Bathroom Monologue: Lying Eyes

“The best lie is not the little white lie. White stains too easily. Similarly, do not trust a big, black lie. It is too ostentatious. The only one you can trust is the truth-colored lie. Make the lie look like the truth by making it close to the truth. Ground it in the things they already know. Confess a little to save the lot. You tore up some of the backyard rather than all of it. You ate three cookies rather than seven (or “some cookies;” “some” is enormously useful to a lie). The point is to make a lie-fiction close enough to the truth-reality that people will recognize the content of the lie when they view the truth. Thus when you say you went to return DVD’s to your wife’s sister at her motel, surveillance tapes showing your arrival will only corroborate your story. Meanwhile the truth-colored lie will shelter you actually did in there.”