Lying

    Do not lie to me.

    It's that simple.

    I am a teacher and parent, I spend time with every generation. I usually don't differentiate generations, but at their core, everybody's a mess. I only use the term if I am at a loss for another identifier that does not identify, which makes no sense but....I  get me.

    Recently I was accused by a possible Millennial of being too "wound up about lies". As in "What's the big deal, I lie all the time, people lie to me all the time." I was Gobsmacked. they may not have been a millennial, maybe a sublilleeal or subterranean, I give no craps about any of that. Do Not Lie To Me. This is a person who watched an entire administration lie and screamed constantly about it, so I'm struggling to understand whey it's OK for them to lie, but not Trump. So it warranted deeper investigation.

    I also do not believe that this has become a cultural norm, just a person trying to justify either their own untruthfulness, or explain away the many  falsehoods they have been subjected to. There's also the mental health aspect, none of us are firing on all cylinders, maybe this is an aspect of a cracking up. This is evident when you serve Heather a cup of Drano, and then lie about it. This will cause you to crack up and burn your journal.

    This became such a huge issue during the last administration, which was unfortunately our reality and not a fun movie, when lies were truths and truths were fake news and there was no longer any moral compass to help any one along. Now, we have the residual waves that pounded through the last semester of public education, where people without masks lied about being vaccinated, or about a negative Covid test; parents lied about their students who were clearly symptomatic and sent them to school, anyway, and exposed other people. That's not OK. If I find out you've done that, I will yell at you and call you a liar, and never speak to you again.

     Lying to your parents is par for the course for many, but when it comes to health and your future, you are truly an ass to lie about anything bigger than getting your tires rotated. What was that (every) silly college movie where the kid pretended to go to college but didn't? OR the one where he spent all summer as a Giglio to earn money to go back to college, but lied to his girlfriend and parents---his mom was Kate Jackson, he lied to one of Charlie's Angels! Your health and your future are tied to your parents, no matter what you choose to believe, just like anyone working in a school's health is tied to others. Don't Lie. This is beyond Jim Carrey screaming "The goddamn pen is blue!" I don't care how old you are, have the decency to tell the truth to the people who raised you and love you unconditionally. Did you people learn nothing from the song "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream" in Book of Mormon?  ** Can we take a moment to acknowledge how many generations I hit in one paragraph? You're welcome.**

    Being shocked when someone blows their stack all over you when you lie is also a response that confuses me. They trusted you. They believed you. They get to yell, and you need to listen because how dare you? You are married to them and then you pulled this ? (Example from Every Date Movie Ever). You lied. I get to be mad. He's Just Not That Into You is a phrase that contains a passive lie: he didn't call because he didn't have the nuts to tell you the truth. Just Say It.  Of course, that's a pretty small lie compared to a gazillion other examples that are jamming up my brain right now.

    You know when lying is OK? When you're Harriet Tubman and you are escaping slavery and get stuck in a small town that will murder you if they find out who you are. That's it. That's the one time you get to lie. And I just made that up, there's a possibility that woman never lied, ever, even to save her own life. But if she did, it would have been OK.  I suppose, on a technicality, me making up that little piece of fiction about a real person can be seen as a lie...

     And thus, I  can be yelled at for lying.

     Arguably, fiction is a lie. It is just another word for "not true". Maybe part of the issue is that fiction in film and television has blended the lines so completely that people believe it be be truth. This is exacerbated by "Based On A True Story": being a single parenting is easy(clearly you did not watch Pursuit of Happyness), parenting in general is a lot of work but rewarding and fun and comes with a handy dandy narrative to begin and end each twenty minute episode; dealing with death always ends on a positive note with a new relationship and maybe a zoo; angels behave as time machines and enable you to see how your life would have been if you were never born and you end up not committing suicide because you now see your worth; time machines exist and can be used to reverse any stupid stuff you did in the past.

      Lies or fiction. 

      I've lost the thread at this point. Just don't lie to me.

     Scene.