About Me

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I'm a life-long New Englander, father of 4 challenging kids (I know: I'm supposed to say "wonderful", but while that'd be true, technically speaking, it'd also be misleading), and fortunate husband to my favorite wife of more than 20 years. I've got over 20 years experience breaking things as a test engineer, quality engineer, reliability engineer, and most recently (and most enjoyably) a Product Safety / EMC Compliance Engineer. In the photo, I'm on the left.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

My Wife's Super Powers

You may recall that in an earlier post, I had admitted that my beautiful wife is possessed of super powers. You can read here on her amazing internal chronometer.

Well, she does have more super powers, and one of the most remarkable ones that has saved us over and over is her ability to SMELL LIES.

I don't really have a lot of issues with this super power of hers, since I try to be down-earth honest, except when I'm trying to surprise her with a gift or a special trip or something, but it sure does make our kids' lives pretty tough.

I don't want folks to think that I've got rotten kids. They're actually pretty great kids. No alcohol, no drugs, they aren't violent or overly destructive, no thieves...not even habitual liars.

However, they are kids after all. They have in their time (each of them) had opportunity to err, as humans are wont to do. And, as many kids, when they are faced with trying to rationalize their way out of the trouble that is grown around them, enveloped them, and at the same time trying to remain out of trouble. A large effort that, at best. So, like most kids, they have been known to invent circumstances to try to explain things such that nothing is their fault.

When kids are actually kids, spotting these prevarications is something that an idiot like me can do. BUT, when kids are no longer actually kids, and they have co-conspirators at school to help them spot the blatant holes in their little stories, and they also have greater imaginations, more time to prepare, a better handle on what might sound possible...well, the lies become harder to spot. Especially the "small" ones.

However, this is NOT a problem in our house, because we have a lie detector in the nose of the Mrs. I kind of think that it operates similarly to Spiderman's spider sense, which "tingles" when danger is nigh. For her, the corners of her eyes is where that tingle resides. I think this because when she's on the scent of a lie, her eyes narrow to tiny, focused, slits that fire lie-piercing lasers.

She may not know the truth, necessarily, but she knows a lie when she smells one. If she cares, she eventually knows the truth too...she's a bit of a master sleuth as well. That's part of the game: you gotta know when knowing the truth matters, and when it doesn't. When your kids are involved, it almost always matters...you have to dig out those lies every time.

7 comments:

  1. You're lucky. We got away with murder cuz my mom was oblivious. It's a wonder none of us ended up in jail and even more a wonder that one of us became a cop!

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    1. Nice when people simply mature out of the antics. Tough *waiting* on that maturation process though.

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  2. Our daughter used to call me James Bond. She said I had spies everywhere.

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    1. Bond...Delores Bond.
      Has a ring to it, eh? My wife has that network also.

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  3. My youngest brother learnt the skill of telling the truth so it sounded like a lie. After he had been called on this a few times and found to be completely truthful, he got away with far too much. A devious child, less so as a man.

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    1. That is quite an ability! I'm glad that none of mine have that ability.

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  4. I used to have this superpower, but I lost it at some point. Perhaps it was taken away because I abused it. I did.

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