When the Truth is Not Enough

When is the truth not enough? Some would tell you that you should never have to offer anymore than the truth, that the truth in itself should stand on its own. To me that is being very naive and innocent in thought to think that just speaking the truth in itself should warrant nothing more substantial to solidify it. That is like believing that when you read the package on the cold cuts you buy at the supermarket when it says 100% beef, when in actuality a lot of it is beef by products. Parts of the cow you would probably never consume to begin with. Oh and another thing, the USDA makes an allotment for a certain percentage of foreign matter. Stand outside the gate of a meat packaging plant and do not let your eyes stray from the hands of the workers as they pass through the turnstiles and you will see what the USDA was talking about when they allot for that percentage. But even the missing digits aren't all the foreign matter they are thinking of when they made their allowances for this. If there is to be such a thing as truth in advertising the package should state what the foreign matter could possibly be. With boning methods becoming a science and all viable meat stripped from the bone, the next time you buy a pound of hamburger and you bite down on a piece of bone, if I were you I would wonder where it came from, chances are it didn't come from the cow the meat did. Fortunately I don't eat any beef product. Not only for the fact it is really not that good on anyone's digestion tract, but I really don't relish wondering what the foreign matter could be the USDA is talking about. By the way, rats are a fact of life in any processing plant, the USDA knows that and also knows that total eradication of the rats is impossible, so the next time you eat cotto salami and you bite into one of those peppercorns, hope that it was a peppercorn. You ever see a rat dropping next to a peppercorn? You honestly think that there is someone there watching for rat droppings through out the processing of cotto salami?

Enough with processed beef and its foreign matter policy. I do agree that the truth is important and that one should always tell the truth, when they can. There are times when the truth can be more detrimental than a lie. Your loved one has been dieting for months now, they even bought clothing 3 sizes to small as a goal reward to fit into. Well that day finally comes when with great effort and sucking in they manage to get them on, buttoned, zipped and snapped. They walk into the room and ask your opinion about how they look and you notice the strained buttons, the zipper about ready to burst and that snap that just won't stay snapped. Now do you tell the truth and say how they should maybe wait and continue the diet couple of more weeks and then ask you or do you tell them a little white lie and say how wonderful they look or that you thought they never looked over weight to you to begin with? At this point the only thing you really need to weigh is the circumstances of your answer. Do you like your meals cooked or frozen, do you prefer the couch over the bed or do you really want to wear Books Brothers knee length shorts into the office every day? Never underestimate a woman with a pair of scissors and a closet full of $700.00 suits. At that point in time the price of something holds no value to her. I opt for the lie and tell her I have never seen her look more ravishing.

I can remember the first pot of red beans Linda cooked for me. We had purchased a new set of cast iron pots and took them home. She did not bother to read the instructions, especially the "before use" instructions. I grew up with cast iron pots and pans and was very familiar with seasoning them and scrubbing them and what should be done before their use on a new purchase. Cast iron pots are from a sand casting process, which means the molds are made of sand, so there is a bit of preparation before use. Anyway I went to work that following Monday to return home that evening to a pot of red beans and fresh hot cornbread. They smelled delicious and there was steam still coming from the cornbread she had made in the cast iron skillet. I sat down at the table while she fixed me a plate of beans and buttered me some cornbread. I could not wait to taste them. She set the plate in front of me and then sat down next to me smiling. I took a bite and thought I was going to grind my teeth to the gums. Without saying a word I took a bite of the cornbread and thought I was eating sandpaper. She was till smiling when I looked over at her, "So?" she asked. Now how was I to address this? We did not own a couch, it was the middle of winter in New Jersey and I had grown accustom to the mattress we slept on. So I asked her about the new pots and pans and how she prepared them before she used them. "I rinsed them out." was my answer. I asked if she had ever used them before and she assured me she had, many times when she was living at home with her parents. That was why she liked them so much. I then asked if she had tasted the beans before I came home and she assured me that she had tasted the broth. I got to thinking that sand was pretty heavy, especially casting sand and it was most likely down in the lower parts and she probably only tasted it after testing the beans by the mashing method, where you mash a bean on the inside wall of the pot to see how tender it was and then lowered the heat to a simmer allowing the sand to settle to the bottom. So I asked her if she read the instructions before using the pots, I could see the confusion in her eyes at this point. "No I didn't, why should I? I know how to cook." came her defensive answer. Not wanting a confrontation or to sleep on a cold hardwood floor I walked over to where the box was the cast iron ware had come in and fished out the instruction sheet and set it in front of her. I was not going to be the one to tell her she did something wrong by not reading them, I just wanted her to understand that there were certain steps that should have been taken before using them. She looked at them and read them several times, "So I was supposed to boil them out several times then coat them in grease and place them in a 500 degree oven for two hours to season them?" she asked. I explained to her the casting process and that they do not clean the sand thoroughly from them and that there were things that had to be done to them before using them. Her response was, "It is your fault if you knew I should have done something to them and did not tell me." I shook my head still thinking of the cold hardwood floor and told her she was absolutely right, it had to be all my fault. "So how were the beans besides that?" she asked smiling. "You can cancel my dentist appointment to have my teeth cleaned." I answered. I think that was the hardest and coldest wood floor I ever slept on that night.

Now do you correct someone's grammar and pronunciation? This is a very ticklish thing to do and it is one of my pet peeves to hear a word pronounced wrong. Something I will refer to as stupidity rises up in me and I fail to fight that need to correct them. Case in point, Linda had her own language, she would sound things out as she thought they should be said. Compromise took on a whole new meaning to me one evening while we were discussing relationships. She said we should make compromises, now in Linnie language it is pronounced "com-promises" not "com-pro-mises", yeah, I corrected her. Then the word erogenous came up or rather erogenous zones, she pronounced it erroneous zones because she thought the "g" was silent. I could have just let them slide right past me and blown it off and just kept using the words repetitively through out our conversation until she got it right, but I didn't and I should have. At least we had carpet then so that night on the floor wasn't too bad.

Responsibilities came up in one of our conversations once. You know that is a very touchy subject, because I do not care how well you know or how long you have been with someone that is an ever evolving situation. She would tell me that there were specific things that a man did, she called them "man things" and he was obligated to do them. I made the mistake of asking her just what specific "man things" were that she felt it was my responsibility to do. Walk the dog, okay I could do that. Take out the trash, I could do that too. Honor our marriage vows to the letter, that was a given I told her. The list just kept getting longer and longer so I stopped her and asked what were her responsibilities in all of this, she said she would be busy enough making sure I was holding up my responsibilities to take on anything. So stupidly I said, "So it basically boils down to the fact that anything you do not wish to do automatically is put on the "man things" list." I was so happy we had finally purchased a couch.

So when is the truth not enough? When you realize that the truth can be detrimental to yourself, that is unless you like sleeping on floors and couches and eating processed lunch meat.

Later...