I totally forgot to lie...

Thought I'd do another post since I missed the window in which I can fall asleep and still be able get up before FedEx comes in the morning. As I've said before: my life is hard.

There's a guy who has been working at the Puerto Rican market on the corner for about six months who I think of as the "new guy." He's a bit younger than most of the other folk who work there, and kind of a loudmouth.

The name of the place is actually "Puerto Rico Foods," by the way; I'm not just arbitrarily giving a shout-out to Puerto Ricans. Nor am I the type to refer to a place by the ethnicity or place of origin of its proprieters.

When I got to the store the new guy was outside on the stoop, chatting with a middle-aged lady about something to do with kids. I heard him tell her he has eight children as a joke as I walked by. I got the things I wanted and went to the counter. As I checked out I told him that I'd try to shop there more often, since now I know he has eight kids to support. And he laughed and asked me if I have any kids.

Without thinking, I said no in a sort of "heavens forfend!" way. And he said something in reply but I wasn't listening anymore because I realized that I had completely forgotten to lie to him.

Because I sometimes buy a tremendous amount of junk food there, in great big handfuls. In addition to my own consumption, last winter I bought boxes and boxes and boxes of cakes and candy for a friend's christmas present. And so I had decided a long time ago that if anyone from the store ever asked me any questions about my disturbing diet, I was going to tell them that I had a kid.

I had fleshed this out in my mind so that the kid had something wrong with him (it's a boy!) to explain why I was never there with him. He was bed-ridden with something terrible that I never defined and had decided I would never discuss, preferring to shake my head sadly and explain that I really didn't want to talk about it.

Anyway, my son really loves junk food, and he's so sick, but has something that enormous amounts of sugar won't affect in any way, so I indulge the little guy. That was the plan. Because otherwise I might be kind of embarrassed by the things I purchase.

But now I've blown the whole thing. They know I don't have any kids. I'm gonna have to start buying apples all the time instead of lurking by the snack cakes rack with drool running down my chin.

Or I guess I could rub my eyes a lot and pretend that I'm almost always stoned.

Yeah, that's probably easier.