We’ve all told lies at one point or the other in our lives.
Big lies. Little white lies. (Why do the little lies have to be ‘white’ though? Can’t black people tell little lies? Can’t it be little black lies? So much white privilege even in lying too? Where my protesters at!!) Okay, maybe we’ll put the protest on hold for now and get back to the story.
The fact is though, regardless of whatever size of the lie, some people are really good at lying while others simply suck. This is a story of how I sucked at lying to my mother and how that shit backfired.
One beautiful Saturday morning when I was in primary 3, I found a one naira coin under our living room couch.
Old Herb was looking at me like, “Pick me! Pick me!” So I did and showed it to my mother.
Mother instantly gave me the eye.
As per, the first step of action according to the Mothering Handbook.
Then she was like, “Is it your own?”
And then she told me to put it back. But of course I didn’t listen.
The next Monday, I took Old Herb to school.
After school, I stopped by the little kiosk outside the school gate and bought one stick of robot bubble gum.
…because that was all the one naira could afford back then.
But I was very happy with my purchase.
I was never given money to bring to school because I always brought food for lunch and home was a stone’s throw away. So I was very excited about being able to buy something on my own.
I chewed my robot gum with pride and skipped all the way back home.
Immediately my mother saw me, she looked at me like:
“What are you eating?”
At first, I feigned ignorance.
But my mother was like:
So I told her I was chewing gum.
I could not even try to lie.
Things escalated pretty quickly from there.
“Gum? Where did you get it? Who gave you? So you’ve started collecting things anyhow from people abi? Are you not supposed to show me first before you eat it?”
All the shouting started to make my head turn and ruined my focus.
Before I knew it, I told her I hadn’t collected the gum from anybody.
Then her face went like this:
Oho? So where did you get it then?
At this moment, I knew I was in too deep and there was no going back.
When I told her I bought the gum from the kiosk in school, she looked at me like:
“Really? With which money?” Which was really a trick question because she knew I didn’t have any money.
I knew I was in trouble when she started to laugh like this:
“Oho! You used that one naira I told you to return abi? You’ve turned to a thief now abi?”
I jejely carried myself to face the wall for my beating.
She made me put the gum on the floor and look at it as she beat me.
I wasn’t even sure which one she was more upset about; the trying to lie thing or the taking the money after she said not to thing.
I just knew that after that day, I could never look at another stick of robot bubble gum the same way again.
I was a learner when it comes to lying, but ever had a classmate that just likes lying anyhow?
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