Object Lesson

As the warm beads of pressurized water cascaded out of the showerhead and over my sleep-deprived (Lillian is sick) body, I noticed that one of the plastic bottles of body wash was broken. The cap, actually. Clearly, it had fallen, broken, and then the perpetrator of this henious event, put it back up and hoped no one would notice that the cap was now in two peices.

My head, still befuddled by getting up at 5:15 am for the past four years, did not immediately lock onto this.

And in truth, this is hardly a matter of national security.

But (and you knew there had to be one otherwise why would I bother telling this story rather than reading my daily dose of Ziggy or Dilbert?) Justice has some problems with telling the truth, asking before using things, putting them back in the shape they were given to her, and with trying to get out of trouble in general. It wouldn't be a big deal, except she's lied, cheated and manipulated on a grand scale to make Nixon's "Checkers Speech" look immature and poorly delivered.

So Lil and I generally confront her on even the small stuff that in the past we would have just let slide.

Justice immediately denied any knowledge of the broken bottle or using it, which isn't unusual in itself. I took this at face value, asked Lil if she had broken the bottle, which she denied, and then went back to Justice. I had her sit in "time out" to think about the truth and then went about making my morning peanutbutter and toast sandwich.

While waiting for the toaster to complete its morning duties, I trundled back in to Lillian, more sleep-deprived than me, and asked her again.

"What do you mean?" she asked, and I knew that I'd put the finger on the wrong suspect.

Lillian had broken the bottle, and, being an adult and beautiful, is under no obligation to let me know. Lil also doesn't lie to me on a general basis.

I went back to Justice, told her to get off the time out chair, and then gave her the lecture (which she has been handed a couple times before) my father once gave me. It goes like this:

Justice, if you tell lies constantly, then we can't trust you. If we can't trust you, then when someone tells us that you did something, like say break a window, or light a house on fire, we can't believe you when you tell us you didn't. We need to be able to trust you, and believe you when you tell us you didn't do something. If you keep telling lies all the time, then when you really haven't done something, we'll still think you did. That's exactly what happened this morning, isn't it? Now, I'm sorry for having you sit in time out for something you didn't do. But do you see that we can't trust you now, and this is the result?

I'm not inclined to believe that Justice will actually learn from this, and turn her entire life around. She's ten, and lying is a skill that she has not only gained, but worked at. She can turn on the water-works, through herself into a full tantrum, and scream her head off to any and all who might be within the listening range of the CIA.

But maybe there's hope.

Maybe.