Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Once, twice, three times you’re out.
So, this morning, very early as I was writing WhatsApp’s to my fellow sibs, I made a discovery about myself.
This morning’s event is just one. But as I think back over the years, I realize my use of disinformation goes way back.
It’s not intentional. No one wants to be called a liar, or worse, to be labeled a liar.
There’s a fine line between fiction and non-fiction. Most written non-fiction stories contain strains of exaggeration and modification. Just as fiction may contain much that is real.
I’m an early riser. Earlier than most. Exceptions might be those people who have to roll out of bed at three am to get to their job. In my case, mostly retired, I have a personal habit of starting my day right around 4:30.
First my coffee and some toast, then I plop down in front of the tube to catch some news. I’m all over with what news I watch. Mostly though, it's CNN or FOX, as much as one may hate one or the other. I find the spread of bull shit gets evened out between those two big news outlets. I pick from one or another the stories I want to believe, others I reject out of utter boredom, yet others I consider out right fabrications. Lies…
This morning I became the very subject or source for spreading lies. Shamelessly so. How innocent or otherwise might this be construed?
A story on CNN about someone flying around the globe got me thinking about airplanes. That’s pretty benign, right? No harm done just yet. I remembered back to when I was a little boy and the many airplane models, I used to make then string them up from my ceiling, so it looked like an ongoing dog fight going overhead in my room.
One of those models was the Mustang, single, P-51 fighter plane of World War two fame.
This morning at that early hour I WhatsApp my sibs in our group circuit. I mentioned Super Bowl that countless years ago, I’d given a sales pitch to a hotel personnel manager in a hotel not one block away from the Kansas City Chiefs stadium. I told my sibs about the Super Bowl and that this past year I hardly watched football, but I’d make an exception for the Super Bowl this time.
My one-sided conversation went on mentioning that the man I was pitching to in his office just off the vast hotel lobby had been a fighter pilot. A young man still but retired from the air force. Friendly and talkative, he wanted to talk about when he flew jets. Painfully clear, the man tried to regain even a little of his former bright light.
There was no sale.
I told my sibs that as I was writing them, just then I remembered another guy who had been a fighter pilot. My old boss at a hotel I’d worked at in Michigan. On his desk he had a solid metal model of the previously mentioned venerable Mustang, P-51 fighter, a single-engine plane from the Second World War. My boss had flown in combat in the South Pacific. I was duly impressed.
As a boy, when I glued together my plastic Mustang model, the flyer which came in my models' box summarized the Mustang.
Turned out the Mustang was one of the most highly regarded fighter planes in the war. A beautifully shaped piece of flying equipment. Its 50-caliber machine guns wreaked havoc upon countless Japanese and German opponents.
I went on, in the WhatsApp, now stoked by my coffee, about how great the Mustang was. I’d finished the story about the guy I was pitching in Kansas City, then somehow progressed to the story about the Mustang and of my boss’s model on his desk.
At some point, I said the Mustang had been a copy of the much-feared Japanese Zero fighter plane. Adding that the Zero was a wooden plane which, when hit by opposing American planes, splintered into pieces. The Americans, however, were amazed by the Zeros’ maneuvering capabilities. They built the Mustang, copying the Zero’s aero dynamics and were soon out flying the enemy. The Mustang was a much more survivable metal construction.
I said all that to my sibs. I felt rather good about myself, having displayed my ability to rise before the roosters do and composing a well-written account to boot.
Heck, even my big brother, an extremely well to do, self-made man whom I continue to look up to even as a seventy-two-year-old younger brother, a man of few words said: ’wooden plane huh? Wow.’
After I had pushed the send button, I relaxed and focused in on the news. The usual dismal accounts, full of misdirection and worthless information, just seemed to stream nonstop. It was when something made me think of Google.
Yeah. My thought was, look up in Google about the Mustang. Brilliant! I just wanted to reconfirm those old Mustang facts from over sixty years ago. Part a desire to prop myself up, part a sniggling and creeping doubt guided me into Google this early morning.
To my shock and almost horror, I quickly discovered the facts. I uncovered that I’d just sent a package of lies to my family. We are a group that tolerates well so many things and yet we hold each other to a higher expectation. Integrity of word is priceless for us.
It occurred to me that underfoot was a futile effort at redeeming value.
What value?
I said we measure one another through our words, but that’s not quite true. For us it’s actions that speak loudest and if you’re the sib that has failed in most endeavors through life, guess what? You are at an unfair disadvantage.
Unfortunately, one’s standing amongst my fellow sibs is determined by our words. Words spoken from truth… Actions are the other measuring bar.
You know, especially amongst the people I most love in this life, my sibs, along with my wife and kids, I never wish to be quietly considered a liar. It is one of the least desirable things I’d wish to be labeled as. A little harsh, perhaps? Probably.
How terrible it would be if those around you think to themselves what a liar he is! I’m doubtful that’s what happens. Also, I think a WhatsApp on some fighter plane facts is swiftly swept under a rug somewhere, if in fact it’s even taken in.
My mistake with the airplanes was understandable, as I’d carried information around my head since the time, I built that model Mustang as a nine-year-old. The flyer that came with the model said those things. But we all know, society allows for some initial missteps when giving out or claiming certain facts to be true.
Once you repeat what turns out to be false statements now, your reputation will tarnish. How can it be otherwise?
Though this Mustang information was wrong based on Google, it could be swept aside for the reasons already stated. As a child, I’d read that about the fighter planes. To have dreamed up such details at seventy-two just doesn’t fit and is unlikely.
Still, the mistake of wrong information is made!
Best is to watch carefully what you say. Review it before ‘putting it out there’. Reality is known differently by everyone. What he might say about the accident on the corner will differ from the women’s account standing next to him.
If in doubt, then go to Google first!
