I lied

Everyone tells little lies all the time, and if you deny it . . . your lying.

"You are as beautiful as the day I met you." Right, if you met them yesterday maybe.
"You look fine, Honey." Like he even really looked at you.
"That's the most beautiful painting I've ever seen." Maybe if you squint and look at it upside down when your drunk.

It's part of life, or more correctly, part of the toll of belonging to society. We don't want to hurt each other when their is no benefit to be gotten from it. We want to encourage our young and loved ones. We don't want to fall into the same old argument, so we just side step it.

We lie.

But, actual premeditated lying to get ones self out of a uncomfortable situation . . . I've always been against it. Once this guy kept calling Tori, and every time Tori would yell, "Tell him I'm not here." But I wouldn't, I would hand her the phone . . . or tell the guy, "Tori said she's not here," and hang up. Sometimes I would just hang up. Straight out lying goes against something in my personal code of honer (COH).

That doesn't mean I don't do it, but I do it rarely. And when I do lie, it bothers me for a long time. The length of torment is usually determined by the grossness of the lie.

One thing I have learned about myself over the years is that the regrets I have, the things that scar my soul, are all things that I did against my personal COH. I find it funny to even say those words; personal COH. It's not something that is talked about in our society today, but I believe we all have one.

I don't think your environment is 100% responsible for the development of your COH, as I have a large family and we didn't all grow up with the same code. Some things that bothers others not at all, bother me.

Anyway, tonight I lied. And when I tell you what I did you are going to think, "That's it? That's whats bothering you?" True, it's not that I did a horrible thing, just something against my COH.

It all started with the item and photo above. I made this little invention last year to wide thread onto cards. I was making my own sewing kits to send out as advertising media. It worked great. But when I added the time I spent making the kits and the cost of the additional items (needles, safety pins, buttons); it cost more to make them to buy them. So I just started buying kits.

I moved my office to Tori's old room recently. I am in the process of getting rid of things I no longer use, and this little baby qualifies. Now, it's really not made of much. Mostly it's scrap wood, a few safety pins, some paper clips, and dowel pieces. It would be really easy to just through it out on the burn pile. But I made it.

How many people have sit down and designed from scratch something you can't even buy in stores? It's not that pretty to look at. It's a little wobbly. But did I mention, I made it?

So I took a few photos and put it out on my local Craigslist for free. I had one flaky woman who sent two emails and I never heard from. Then I go the emailer from hell. Oh, you know her?

This is the retired ex-professional that just really needs to talk and communicate with someone, but all her family has stopped answering her calls or reading her emails. In three days I've gotten no less than 15 emails from her. Really, all I wanted to know was "What do you want to use it for," and "When can you come pick it up."

I finally stopped responding to every email she sent, but we managed to set up a time for her to come by on Saturday. She doesn't seem to have a clear purpose for it. She just thinks it's neat and wants to set it near her moms old treadle sewing machine. I think she's going to be disappointed; it's not much of a looker.

Tonight, I get an email from a nice woman who is part-owner of GAGA (Greater Austin Garbage Arts). They sell art made from recycled reclaimed material and teach workshops. They also host clothing swaps for people to trade clothes and alter them on their machines on site. She thought my kit maker was "AWESOME".

I checked out their website and they are a fun and lively bunch that believe a lot of the same things I do -- about recycling and making do. There really was no option; here is a group of people, some of whom are financially challenged, who will USE my product and it falls right into their frame of quirkiness. I told her she could have it.

In fact, I am going to drop it off with a load of things I purchased while making my kits. I want to check out the place and see what is going on and if there is anyway I can help out or contribute.

Now the lie . . .

I could have just written the over-emailer a note and explained things to her, but I didn't. I wrote her an email and told her that people picking up cabinets from my house today accidentally took it with them. I apologized for her inconvenience and signed off. People did pick up cabinets from me today and the threader was sitting on the cabinets when they came in. So it made it a plausible lie to me. Buy why lie at all? Because I didn't want her to think badly of me?

I don't understand my own motivation, other than maybe it would be less messy to handle it the way I did. But now I have another blot on my COH and I have to wonder if it was worth it.