To Tell The Truth...

...about the bold-faced lies.

5. My athleticism is such that I could be a professional swimmer if only it didn't require my getting wet.
This is my problem with all swimming, be it pool or ocean, mighty flail or dip of toe: it's the wetness factor. I don't like it. Because it's--wet. What can I say? Maybe my mother bathed me too often as a baby. Maybe I was a harpooned whale in another life. Whatever, I avoid it at all costs when it takes place outside the boundaries of my toilette. Even as a child, I wasn't partial to the water. I didn't avoid it then as I do now, but once in, I was never quite sure what to do. Was there any pleasure in mindlessly churning up and down and aisle? Noooooooooooo. So what else was there to do? Once in high school and college, there were some other interesting things to do, provided a person with a penis was present. But beyond that, and now past that, what's the point?

The real lie, however, is in the first clause, the one about my athleticism. Ha! And double ha!

8. I am a neat-freak who would rather clean than do anything else.
Let's put it this way: I feel about cleaning as I do about getting wet. What's the point? The endless, endless monotony of it. O, whine whine mighty whine. Thus, I have cherished several adages told to me by women in the know. My first mother-in-law once said, "Tidy little people have tidy little minds." And my own mother insisted, "I didn't bring my daughters up to be maids." I didn't know what she meant until I realized that most mothers had their daughters doing Saturday morning KP as a regular stint, to teach them how to clean, for chrissakes, to instruct them in the humble but worthy arts of housewifery. Mine didn't.

9. I have been pregnant three times.
With laughter, as my mother would say. But not with baby, fetus, or even a lowly zygote. I've written about this before. It wasn't intentional and I do keep my eye on those oldest mom in the world stories. I've still got some time to go, I figure, if the upper limit is 6o-something. But to date, no: never had a bun in the oven.

So there you have it, the truth about my bold-faced lies. Ten tales, only four are false. That leaves 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 11 as the truth. The facts, m'am (and you sirs as well), just the facts.....