I Say What I Mean & Mean What I Say...Duh!

I am a horrific liar. I mean, I CAN lie, I just don't do it well. I know, I know, I shouldn't lie no matter what but...well, stuff happens.

My extended family is FULL of professional- quality liars. My mom while married to her second husband, had to lie all the time to keep the peace in her home. She would call us and then lie to her husband about it, she would sneak out to meet us, then lie about it. Blab my true feelings about my sister and then lie about it - you get the point. My dad has had a fairly severe drug problem for most of my life. I can literally remember brushing the cocaine off of his lapels at my sister's engagement party and yet he swears that he doesn't do drugs. He also doesn't drink. (Insert long, painful pause with look of utter disbelief here). My sister lies just for the sake of lying. Affairs? Never happened. Drug use? Not anymore. It's really almost comical.

Since moving away from the family almost 13 years ago, I have TRIED to say exactly what I mean when I am talking to them. If I am invited someplace and do not want to go, I tell them the reason why (or most of the reason - sometime's there's just no need to be nasty). If I don't like something, I say it. I'm the nerd of the family. I was never a drinker (except for a brief 6-month period when I was 19), I was never a smoker and I never did any kinds of drugs. I watched what they did to my father and sister and never wanted that for myself. I didn't see the appeal. They all know me to be a Christian, they know I go to church, they know that I am faithful to my husband and yet, they always question everything that I say, as if I am lying. Man is that annoying.

Case in point, I'm on the phone with my dad on Father's Day and I tell him how I am going to be in NY when he is next month. "Why?" he asked. "So that I can see you," I reply. "No, seriously, why are you going to be there?" Sigh. "Seriously," I say, "I thought it would be nice if we could all be together for a night." "No, come on, you have something else planned up there for the weekend, don't you?" At this point, I wish that I did. "Seriously, Dad, I'm just coming up to see everyone for the weekend, nothing else." "Oh."

Oh. That's it. Not even an excited "oh", just an oh. I guess the fact that I wasn't lying and really had nothing else better to do was a big let-down for him. I guess it's all okay. I know who I am and the wackier they behave just gives me more writing material for you guys.