Saturday, September 08, 2007

hmm, now where did i pack my green and gold body paint?

Lying is a young person's game, as of course one of the great virtues of honesty is that then you don't have to remember. Yesterday, while standing down by the loading dock with the movers, I was distracted when a maintenance guy for my apartment building said hello to me.

"Where are you coming from?"
"Madison." (Not a lie, strictly speaking, since I was just there. But, really: I haven't lived in Madison in two years and it feels more like four.)
"Packer fan?"
"Yeah." (Lie! I am completely indifferent to the fate of the Green Bay Packers. I don't really follow the NFL. To whatever extent I do, there are some teams I sort-of root for and some I sort-of root against, and the Packers aren't either. Worse still, I don't know if it was trying to seem manly in the presence of movers or what, but I said 'Yeah' with enthusiasm.)
"Great! I've been hoping for more Packers fans. We lost three in the building last year..."

I was afraid he was going to ask questions that would reveal my ignorance of any fact about the Packers other than their quarterback's name, but men are usually good about not penetrating the affable bubble in casual conversation that presumes any non-effete male maintains a working knowledge of the NFL). Still, the guy tracks Packers fans. I worry that now I'm on a track where this lie will be compounded with other lies, and I am eventually going to be sitting in a bar with a giant foam wedge of cheese on my head.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

travis ballstadt said...

Nothing better than a lie where you really stand nothing to gain from telling it. :)

Kieran said...

If you keep bluffing and get caught out, you'll be lucky if the cheese wedge just stays on your head.

Kieran said...

Also, by "lost three last year" he probably means he killed them one by one.

jeremy said...

Travis, Kieran: I know! I know!

sal said...

LOL - that is so out of a Seinfeld episode! ;-)