You know how you go to the store right by your house, and there are cashiers you see every time you go, and they start to make small talk? They guess I’m of college age and in school, ask me how school is going, how work is going, where do you work, when are you graduating. I don’t really want to get into what really goes on with my health with the grocery store clerk, or the neighbor at the hot tub, or the random dog-walker. So I lie. Yeah, school’s great, work’s great. I feel bad for lying because it’s not my nature, but what am I supposed to do? Oh yeah, my brain is falling out the back of my head, my Lupus gave me a wicked rash when I was in the shower this morning, I was up most of the night with painful muscle spasms in my buttcheeks, everything gives me a headache, and I couldn’t stand up straight after running a few errands. Doesn’t sound as engaging as “I’m going to art school.”
Once in a while I get really tired of these encounters. So I speak my mind. I tell them about my health, and boy does it shut them up. It makes it really awkward for them, because you told them something they didn’t necessarily want to hear.
Sometimes, and I haven’t yet, it gets tempting to tell as tall a tale as I possibly can, just for my own amusement. “Oh yeah, I’m going to art school in Europe, and taking my classes in Italian. If you see a girl around that looks like me while I’m gone, that’s my twin sister. She doesn’t like talking to strangers.”
