Tell Me Lies

I would say that on the whole schooling here has been going pretty well. However, the Army is bound and determined to turn me into a liar, and in the words of one of my instructors "it's painful to watch you try and lie Black." I would say that the problem is just that I can't keep a straight face while I'm telling lies, but I've been corrected on this point and told that my lies are stupid and not very inventive. One of my instructors briefly made an attempt to resolve the issue by holding me captive at the company one Saturday evening until I could tell him one truth and one lie and he couldn't tell the difference. I was allowed to make one attempt every half hour. After I had made multiple failed attempts and my date that evening had text messaged me to say that he had proceeded to the movie without me and wished me luck in getting done in time for dinner, I finally had to resort to telling two truths and then lying to the sgt by telling him that he'd selected the wrong one. When I got back to the company that night he had put me on the next fireguard shift because he said that he could tell that I wasn't telling the truth about that either, so we would need to continue practicing. After a few more unsuccessful attempts and a lot of mocking I finally managed to distract him with an odd story from my flight back to Arizona after the Labor day 4-day pass wherein a weird private (from a polygamist family in Utah) who I had never met before wound up sleeping on my shoulder on the last flight, and then tried to makeout with me. It was all very strange, and pretty much left the sgt so shocked/amused that he forgot all about the lies. That being said, he will still periodically stop class and demand "Black, tell me a lie," and then laugh at my attempts at deception. It's not really about helping me learn to be a liar anymore, it's more like he's bored and needs a laugh. I'm okay with it. My favorite moment was when my own mother told me at the end of a phone conversation the other day "well just keep practicing telling lies and I'm sure you'll get better." ...words I never thought I would hear her speak. Some day I'm going to come up with a really great lie and no one will be able to tell the difference. Some day....