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Highlands Today

Lies I Tell Myself

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By Joyce Minor | Highlands Today

Published: July 6, 2008

We all do it. Here are the top ten I've told myself and tried to believe:

10. This $20 spending money will last me all week.
I'm lucky if it lasts a day. I think money actually gives off a glow in my purse, because when I have any mad money on me, cute shoes, to-die-for earrings, and Dove chocolate bars just jump out and grab it as I walk by.

9. I'll have one chocolate chip cookie.
Or one potato chip, or one M&M. Ha! There's no such thing. When I take one it instantly multiplies in my hand. (Now, if I could just get my money to do that.)

8. He'll grow out of it.
Men are men from the day they're born till the day they die. They never outgrow anything except the need to please the women in their lives. It doesn't matter if it's your toddler son who has decided to bite all the other children in preschool, or your 40-year-old husband who continues to mop sweat with the sleeve of his golf shirt (and now has permanent stains on every shirt he owns), or your elderly father who has decided to wear wingtips with his Bermuda shorts. He'll never outgrow it.

7. It won't rain today.
If I forgot my umbrella, or I left my car windows down, or my hair actually looks good for once, it will definitely rain buckets today, even if there's not a drop in the forecast.

6. If I take care of this plant it will stay beautiful all summer.
The amount of time I spend watering, fertilizing, turning the pot, and talking sweet nothings to a plant is directly inverse to the length of time it will survive. And if I have guests, or the newspaper takes photos of my yard, or my mother is coming to visit, that is precisely the day my pampered, favorite plant will turn brown and give up the ghost for no reason at all.

5. I'll put my car keys, or cell phone, or shopping list, or ___________ (you fill in the blank) right here so I can find it.
If something is vital and irreplaceable, my ability to keep track of it vanishes faster than a Popsicle in a heat wave.

4. I only need one item from Wal-Mart. I'll grab it and be on my way in a flash.
The item I want will almost certainly be out of stock, or moved to another department, or on a shelf so high even Shaquille O'Neill couldn't reach it. And, when I finally get it and dash into the shortest checkout lane, the lady in front of me will have 8 items with no prices, at least a dozen coupons to redeem and three separate orders.

3. I will not get sick the day before my vacation.
Even if I use hand sanitizer twenty times a day, take enough Zicam to fight off a bull moose, and refuse to inhale in close quarters, I will spend my dream vacation throwing up in the airport bathroom or shuttered in a dark hotel room with a migraine.

2. If I plan this project carefully, and work ahead, I'll get it done on time.
One, or more, of my children will wind up in the emergency room, my computer will crash, at least one co-worker will be unable to complete his/her part of the assignment, and my dog will eat my homework. Pick two, any two will do.

1. I am going to get several columns written ahead so I'm not panicking, unable to think of anything to write, an hour before deadline.
This one is tougher than putting socks on a rooster. Richard Hensley can tell you, it's the biggest fiction of them all.

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