Pants on fire

Here is a little rant I threw this morning after a very uncharactistic night where I had over eight hours of sleep. (Trust me, it was an accident — I am a dyed-in-the-wool night owl and an avowed piddler.) The long winter's nap combined with my daily dose of caffeine and sugar fueled an energetic hissy fit at my office where I threw down today's newpaper in a snit. Over this (and I apologize if I seem high-handed here):

Radio Shack's CEO is under legal investigation for falsifying information on his resume. Dave Edmondson has been quoted as saying there were "clearly some misstatements" on his curriculum vitae. It seems he didn't get that degree he claimed to have received. In fact, he wasn't even close. In fact, the college didn't even offer the degree he "misstated" having. In fact, records show he was only at the college for less than a year.

Hmmm. I guess he was "mis-hired" and "mis-promoted."

Having spent a good portion of my adult life in the advertising business, I am no stranger to euphemisms. I have fluffed and puffed with the best of them. But let's call this "misstatement" what it is. A pre-schooler would call it a "story" or a "fib." But anyone over the age of five knows exactly what it is.

A lie. Plain and simple.

Or as my Georgia mama would say, "an out-and-out lie." A bald-faced lie. A blatant lie. Not a gross exaggeration. Or an embellishment.

As someone who works at a college, has a college degree, waited patiently for her future husband to finish college (another blog to come later, involving eight — count 'em — eight years of fraternity parties) and is faced with getting two children into college and will undoubtedly spend the next decade paying for college, I was just a little peeved at hearing that the head of a Fortune 500 company decided to just give himself a degree by sitting at a typewriter and creating a convincing work of fiction.

But the moral of this story, I suppose, is that if you're going to cross that line, eventually it's gonna come out. Just look at Martha Stewart.

Time wounds all heals. It's Karma. Kismet. JuJu.

I don't think Radio Shack should fire Mr. Edmondson.

But I think he would make a nice addition to their mailroom.

I'm not saying I've never told a lie. I have spared the tender feelings of many the mother of an ugly baby by oohing and aahing convincingly over their little squinty, blotchy, asymetrical-headed, simian-like offspring. I mean, that's the gentle sort of lie — the not-saying-what-you-really-think type of thing. But I pretty much gave up big full-out fabrications when I couldn't trick my mom into believing I hadn't eaten a corn dog and jelly donut for lunch in the junior high cafeteria.

So grow up, Mr. Ed. And own up.

And for heaven's sake, find a better word.