What Lies Beneath

Sydney's a good kid in general but for some reason she has an oral fixation with paper. She'll tear off a little piece of her tissue, ball it up in her hands, and place it tenderly in her mouth, savoring God knows what chemical flavoring and artificial texture before being told sternly by her parents, once more, that we only put food in our mouths, and paper is not food.

Sydney now knows emphatically that her parents think that paper is not food but she herself apparently begs to differ, and in order to indulge her secret fondness for paper she employs various strategies, with varying degrees of success. She's tried to reason with us. "Stop talking," she'll say. Or "go away." She's tried distraction. She's tried going in the bathroom and closing the door. None of these strategies have yielded the desired results, and so yesterday she tried something new.

She tried an outright lie.

The conversation started out normally enough: "Sydney, what is in your mouth?"

But rapidly went south: "Cereal," she said. And then she swallowed the evidence.

"Cereal? Where did you get it?"

"It was on the floor."

Right away she realized that was the wrong answer, because although cereal is food, she has been told that when cereal is on the floor you don't eat it. Which she is promptly told. So she changes her story.

"I got it from the box."

"What box? Is there a box of cereal on the table?"

There is not and Sydney knows this, so again she thinks quickly and comes up with: "No, I got it from the cabinet."

Since the cabinet in question is about six feet off the floor and impeded by a kitchen counter, I had serious doubts about this story.

"Really? How did you get it?"

Sydney has now realized that she can't account for this. So she is silent.

Even though I found the attempt hilariously funny, I somehow managed to keep a straight (and stern) face and reprimanded her for lying to me. Having been caught in such a bald faced lie, and being the good kid that she is, she immediately crumpled in a puddle of tears and promised not to do it again.

Which she won't. She'll definitely tell a better lie next time. Here we go.