No one was looking. That wasn’t something that should have mattered, but it did: no one was looking, and on the kitchen floor was a gray-pink chunk of play dough the size of the last digit of my thumb. Doughy, salty, slightly gritty—I barely remember the taste now, but at five or six years old it was a well-known if seldom pursued pleasure. Usually samplings consisted of the dough that clung around my fingernails, the residual taste after playing with my brother before I washed my hands. My mom must have known I ate play dough. I knew I wasn’t supposed to. Here, though, was this delectable piece, and nobody was watching.
Only somebody was.
I didn’t realize my mom was there until I’d already scooted across the flower-patterned kitchen linoleum and popped the play dough into my mouth. Then I looked up. And up. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, dark window behind her. She must have just come into the room.
“Did you just eat play dough?” she asked, or something to that effect.
And I told her, “No.”
It’s the first lie I remember telling—the first time I consciously considered the fact that was I was saying was not true. The immediate shame I felt afterwards has blotted the taste of that particular piece of play dough from my mind. It wasn’t the deed in itself. That salty morsel didn’t matter, and neither did the fact that the play dough was used, the floor semi-clean. I wouldn’t be punished, not more than a scolding, I wasn’t afraid of that. But something felt wrong. I’d broken a trust. I was not supposed to eat play dough, and I’d snuck and done it anyway.
She knew, of course. Probably she’d watched the whole thing: my cautious slide from the play room to the kitchen, the quick shooting out of my hand. She could prove nothing, though, and I don’t think she tried to. She let the lie stand: unchallenged, but not unpunished. Because that feeling stayed with me, of having used words against one of the people I loved most in my life. I’d covered something up; she, so I thought, had not seen through my cover. I, then, was a lesser person than she thought me. There was something in me she must never see.
My shame now when I tell a lie is much less than it was then—and that in itself is, I think, something to be ashamed of. I’ve gotten used to the idea that, inside, I’m not the person whom others assume me to be. I have to remind myself sometimes that there is that moment of choice. Show the world the face you want them to see? Or admit you ate the play dough—and live with yourself afterwards?
Very nicely written, your detail about the play dough really brought back memories of how I would spend hours playing with the stuff as a kid.
ReplyDeleteYou also bring up a great point in the end which really tied the story together. How, that one little lie really changed how you felt and made you think. I think we should all take a good long look at our lives and see where we are lying to our selves. Very enjoyable read! :D
Although I never indulged in play dough eating myself, I can honestly say your description of that "gray-pink chunk" reminds me that I have tasted it at some point in my life. The kitchen floor took me right to a floor we had on C street. The crazy things we did on that floor and nobody was looking :)
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