The Art of Lying

Two days ago I watched with shame a muthafucka trying hard to lie his way out of a corner on an SABC2 consumer programme hosted by Dosto Noge. The son-of-a-bitch was such a lousy liar that I pitied him – painfully. This prompted me to pen a piece advising me on how to be an effective liar. Hope you double-dealing folks learn and apply this;

1. when telling a lie, you should keep a straight face – there’s no obvious giveaway than a frown or blinking your eyes repeatedly when you are lying
2. don’t scratch your head – back in school when somebody didn’t know the answer all they had to do to indicate their failure was to scratch their head, so don’t do it
3. your lie must be nearer to the truth – if you want to lie to your partner about having spent time at the post office where there was long queue, start there, buy Lotto tickets and actually fill them in then go jolling, you’ll have evidence to produce when your partner doubts you
4. Don’t tell obvious lies – telling your partner that you are working late is actually saying you are bonking someone else. Also like saying 'come on, we are just friends'. Working late is the oldest trick, it’s the same as claiming you were at the gym when everybody knows more people fall in love at the gym than in church
5. Memorise your lie – the trick here is to believe your own lie. There’s a difference between Kingsway and Beyers Naude, or Cresta and Melville, so if you were at Melville remember that even six months later, anyway why would you want to remember a Cresta that nearly put you in shit
6. Don’t plead alcohol abuse for your memory lapses – saying ‘I can’t remember I was drunk’ is as bad as saying ‘I whacked you because I was drunk’. The issue here will be ‘so should I ready myself for this bullshit everytime you go clubbing?
7. Never change the original lie – no matter how many holes are punctured in it never say, ‘Agghh I was lying, let me tell you the truth’. Rather plead stupidity and say ‘well, I can’t help it that you don’t believe me but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it’. People tend to believe people who believe in themselves.
8. When someone picks a saucy SMS in your cellphone and asks you about never claim it was sent to your cousin or colleague on your cellphone but rather argue that ‘it was sent, I didn’t send it, I can’t help it that some people have a crush on me and hallucinate about it’. This is as long as it’s not about yesterday in the bathroom while everybody had already left or what you did last Summer
9. Practice lying by lying to your own mother - She’s the person who knew you from the time you used to protest having stolen a spoonful of sugar even when it was all over your lips. Lyingtologists (people like me) allege that if you can’t lie to your mother forget about lying to your partner. To your mother, lie, lie and lie until you get it right
10. Never start your lie with a repetition of the question your were asked, like ‘where were you last night?’
‘Last night? Me?’ just shoot from the hip and have a ready lie everytime you have screwed up.

Finally remember that a lie is not an original sin, it’s a bodyguard for the truth. Sometimes the truth is so valuable it has to be protected by a bodyguard of lies, just to spare the next person from the impact of truth. Many relationships which would have survived have dissolved because someone dared tell the truth – when the lie was a tongue-tip away.