I'll Believe Anything

This is a guest post from my wife, Shelby. (Not to be confused with my sister, Shelbi.) I'm afraid every word of it is true. Not that you'll trust me.

I love my husband more than anyone in the world. He makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis, and we have been blissfully married for over twelve years. He is the head of our home, a scholar, a gentleman, a comedian, a great dad, a wonderful husband, a gifted teacher and preacher, and a talented drummer, guitar player, and singer.

He is also an accomplished liar.

Well, “liar” may be too strong. “Storyteller” or “tale-spinner” is probably a more appropriate description. Or maybe “one who will say the most off-the-wall, ridiculous things, just to see if his wife will believe him.”

It started early in our marriage. He never told lies to try to get away with things—it wasn’t like that. He just thought that it was funny that I believed everything he said.

I worked in an office for a short time and dressed up for work each day. It was a Wednesday and we had choir/orchestra rehearsal at church and I wasn’t going to have time to go home first to change clothes. I called Greg and asked him if he would pack a few things that I would need and he agreed. I started to give him the list, and he told me to wait while he got a piece of paper.

Greg: Okay, I’m ready.

Me: Okay, I need my dark blue jeans.

Greg: Daaarrrk...bluuuue...jeeeeeans. Got it.

Me: White t-shirt.

Greg: Whiiiiite shirt.

Me: Socks.

Greg: Sooocks. Next?

Me: Long-sleeved shirt.

Greg: LSS. ‘K?

Me: Please don’t forget my brown boots.

Greg: Boots...Got it. Anything else?

Me: Um, yeah, go ahead and bring my toothbrush and some toothpaste, please.

Greg: Toothbrush. Toothpaste.

Me: Thank you.

Greg: You’re welcome. Did you really think that I was writing all of that down?

Not long after that we were with my family. My sister and I were discussing the breaking news story about how JFK, Jr. had died in a plane crash. Search teams were still combing the water for his body, so my sister and I were speculating over the possibility of recovery when Greg said, “Didn’t you hear? They found his body.”

“Oh, they did?” we asked.

“Yes. I can’t believe you didn’t hear this. It’s so weird. When they found him he was still sitting in the plane on the ocean floor, and he had a lit cigar in his mouth,” he replied.

I know this is so stupid, but we actually sort of believed him. “What?! That is so strange,” we said.

Greg just started laughing and shaking his head.

A couple of years after the JFK incident, we had moved to our second apartment in Nashville . Not too many weeks after we moved in we discovered that the area of town in which we were living had a bit of a cricket problem. I hate crickets. All bugs, actually, but I have a particular distaste for bugs that can jump up and try to kill me. Only these were not your everyday crickets. They were camel crickets. They were brown, they were huge, and they and all of their friends had a fondness for our unit.

One particular Sunday morning as we were preparing for church, I was standing in front of the open refrigerator trying to decide what to have for breakfast. In my peripheral vision I caught sight of a monster crawling out from under the fridge, right by my bare feet. I screamed like a banshee, slammed the fridge door, and ran into the living room, jumping up and standing on the couch. Greg had been sitting at the table in the kitchen and had witnessed the whole event, but I still was shaking and crying and begging him to kill it.

I heard him close the cabinet where our trash can was contained, and he calmly reassured me that it was okay, he had killed it.

It took several minutes for my nerves to settle down and the shaking to subside, but I was able to gingerly step back into the kitchen, my eyes darting about the room in search of any of the cricket’s wicked relatives. I was certain that the coast was clear and walked back over to the refrigerator to resume my hunt for breakfast. As I stood there, déjà vu of the worst kind took over, and I looked down to see yet another cricket emerging from beneath the fridge.

I’m assuming that my screams woke up every tenant in our building.

My vision blurred as I ran out of the room, crying like a baby. I waited for my knight-in-shining-armor to rescue me once again, when I heard him say the words that would forever stain our bond of marriage and cause me to never trust him again:

“It’s okay, Shelby . It was the same cricket.”

Every muscle in my body tensed up and I froze half-way to the couch. In slow-motion I turned toward him, and with a voice that I can only assume sounded like I was possessed by an evil spirit, I seethed through clenched teeth, “it...was...WHAT?!”

Greg shrugged and said, “It ran under the fridge and I couldn’t get to it. I didn’t think it would come back out.”

Needless to say, every single time in the last ten years that he has killed a bug for me I have made him file a report on the incident and show me the corpse.

Stop me if you can stomach no more, but on we go to lie number four. (Hey, that rhymes...)

We had gone to bed particularly late one night, and Greg needed to rise early the next day for work. We were talking about needing more sleep, and Greg said, “I’ll be okay as long as I wake up after 6:00.”

“Why 6:00?” I asked.

Greg replied, “Oh, I just read about this. It’s called the ‘Threshold of Rest.’ They say if you sleep until 6am you will have rested thoroughly, even if you didn’t go to sleep until, say, 3am. But if you wake up at, like, 10 ‘til 6:00, you haven’t reached the Threshold of Rest.”

I was intrigued. “Hmm. That’s interesting. I’ve not heard that before.”

“That’s because I just made it up.”

I’m sure that I could tell you stories all day, but I won’t. Let me conclude with this: as exasperating as the love of my life can be, I can tell you that every day is an adventure and no one on the face of the earth could ever take his place.

Believe me.

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If you enjoyed this post, check out the other accomplished liars at Humor-Blogs.com.