Be Careful What You Wish For

Uh-oh. A few posts ago I said these words, "Vespa For Sale." Now I find myself caught in the tractor beam of the Law of Attraction. Yikes. There's a guy who, gulp, wants to buy my Vespa. And yeah, I said I wanted to sell it, but, but, but...I'm having seller's remorse. Caveat Dumptor.

I guess I could exercise the greatest power known to man. No, not free will...lying. I could simply LIE to him and say it is already sold. Problem solved.

But what will that do to my karmic scale? It is already burdened with the heavy weights of past-told lies. "Any coffee is good coffee.", "Kraft Lite? Whatever. Mayonnaise is mayonnaise." and the lie I have told most often, "I'm half Italian." For some reason, whenever I get around someone who is Italian, I tell them I am half Italian. What is that?! I am, legitimately, a quarter Italian, because my dad was half. But I rarely show my math when I lie this lie.

What makes this stupid lie even worse is I am half! But Norwegian! My mom is full-blooded (not to be confused with cold-blooded). Still, even if I lied and said I was 100% Norwegian it wouldn't have the ethnic punch half Italian does. I don't even get any satisfaction from telling a Norwegian person I'm half. In fact, the only value my half Norwegian blood gives me is when I run into a Swede. "A Swede is a Norwegian with his brains knocked out" is a common expression with Norskies. Come to find out a common expression with Swedes is the very clever, "A Norwegian is a Swede with his brains knocked out." Oh, those scrappy folks from Latitude 62. (It's the nights. They're long and cold.)

Here's the question, when did the truth get so limp-dicked? When did lying become the cure? Which direction are we headed...on the easy, shaded path of the convenient lie, or up the shear granite face of respect for the power of the truth?

When this guy emails me back, I am going to tell him the truth. I am going to say, "I am half Norwegian, and although I have cooled on the idea of selling my Vespa, I feel like I have to be nice and let you buy it anyway. But my one quarter Italian blood wants to ride it wildly through the streets of Rome, with Audrey Hepburn on the seat behind me, laughing gleefully, her delicate white hands on my shoulders, both of us sporting sassy new do's. And even though my inner Norsky has twice as many delegates, my inner Wop is again the winner. I'm sorry, Vespa not for sale.