Yesterday I Told a Lie

Normally, I don't lie.

I tell the truth because I'm not clever enough to keep my story straight. I don't think it's a nice thing to do, anyway. So I try not to lie.

But.

I lied to a woman at the grocery store. I told her I had children to get better service.

Now, I'm not going to try to justify my actions.

But.

I am going to ask why it's okay for the clerk in the grocery store to waste my time --- the real, childless-by-choice me --- when she wouldn't dream of wasting the time of a woman with children.

Why don't we all just ruminate on that for a while.

Hmmm....

I want to make myself perfectly clear, here. I like parents. I understand that children come with extra responsibilities, etc etc, although one could argue that one chose to have those responsibilites when one decided to have children. (And if you weren't thinking that carefully about it, you didn't think enough.) I am not a mommy-basher.

But.

My time is also valuable. And a trip to a store that I can look at from my front window, for crying out loud, should not take a half-hour. Not when I'm buying diet Coke and lettuce in the middle of the night.

But.

It did. And it would have taken longer if I hadn't appealed to a passing clerk with the tale of my fictional children waiting patiently for me, shivering in the dark, cold parking lot. Because just me --- little ol' lonely, childless-by-choice me --- can wait as long as it takes, because obviously a person without children is foot-loose and fancy-free, galivanting around in the middle of the night for greens and soda pop, headed off to do god knows what, but it probably won't be even remotely related to family values.

And I am not exaggerating when I say that my made-up brood got this lady moving. When it was just me waiting, she was sloooooowly strolling my way, mumbling excuses; when my kids were growing impatient in the car, she literally broke into a trot.

No, you're right, that still doesn't justify telling a lie, I know. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all of that.

But....