Let's Cut The Shit

How many parents, including your own, do you witness fabricating the most outlandish lies in efforts to shelter and protect their children? The things they come up with to avoid having to answer the most popular childhood question, "why", almost seem like more work than telling the god damn truth. The real reason I needed to go to bed at 8:30 rather than midnight was not because I was tired, it was because my mother would have tried to stick a barbie's arm through her retina otherwise. Those vindictive preschool classmates weren't laughing WITH me when my long hair touched the sand while I was swinging, they were laughing AT me. And why did we just pass McDonalds to turn into the Dentist's parking lot? Essentially childhood is a series of lies that gets you through the first years of your life believing that all people are good, your future is full of potential, and you won't find yourself starving at 4 in the morning in your apartment all alone staring at the banana you just dropped on the floor contemplating whether or not it would be to gross to eat it keeping in mind that no one will know but your pathetic self. If only I could revert back to lies, good ol' comforting lies.

I remember a moment of true honesty that I experienced with my mother while painting one afternoon. I watched her brush strokes intently and tried to recreate the masterpiece she seemed to produce so effortlessly. I let the brush sweep across my page and doing that made me happy. I believed that people got to do what made them happy in life so I told my mother right then that I would grow up to be an artist. I imagined a romantic life of berets, rainbow paints, and somehow amongst it, coming from thin air, income. Right after I told my mother this she looked pained and was silent before uttering something that was seemingly unpleasant.

"You know Carmen, artists just don't make enough money. You should become a baker instead so that I could come by and get free donuts whenever I want."

I decided right then and there that I would become a baker. My mom was probably exhausted, unable to force a smile and let me be naive about my future, but above it all I knew that she really, truly, genuinely and honestly wanted some free donuts. I think it must have been the honesty that really impressed me and simultaneously made me alter my future goals, but it could also have been the allure of sugar. I'm ok with it been either, or a combination of both.

Today I was near a mother and her screaming children in the busy marketplace. The daughter was screeching for mother to just break down and buy her an artisans hand made paper mache cat, and through the unwavering stress, anxiety, and pressure, that poor mother did break down, and she told her daughter the truth.

"Look, mommy's not gonna waste $20 on an ugly chunk of paper," she said in the bitchiest, loudest, most sincere tone.