never set your pants on fire

Listen up, children: never tell a lie.

Lies are deceitful and dishonest. If you tell lies, that makes you a liar. It means you are deceitful and dishonest and a bad person. People mistrust liars. People avoid liars. People hate liars.

So never tell a lie.

That’s true, Jimmy. Sometimes, we might say that we like something we don’t actually like in order to spare someone else’s feelings. Yes, like when you told your mom her dress was pretty even though she looked like a boiled sausage when she wore it. A little white lie. Yes, that was very kind of you, Jimmy. It’s not nice to make your mother cry.

So, other than that, never tell a lie.

What?

Oh, yes, Emma, I suppose sometimes we lie to help another person make it through something hard, like when your dad told you the shot wouldn’t hurt much even though it hurt like … . Where did you learn that word, Emma? You really shouldn’t use that word. It’s rude. Never mind. Your example is kind of like Jimmy’s, but I suppose that would be minimizing rather than telling a little white lie. Minimizing. It means making something seem smaller than it is.

What’s that, Oscar? Yes, I suppose when your dad works on a commercial and makes an action figure look way bigger than it actually is, that is a kind of lying. But, you see, he gets paid to make things attractive to other people so they want to buy them. It’s called advertising, and he probably wouldn’t sell many action figures if they looked as small as they really are. It’s how he earns a living. So I guess that kind of lying is okay, then, isn’t it? I mean, you need to eat, don’t you?

So, other than little white lies, minimizing, and advertising, which I suppose is a kind of exaggerating. Exaggerating? If minimizing makes things seem smaller, exaggerating makes things seem bigger and better. Other than those, no lying. You wouldn’t want to be thought of as bad people.

Wow. No, that would not make you a bad person, Samuel. If someone lied to protect someone else who was hiding and would get hurt if they were found? No. I never thought about it that way, to be honest …

No, let’s not talk about Santa Claus, Ingrid! Moving on …

I’m sure Stephen King would agree that storytelling is an acceptable lie, yes, Chloe …

You don’t actually set a liar’s pants on fire, no, Amanda. That’s an idiomatic expression ...

Sarcasm. Yes, David, sarcasm is a form of lying for effect. How do you know the word ‘sarcasm’??? You’re eight, for god’s sake ...

…You know what? That thing I said about never lie? Talk about whatever you want. Just try to be good people, okay?

Now, I am not going to go get myself a very large glass of wine and cry.