Never Tell Anyone This Story

I have been thinking of secrets today.

Secrets are strange things; they can make you feel superior to others if you know the secret and inferior if you don’t. I have never been very good with secrets, whether creating them or keeping them. The way that I look at it is if someone wants to know where I got my hair cut or where I buy my clothes, they are welcome to the knowledge. My hair generally is crap and so are my clothes, good luck with that secret.

There are things that people shouldn’t be told, but that just seems to be common sense and not a secret. When I was a teenager I had these blue leather shoes with yellow laces and soles. I loved those shoes and I am thankful to all of my lying friends and family who managed to keep a straight face whenever I wore them. I also wore a turtleneck sweater and a thick brass chain that held a peace sign overtop of the yin-yang symbol. I knew that people were looking at me, but I thought it was because I looked cool! Bless their black, flabby, lying hearts! The teen years are tough enough without having to deal with the truth.

The first thing that I do before I tell someone a secret is make them promise that when they tell someone (and they will) that they will make them promise to make the people they tell to promise to tell the people that they tell to promise… Well, you get the idea. I don’t think a secret can ever be kept secret. Sometimes it is fun to tell a secret, and it should be a good juicy one, perhaps about the boss getting caught wearing women’s clothing. That is assuming the boss is a man of course, as a woman wearing woman’s clothing wouldn’t be much of a secret. So, you tell this secret and see just how long it takes to get back to you and just how much it has changed. The poor boss who started out wearing woman’s clothing is now a transvestite, whose wife caught him with a roomful of farm animals, dressed as Disney characters and is now demanding a divorce and custody of the animals.

There are ways to keep a secret. You tell the secret so unconvincingly that no one believes it. Tell only part of the secret, so you would tell the juicy parts but leave out the name of the person involved. It isn’t very satisfying though. It is so much fun to gossip! Not only are you part of an elite group, but you are part of an elite group that knows someone’s dirty little secret! I guess that the most foolproof way to keep a secret is to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!!!

When ever I do something that is completely embarrassing, the trick that I use is to not let anyone know about it. Not so simple I will admit, because someone is usually there to witness it, but if no one witnessed your shame then you might just get lucky.

Quite a few years back when the kids were about eight and six my parents came out to visit us. It was always nice to see them but finding something that they would enjoy doing was quite a challenge. We decided to go downtown to see the Devonian Gardens which is a lovely garden taking up several floors above a mall in one of the larger buildings. We had the gardens and a shopping mall, what more could we hope for? We parked the car on the second floor of the Bay parkade and caught the elevator up to the gardens. We got on the elevator and once the door closed I thought that it would be funny to “cut one”, so I lifted my leg and it rip! It came out long and loud and I had one of those “aren’t I impressive” grins on my face. The wide eyed opened mouth look of horror seemed to be out of line as my family don’t tend to be so straight laced. I reviewed my actions; leg lift, loud fart, big smile, hmmmm… nope, can’t see the problem. Just then the door opened and the little old lady that I hadn’t noticed and everyone else obviously had, got out and walked away at what I would describe as a brisk pace.

Dad held me with his eyes for a few seconds and just walked away while mom followed him shaking her head. The kids were giggling and poking each other and Louise, well she just rolled her eyes and followed the crowd. Me? I put my hands in my pockets, kicked an imaginary tuft of grass, put a little shit eater grin on my face and vowed never to tell anyone this story.

Promise me that whoever you tell, you will make them promise to make everyone they tell to make them promise to make everyone that they tell….