Well done commenting. I guess it turns out that 100 comments is not the limit. Good to know.
Moving on...
I was recently required to purchase a white, buttoned down dress shirt for one Mr. Russ Edwards' wedding. I was in the Gap in the mall and I was purchasing some khaki pants that were also required of me for the wedding. I saw a white, buttoned down dress shirt there and made the purhcase with the khaki pants. Heck, I needed them both, right? Why not kill two birds with one stone (which would be impossible, I think, were one to actually consider throwing one stone in the air and hitting and killing two flying birds. I think the expression should be "shoot two birds with one shotgun shell.")
When I get home I realize that the dress shirt was $50. Yikes. That is expensive. You can get dress shirts much cheaper than that. So the next day I drive back up to the Gap and return it. I don't know why I said this but I did. My excuse was, "Yeah, I found a white dress shirt in my closet and it turns out that I don't need this one." Why I didn't just say, "It is too expensive and I'm cheap and I can get it cheaper elsewhere" I don't know. I always tense up in returning things. I fear that whatever excuse I give them will not meet some "unreturnable clause" in the fine print of my receipt.
So I dig through my closet this morning, a full week or two since returning the shirt, and I pull out a white, buttoned down dress shirt, the very style and design that Mr. Russ Edwards wanted. And I sighed a sigh of relief. Now I don't have to go get another one. AND my excuse came to be legitmized.
Or did it?
In looking back, did I tell the cashier at the Gap a lie? Afterall, what I thought to be an untrue statement turned out to be true. But I didn't know that at the time. So does that make it a lie? Or does the fact that I did indeed find the dress shirt make it a legitimate excuse? Where does my motive fit into this puzzle? Since I had a motive to deceive does that trump the fact that in reality I was telling a true statement and that deceptive motive make it a lie?
Hmmm. Your thoughts?
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3 comments:
Okay, deja vu...
I think your excuse was a lie.
I realized the other day that I lie to store clerks all the time. They always ask me, "Did you find everything all right?" I always respond, "Yup," and go about writing a check for my purchases which may have taken me a long time to find. Well, when I went to Target the other day, I looked and looked for those kitchen drawer silverware holders, and I finally found them in the pet supply section. (My sister tells me they were actually in the hardware section, which, frankly, doesn't make much more sense than the pet supply section to me). The point is, I spent my time looking in the kitchen section, and I was frustrated beyond all reason. Why aren't they next to the silverware and utensils?
When we got to the cash register, the cashier asked, "Did you find everything all right?" I said, "Yup." Then, I don't know what came over me. I said, "Well, actually, it took me a while to find it because it was in the pet supply section." The cashier had a blank look on her face, then kind of laughed and said, "I have no response to that."
Exactly. Why on earth would a cashier care if I found stuff okay? It's not her job to stock the shelves or organize the store. I think that I'll probably just go on my merry way saying "Yup" to the poor cashiers who were trained to ask me a pointless question.
(Sorry... didn't mean to write a novel)
You're
a
big
fat
LIAR!
a lie. for sure. you used the past tense "found" when you hadn't even looked yet.
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