Don't Kid Yourself-One Lie Still Makes You A Liar

White lie n. An often trivial, diplomatic or well-intentioned untruth.

Okay, I didn’t want to say anything but again I couldn’t help but let my fingers do the talking or the typing as the case may be.

But what has happened to the youth of today?

Well apparently for one, there are kids out there who are outright “lying” to their parents about going to school, by school I mean college or its equivalent.

I mean, they wake up, they put on their school clothes, they take their school stuff with them, and they “pretend” to go to school.

No, actually they “pretend” to go to class because they might really be still going to a school campus.

And then they do all that day after day after day, sometimes for a whole semester, a whole school year or even more than that as you will soon find out later as you read on.

And the surprising thing is that they aren’t officially enrolled students but they still go to school. They just walk, talk, look, smell and the worse part spend like college students, but they’re anything but.

And while all this time, they have been “fooling” their parents, “fooling” their siblings and “fooling” everybody else making them believe that they are going to get a diploma when graduation time comes around.

That is ridiculous. But apparently the more absurd part about all these is this could be happening more frequently than we realize if we ever were aware of it happening in the first place.

So if you have a college kid, you should ask them point blank today, or right this minute. Look them straight in the eye and ask them, “Are you really going to school?”

If they blink or hesitate, mumble, stutter or do anything that remotely resembles them trying to wiggle out of a sticky situation, then push on and ask them again, straight to their face, “Well, are you or are you not?”

And be really observant now. Listen to their reply. And especially listen to all the non-verbal responses.

Do not be so dull now. For apparently, this kind of thing is more common than we think.

If you don’t believe me, read this please.

If have not been living in the Southland (somewhere in Southern California) you could most probably never heard of the news story of the UCLA Mom who only one day ago, was crying in front of news cameras, begging for whoever out there was responsible for the mysterious disappearance of her sweet young daughter.

Her child, has apparently gone missing because she failed to return from her regular jog.

It was a heart wrenching sight, I tell you.

Especially because this happened the same day the local news networks were airing the emotional sentencing proceedings of John Albert Gardner III who was found guilty of murdering two female teenagers while attempting to abduct and apparently rape them in nearby San Diego County. And this following news reports that Gardner had attempted to unsuccessfully abduct another female jogger before his subsequent arrest.

So you could see how this whole missing-UCLA-student jogger under-mysterious-circumstances scenario is playing out and under what prevailing atmosphere.

And so it goes without saying that adequate police resources were sent out to look for the “missing” coed.

Now move forward to the next day.

The “missing student” turns up some 250 miles to the north, safe but shook up.

According to witnesses, she walks into a store and asked store clerks to call 911 because she was apparently kidnapped against her will at knife point. She even gave all the juicy details and a suspect’s description to the local police in that area.

Talk about a white lie now becoming yellow, orange, green, blue, red, brown and black.

But that’s the way it is, every little lie someone makes has to be rehashed, reworked, revised, repeated, remembered and added on to, just to make it work and to keep it going. Most times, it’s like our very own Frankenstein’s Monster which once we bring life to it, could and would have a real life of its own and could very well come back and bite us where it hurts.

And so without us noticing or without us anticipating, one pin-drop could become a whole mountainside avalanche of destruction.

And that was what happened to this, I am assuming nice, good, well-intentioned young “college kid” who just couldn’t tell her folks the truth that she wasn’t really going to her classes anymore. And that her one day of pretense, turned into a one-month charade, then into a semester of deceit, then to a school year down the drain and then close to two years of a secret double-life.

As I have said, one little good-intentioned white-lie could be all it takes to bring the whole house crashing down on our heads.

And as it turns out, the “missing apparently abducted at knife-point young girl” wasn’t aware that the entire police force in her area has been very busy in their “manhunt” for her and/or her possible “kidnapper”.

And she had no idea that police investigators had already told her parents the simple truth that she couldn’t tell them herself-- that she has not been a student of UCLA or a student of any other school since 2008, or for the last two years.

And all the while, her mom and her entire family were anxiously expecting her to graduate in a few weeks.

You know, I do not even know if I was going to be relieved because she wasn’t really kidnapped and that she turned up safe and unharmed despite her coming up with that bogus kidnap story.

But somehow, I have mixed emotions, about the misappropriation of tax payer’s money and police resources, the unnecessary anguish she wittingly or unwittingly heaped upon her parents, friends and other family member for the last 24 hours at least, the wasted two years of her young life which she cannot get back and the last two years of her family members who obviously loved her dearly and will do anything for her and the way she broke the hearts of her parents especially her mom who I know was really looking forward to seeing her graduate real soon.

And I guess, she also had that in mind the first time she had the opportunity to tell her mom the truth of her not attending school or her classes anymore. And I know that as time went on, it just made it all the more harder for her to tell her mom this simple truth.

But as it is written inside the pages of a book first printed by Johannes Gutenberg in the year 1456, “The truth shall set you free” and as is the case then and as is still the case now, this well known biblical view still holds true.

And besides, honesty is the best policy.

AP News Report: Former UCLA student's kidnap hoax could be costly

There used to be a link to read this news report, but it is not available for some reason.

Hub Number: #027

Date: 2010-May-15

First Hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Am-I-Offending-You