (clearly a deterrent for any fake-sicky!) looking forward to reading more! :)

Anonymous said...

Haha, that's so funny. I ramble when I lie too. I get really nervous, like EVERYONE knows. Even when I am sick or do have a valid excuse, I still feel guilty!

Bayjb said...

I hate to say this, but I'm a very good fibber/liar. If you need help, just call me and let me know. In my experience, the easier you keep the lie, the easier it is to stick to it and the fewer questions people ask.