Wednesday, 4 December 2013

What would real honesty look like?

“Don’t tell lies!” we admonish our children, in an attempt to make our job as detective parents easier. Always better to get the suspect to confess than to have to piece together the evidence – less trouble in court and less chance of us feeling guilty for meting out groundings and Luddings to an innocent party.*

I wonder what the world would be like if our kids really learned that lesson and grew up not telling lies?

“Honey, we’re breaking up. And it’s not me, it’s you. Actually, in truth, it’s Lorna. There’s not that much wrong with you but you’re just a bit “entry level model”. Lorna’s more deluxe. Kids I have with her are less likely to be ugly and her father isn’t some drunken freaknoid. I could stay with you but it would just be settling for second best.”

“Jason got a C for maths this year. He’s been putting effort in during class, which is nice, but he just hasn’t got it. Despite your apparent belief that he’s the next John Nash, he’s a better footballer than a mathematician and not really all that good a footballer either. I’d pull him out of school at sixteen and get him a job digging holes.”

“I know you hope I enjoyed my meal, but I didn’t. You can’t cook. You never have been able to. What you did to that broccoli should have been physically impossible. We enjoy your company but let’s eat at a restaurant next time.”

“The ornament you gave me? I gave it to the kids to take to the mother’s day stall at school. It was awful. I hope you didn’t spend too much money on it. I appreciate the sentiment but the object itself looked like it had been put together from nose excreta. Just a gift voucher next time would be fine. Thanks.”

“Don’t glare at me like that, I’m just sitting here perving on you. Fantasising about what you looked like in the shower this morning is putting sixty seconds of pleasure into what is turning out to be a very dull day. You have a fantastic bum and legs that I’d love to have wrapped around me. I’m not going to attack you or anything – it’s a purely personal moment.”

“No, ma’am, I’m not going to go out the back and see if we have it in another colour. You and I both know you have no intention of buying anything. This is just your way of getting out of the house for a bit and having someone fetch and carry for you, rather than doing the fetching and carrying for your lazy husband and kids. If I go and get six more colours, you’ll still sit there making strange noises for half an hour and then tell me that you’ll have to think about it. Look, here’s a fiver from the till. Go and buy yourself a coffee and I’ll get on with serving customers that are likely to make a purchase.”

“Firstly, I don’t believe for a minute that your name is James. Someone called James doesn’t have an accent that like. Secondly, you can’t speak English. People who can speak a language can be understood by others. Thirdly, I truly hope your life improves from this point. The futility of what you do, trying to sell snow to Eskimos, must be horribly depressing.”

“Relabelling your personal delusions as ‘beliefs’ doesn’t oblige me to respect them. I think there’s very little chance that there are lines of energy emanating from some guru’s backside, parallel to which you should align your furniture in order to enjoy the blessings of life. I’d much rather take my chances with bad karma and not keep walking into the corner of the coffee table every time I come into the lounge room.”

“Ludding” – similar to a grounding -  the removal of access to technology such as wi-fi, iPod or laptops as a punishment.

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