“What is your biggest guilty pleasure? Write a defensive/persuasive essay and try to convince us its awesomeness.”
I absolutely love lying to strangers. It is my Prozac. It is my cosmic balance. While at work (which I recently calculated to be more time than I spend at home) I speak to assholes throughout my ten hour day. These attitudes are atrocious; things even Jesus Christ would shoot right in the fucking face. Having a steady source of income is important to me too, so I deal with them. An abundance of patience and a refillable Fuckitall prescription is required to do it for as long as I have. When it gets really bad, a spare liver doesn’t hurt to have stored away either. To combat the effects of continuously stressful situations and an endless stream of negativity I find it very useful to spread a bit of disinformation. John Q. Public, I am the social ninja. I am the urine content found in your split pea soup.
I don’t cause car wrecks or house fires or divorce or male pattern baldness. I simply lie to strangers. It doesn’t matter what the lie is as long as it is a lie. Some of them can cause pain but most are just for my own pleasure. This habit started a while back when I worked at the 7-Eleven on 10th and Lamar. That store remains busy at all times and the customer type varied greatly. The only things between each person that didn’t change were the impatience and pretentiousness. I would be asked for directions to any number of locations, in and outside of Austin, all day long. I started giving those customers the wrong directions. If they wanted to know how to get to the Rio Grande campus (which was 2 blocks north and two blocks east from that store) I would tell them to head down south Lamar until they connected with 71 and take a right, you can’t miss it. This was an asshole move, I know. Have you ever gotten bad directions? You end up nowhere near the place you were headed and you never stop to think that the direction giver could have been giving you false information purposely. You chalk it up to stupidity. Well I don’t.
The 7-Eleven incidents were real mean. Hate me all you want. On the flip side, gas was only a dollar twenty three a gallon then and the drivers learned a little more of our beautiful city, or surrounding cities if I was lucky enough that day. These days I stick to the more neutral lies. I actually do follow some sordid path of twisted Karma. Time or date inquiries get adjusted by an hour or day depending on a couple factors: the person asking and my Internal Dickhead Gauge response tell me what the appropriate answer is. What is your name? Roberto. Skeelo. Jorge. Chacho. Whatever. It all ends the same: me smiling my tight-lipped white guy smile and walking away happy.
2 comments:
Great! Wry and unapologetic. Also hilarious.
ya know, i thoroughly enjoy reading your blogs as they come up.
it would never occur to me to lie to others in terms of directions. simply because my father- being an older gentleman, often asks for directions and i should hope someone would give him correct ones.
however, i do often screw w/people when i tell them things about myself. it depends, if i get a vibe off them that makes me think- i want to cont. talking to them, i will be nice... otherwise, meh.
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