Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll declares: I HATE BEING LIED TO! She writes:

I have referred before, possibly in a comment rather than a column, to how much I loathe being lied to or flim-flammed. Many years doing my best with a pathological and gifted liar of a foster kid stripped my gears of the ability to listen to [pasture patties]. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s most famous speech, “I CAN handle the truth!” What I can’t handle is some flagrantly false story to tug at my heartstrings.

The grifters and beggars must share effective stories. Because two very popular ones in the late ’90’s in Minneapolis were “Could you spare some change to buy baby formula?” from people far too old to have an infant and “My car ran out of gas on my way to a job interview…” Uh huh. And what job were you hoping to get dressed like that? And, just by the by, WHERE is this mythical car?

Once my hippie sister actually tried to pick up a guy along the freeway to come work in her yard since his sign promised “Will work for food.” She was trying to preserve his dignity. He told her to perform an impossible act on herself. She was actually shocked that he had not been telling the truth. I’m just grateful that he didn’t get in the car with her and go to her home! Her husband, a big tough guy, was at work. As my Grandma would say, “Sakes alive!”

In rural South Dakota in the Dirty ’30’s, my maternal Grandma gave food to every hobo who ever dropped by. The family was convinced there was some kind of mark on their fence or door. Grandma said not a one of the itinerant men would have taken so much as a day-old biscuit without asking to do some task around the farm. Work ethic is sooo yesterday.

I don’t give to lazy liars. As for the ones claiming to be veterans, I’d love to see their discharge papers. That’s about as low as you can go to lie about that. But I once gave $20.00 to a panhandling gentleman in downtown Minneapolis who stood a respectful, non-threatening distance from me and looked at me with bleary eyes and said, “Ma’am, I am a hopeless alcoholic and I really need a drink bad. If you could help a man out…”

I said, “Okay. Here’s enough for a decent bottle of something and, hopefully, a burger and some fries too. Budget wisely.” He was shocked and grateful. He wished me a Blessed Day and I’m pretty sure I had one.

Even little lies annoy me. I have in my life had a couple of female friends – never males, why is that? – who were congenitally late for lunch dates. Oh, not 10 minutes late, which happens, but 40, 50 minutes late while I sat there looking for all the world like a stood-up loser on her third glass of merlot. When they would arrive, it was always a dramatic story of traffic backed up by an accident and other emergencies out of their control.

I would have much preferred they just say what one of my classmates said when he drifted into Speech Class near the end of the period. Mr. Riggs asked, “Lyle! Why are you late?” and he replied, “Well, I think it’s because I didn’t get here til just now.” As nice as a couple of those ladies were, eventually I “broke up” with them. Life is short. And the world is full of wonderful people who can be on time.

Not that I ever learn to avoid all lies and scams. Why, just the other day I saw a “quiz” on some kind of clickbait link that was only a few questions long and I could find out what my risk was for “inflammation.” Afterward they would email me my “score” and would also reveal what the five top anti-inflammatory foods are. Who could pass that up? So I took the test, got emailed a “13” which they told me was a good score and then all I had to do to find out the five magic foods was watch a “short” video. Oh for Pete’s sake, snookered AGAIN.

This, of course, is long after I clicked on something promising to rate the IQs of the Presidents in order. Any idiot who claims Obama was smarter than either Thomas Jefferson or George Washington is plenty dumb himself, but not as dumb as the woman who clicked on the link.

I am fortunate to be married to one of the most suspicious humans on God’s green earth, who can sniff out a scam from 1000 yards. Even normal salespeople whose petty prevarications are just tricks they learned in a sales seminar tremble when they see him.

When we bought our first house in 1979, after many years of renting, we tromped off to Sears to buy our first lawnmower. It was a beautiful late April day, the snow had mostly melted in the yard, the leaves were starting to bud on the trees and it was clear that in early May, the grass was going to have to be mowed.

To the disappointment of the Sears salesman who had started out showcasing a yuge John Deere riding mower to cut our smallish front and slightly-larger backyard, Joe chose the cheapest, most basic model on offer. It was so basic that it was hard to see what could possibly go wrong with it, and yet the poor guy tried his best to sell us a One-Year Extended Warranty beyond the 90-Day one it came with. And Joe just said, “Well THAT will come in handy from November to May!” You look up “crestfallen” in the dictionary, there’s still a picture of that guy.

Of course, nothing comes close to the pathological lying of politicians. Next to them, even Bernie Madoff was a rank amateur.

“With ObamaCare, you can keep your doctor if you’re happy with him or her.” Hahaha. Later, just to stick it to us, they ADMITTED they were lying and knew they were lying. They thought it was hilarious. There is charming video of Obama chortling over the fact that there WERE no “shovel-ready jobs” when they had just spent a gazillion billion dollars (give or take) on pretend “infrastructure.” Boy, that WAS a knee-slapper, wasn’t it? Clearly, puttin’ one over on the rubes is part of the kink for them.

They lie continuously about the magnitude of the danger from small and incremental changes in climate. As we can’t point out enough times, originally on Earth Day in 1970 the fear was of a new Ice Age. Then they called it Global Warming until it was embarrassingly clear that nothing was warming at all. Climate Change is now the catchall, because it’s impossible to argue with. Warmer than last year? Climate change! Colder than last week? Climate change! Rain? Climate change! Drought? Climate Change. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Evil Ones will never cease attempting to get total power over all of us. They won’t rest until they control the temperature and length of your shower, the water in your toilet tank, or whether you are forced to ride a bike or walk a couple miles daily to get groceries. Assuming you can find groceries. Nothing is off the table when it comes to the Green Nude Eel. Not “15 Minute Cities” or mass starvation. Can you imagine a country full of independent people that constantly moved West for “elbow room” and opportunity on a leash that allows movement for 15 minutes in any direction? Resist! Do not comply!

When our overlords aren’t peddling outright lies, they deceive us through vagueness. When the Obamabots debuted the incredibly successful “Hope and Change” mantra and posters in 2007-2008 you could often find me screaming at the television: ”WHAT are you hoping for? WHAT are you planning to change?! The @#$%&* details MATTER!! “

But no answers were forthcoming. The summer before the election, every other person you saw was prominently toting Obama’s autobiography. I developed a new sympathy for Neil Diamond’s angst in his hit song “I Am, I Said,” when he complained about being ignored even by furniture. To wit: “I am, I said, to no one there. And no one said a word, not even a chair.”

There is one category of lie which is not just acceptable, but mandatory. I am speaking of the Little White Lie that makes civilization itself possible. Several movies have been made portraying the chaos that would ensue if we ALL said exactly what was on our minds in every instance. Like the Jim Carrey film where he was incapable of lying at all, which was particularly difficult because he was a lawyer! Haha. I kid the lawyers. You have to lie to us geezers, too. Remember, there are three stages of life: youth, middle age, and “You look fabulous!”

Shading the truth is especially important to spare someone’s feelings. I will leave you with this example. On the last day of my Junior Year of high school we were all passing yearbooks around the lunchroom and a girl approached me to sign hers. To my certain knowledge, I had never had a class with her and I had no idea who she was. But she believed she knew ME. Oh dear. And so I hit on asking, “So, could you spell your name for me?” And she said, “A-n-n.”

Watch THIS recovery — I said, “Oh, I knew your name. I just didn’t know whether or not it had an “e” on the end.” She went away happy and if I have to do some penance for that lie, I hope it is light, something I probably won’t even notice in the midst of all the other penance. If I were Catholic, the swearing alone would keep me in Purgatory for several centuries.