How to be a terrible liar, and a shitty mom.

I'm suspicious of my teenager.

Of course I am.  He is a teenager.  And I am a parent.

I also have a reasonably high-functioning bullshit detector, so I feel fairly confident in assuming that when the boy lies to me, I catch most of them.

Today, I assumed he was lying. 

Lying about going off into the woods to splash around in the creek, and do all those little-kid things that I wish he still did all the time.  What a wholesome, perfectly adorable way for a teenage boy to spend an afternoon.
This sudden change of plan of course having nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to hang out with his girlfriend today, and I said no...
Because I'm naive, and this is my first day on earth.


Then I received a text, after several hours, asking if he could visit his Granny.
Of course you can.  Because I have no doubt that you've been so busy in the woods for the past four hours, and are likely in need of a hot chocolate and a bowl of warm soup, so you head immediately to her house and get your wholesome-self all warm and cozy at her kitchen table.

Riiiiight.
As far as I was concerned, that sneaking little shitbox was secretly meeting up with his girlfriend, smooching in the woods, reading dirty magazines, and saying swear words.
But, not desiring to be a brutish hag thru the entirety of his childhood, I pretended I thought he was in the woods.
For several, long hours.

Finally, I'd become irritated enough at his terribly flimsy, and rather insulting lie, and I was ready to lay the trap for him to walk into.
And I sent a text...

"Send me a picture of Granny's couch."

That'll show you.  Lying little fartface.  Let's see you wiggle out of this one!
Two minutes later...

Grammy's couch.  With a side of guilt.  

Fuckballs.

I am a terrible person.  I am a suspicious, evil mother, with a darling little saint of a baby boy.

An honest little boy.

And then, "why did you want a pic of her couch?"

Uh...uh..."Because.  I was thinking of painting a picture for her, and I wanted to match the paint."

NOW I AM A LIAR!  

My brilliant and terribly cunning attempt to catch my son in the middle of a lie TOTALLY BACKFIRED, and now I am stuck in the middle of my own lie!

So now, not only am I a terrible, sneaking, suspicious mother, but I am also a dirty liar.  And now I have to paint a picture for my Granny, who will be sucked in to the web of lies with me, when the picture I paint for her inevitably turns out to be a steaming pile of rust-colored shit, and she has to hang it on her wall, and pretend to love it!  And then all of her poor friends will see it hanging there, and ask where such a monstrosity came from.  And she'll have to tell them.  And they, not wanting to hurt her feelings, since she obviously seems to love this atrocious piece of shit, will have to pretend they like it too!  And now everyone is suddenly swirling in this liar soup, lying and lying, and lying, until nobody remembers who they are anymore!!

I JUST WANT MY OLD LIFE BACK!

Ahem.

From now on, I will just assume my kid is working in a soup kitchen, or reading the bible to elderly blind people.  It's easier.