Emotional Cholesterol

With the election over, Thanksgiving around the corner, and the weather turning a bit nippy, I’ve decided to take care of some important household chores: to defrost the refrigerator, winterize the sillcocks, and empty out my file of old lies.
Most people don’t understand the importance of getting rid of old lies. Most think that a lie forgotten is a lie forgiven. Wrong!
You may not have paid full price for a lie, at the time you acquired it, but sooner or later you’re going to have to pay – with interest.
Lies are a kind of emotional cholesterol.
You know that it’s bad to let ice build up in the refrigerator, right?
You know that if you don’t turn off the water before the first big freeze, your pipes could burst, right?
But for some reason most of us think that we can carry around an endless supply of lies, without similar consequences.
They don’t even have to be your own lies to do you harm: holding on to the lies of others is just as dangerous to your well being.
That guy that won’t get off your butt on the highway: chances are he’s got a fat wad of old lies just behind his eyes, giving him an awful headache.
The woman screaming at the cashier at the donut shop, because he put cream in her coffee and she takes it black – yep, another case of a build-up of old lies.
When I went ballistic last week, tossing things about my son’s room as I lectured him about neatness, it was definitely another case of old lies that needed to be bagged and trashed.
Don’t worry, I’m not advocating honesty – heck no: unfettered honesty is a one-way street, and the honest person is usually going the wrong way.
No, I’m simply arguing for a small degree of intellectual clarity.
You can still be a pompous ass, as long as you admit it.
By the way, let me state here for the record that I am a pompous ass.
(Oooh, that felt good!)
All you really have to do to get rid of old lies is admit that they are lies, to yourself. But of course that’s harder than it sounds.
Self-delusion is a magic trick that most of us master at an early age.
It is easier in the winter though.
When the trees are shedding their leaves, it’s easier to shed our own illusions.
When we are forced to move inside, and live with other people, it’s hard to pretend we are perfect.
So okay, I am going to drag out some old lies now and leave them on the curb: if you see any you like, be my guest.
But before you consider my lies, maybe you should go through your own stuff, and get rid of some of the older ones.

A Partial List of My Lies
Lie #1: Everybody loves me. Somehow this one grows back every year, like a wart on my elbow. I know right now that there are quite few people out there who don’t like me at all. But by the spring my indestructible ego will burst through the dirt like a cheap tulip.
Lie #2: Any moment now my genius will be discovered. (Do you see a pattern developing here?)
Lie #3: President Bush was going to get rid of Rumsfeld, no matter what happened on Election Day.
Lie #4: I only had one beer when I went out with my brothers-in-law to get the pizza the other night. (I actually didn’t have any beers. I had a few shots of whisky though, or several, whichever is more.)
Lie #5: The price of gas had nothing to do with the election.
Lie #6: Honest honey, I don’t mind at all when you come home late and flutter your eyelashes at me while asking if I would mind going out and filling up the tank which you have miraculously managed to empty of all but the last vapors of gasoline.
Lie #7: I think we should give Selectman Sean (no, my name is not Charles) Dodgson his day in court before judging him.
Lie #8: I love Winter.
Lie #9: If I just lose a couple of pounds I will be at my wedding weight.
Lie #10: I knew what a sillcock was before I wrote this.

Sure, I’ve got many more, and some juicy ones at that: but I don’t get paid enough to give those up, here and now.
Besides, as I said before, this isn’t about honesty, it’s about self-preservation: it’s about heading into a long cold winter without too much excess baggage; it’s about shedding lies like leaves that, while they might have helped keep me warm during the months ahead, would have weighed me down once the snows began to fall.
The election’s over. The summer’s long past. The nights are getting longer so I am lightening up.