Pinocchio's Nose

The sign on a nursing home reads “Sad Place for Lonely Old People.” (2)  The cocktail waitress in a casino greets her customers by saying “I actually wanted to be one of the dancers, but I’m not attractive enough.” (3) The serving-person in a restaurant sets a margarita down in front of someone and says “I took a little sip of that, right there, see?”I've seen parts of “The Invention of Lying,” six or seven times. Saw the beginning four times, the end twice. The middle part I mostly missed, or anyway I didn't see enough of to understand its strange take on religion. I did get its take on fibbing though which is basically that without falsehood’s ability to “airbrush” hard facts, life can be pretty bleak.The above examples make you realize how rarely people do tell the truth, at least in social situations.Me, I started fibbing early, tutored by my big sister Nan whose yeasty little mind was ever active. Sometimes she had us telling people our dad was an airline pilot, sometimes a member of the CIA. I guess she figured since no one was ever going to meet the man we were free to invent him.Even in my high school years I was still fibbing occasionally. Sometimes I said I was biracial and dad was African, whereas in truth he was just this white guy living in Delaware last anyone knew. I must have felt there was freedom in lying, which is nuts, since the only real freedom comes in telling the truth.Which I do nowadays.Mostly.Oh sometimes I’ll compliment a person on a task even if he fell short, stammered while giving a talk, say, or got so jittery he went off on some wild tangent, but who needs a frank assessment under circumstances like those? Kindness should pretty much trump honesty every time and that’s the sure-enough truth.And while we’re talkin' truth I might as well admit it here: I really wanted to be one of those dancers too. ;-)And now the film's trailer, for fun and reflection:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-H2dNfx-Uw]