You couldn’t even clean it with Comet, or even Worex, some tried Ajax
We are liars and lie catchers, and the sport runs from the banal to the breathtaking, from personal to public. Right now, someone somewhere is lying about “having plans tonight.” Meanwhile, someone else is discovering that his or her spouse has methodically concealed an affair. And take a look at the news of the past couple of weeks: Barry Bonds was charged with perjury. City employees were accused of fabricating companies to siphon taxpayer money. Lies are all around us.
Sometimes, of course, dishonesty is the best policy. Lying, for all the bad it might cause, is an indispensable part of keeping our day-to-day lives running smoothly.
“Everybody lies — every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning,” Mark Twain wrote in his 1882 essay “On the Decay of the Art of Lying.”
Much of the time we don’t even know it. Lying is a necessary, near-involuntary practice that keeps the fabric of society from unraveling. Example:
“How are you?” a co-worker asks.
“Fine, thanks,” you say, when in truth you’re not fine. Life is a hellish morass, and this person is getting in the way of your dutiful self-pity. But to respond in such a dour manner would turn a passing pleasantry into an awkward, socially debilitating episode.
Take your average 10-minute conversation between two acquaintances. In that span, the average person will lie two to three times. That’s not cynicism. That’s science.
