I was thinking about how we tell lies. To ourselves. To other people. To justify things. To make ourselves seem more important.
I needed to be in Bolingbrook. I don’t drive. I don’t even have a license. I knew there was no chance of me getting a cab that would drive me from the North Side of Chicago down to the Western Suburbs. I didn’t want to pay that much either. Fuck that shit. So, I took the Blue Line to O’Hare. I figured, fuck it. I’ll get in the taxi line and act like just got off a plane.
Lies.
When I got to the line, the attendant asked me questions:
“Where are you headed?”
“Bolingbrook.”
“Oh. Yeah. You know that’s meter and half.”
“Yeah. I know.” LIE!
“They charge you one and half times what the meter says at the end of the trip.”
“Of course. Yup. I know.” LIE!
“Ok. Where are you coming from?”
“Me? Oh. Cleveland.” LIE! I was in Cleveland one time. It was my 8th grade trip to Washington, D.C. I didn’t fly. We took a Greyhound. We stopped at a Hardee’s. The woman behind the counter had a dirty sweatshirt, old jeans, and a spare, yet full, beard growing.
My mom, God rest her soul, used to lie to herself. About her facial hair. She had a patch that grew in the sunken part of her cheek. You know. The part that goes in when you make duck face.
She’d let it grow out a good 3 or 4 inches before she’d do anything about it. Even then, she’d just take scissors and try to cut really close to her face. I’d be like, why don’t you just use a razor? She’d be like, no! If I did that, it would just grow in thicker! I was like, it’s already growing in pretty thick.
I used to tell her that more hair grew on her face than did on her scalp. I got my comeuppance. I went bald. But it was destined to happen because of genetics. Her genetics.
There were a ton of lies going on when I went on that trip to D.C. I love teachers. They get underpaid. Fuck the man. I get it. But chaperone’s? Most of them are garbage people. You’re not a real teacher, bro.
According to a chaperone, this one dude:
Jumped out the window of our hotel room.
Ran to the Tower Records (this happened over 20 years ago).
Bought or stole some CDs.
Ran back.
All in 10-15 minutes.
Ok. Ok. So, first off, we were on the 4th or 5th floor. So, even if he would have simply maimed himself scaling down the 4 or 5 stories, how in the world would he have gotten back up the wall? He had no scratches
Second of all, the Tower records was like a half mile away.
He did all this in 10-15 minutes?
What the fuck are you trying to say? This kid was bit by a radioactive spider?
No one jumped out a window. The chaperone was just blowing things out of proportion to make it look like we weren’t being safe.
We did have our window open. Because we were throwing shit out of it.
Legend. By which I mean bullshit. Bullshit has it that someone tossed a piece of chocolate cake out of the window.
Why? Because 13 year olds
But the story was a piece of chocolate cake was ordered from room service. It came and was nasty. So, people decided to make it walk the plank. The bullshit continues with the theory that the cake was so nasty, when it hit the pavement, it bounced back all the way up to the room.
I guess it had gotten bit by the same radioactive spider the kid had.