People Confess Their Lies That Got Way Out Of Hand
56. The Most Spiritual Experience She Ever Had Was Actually Just Her Sneaky Son
“My parents are almost empty nesters and live in Colorado. Last year, by complete mistake, all of us kids found jobs and schools in Utah County, Utah. We all live about 20 minutes from each other, completely on a fluke.
My mother decided she wanted to take us up on one last road trip, so we flew in to Colorado and she drove us back home. It doesn’t sound like too much, but my family is poor and it was a very nice gesture.
Plus, there are places on the way that we always used to stop at, like the Little America Hotel in WY, and the Grand America brunch buffet.
All of this is far too expensive for my parents, so on the way, I discreetly called and paid for everything. I would also sneak out during a meal to ‘go to the bathroom’ and would slip a waiter a card.
At each stop, the staff would play along and mention how the room had to be changed so they gave it to us for free, or how a kind stranger paid for our meal. And I was never caught.
My family’s appreciation for the amazing people of the Midwest was too much for my mother and she broke down to me and told me how she had no idea how she was going to pay for our trip but she did it anyway because she wanted to be with her boys one last time before we were all too busy, or she too old. She then told me how she prayed for help and God gave it to her.
I am not religious, but my Mom is and there is no way I’m going to tell her the most spiritual experience she had had in a long time was her sneaky son.
Love you Mama.”
55. My Grandpa Ate Charred Bacon For 55 Years To See My Grandma Smile
“One morning, I was eating breakfast at my grandparents’ house and my grandma laid my plate and my grandpa’s plate on the table.
She left the room for a moment so I took the opportunity to ask my grandpa why his bacon was burnt almost black while mine was cooked perfectly. He told me that 55 years earlier, when they were first married, my grandma wasn’t a great cook and would burn his bacon every morning.
‘Her face would fall and she would be ashamed of what she would serve me, and I just couldn’t bear to see her so disappointed, so I told her it was a lucky coincidence that I liked my bacon burnt. She’s cooked it that way for me ever since.’
My grandpa ate charred bacon with a smile on his face until the day he died because he loved my grandma that much.”
54. I Don't Actually Like Ice Cream Cake, But My Mom Makes Me One Every Year
“When I was a kid, for birthdays, my mom would always get us whatever cake we wanted (chocolate, vanilla, cookie, ice cream–you get the idea).
Well, one year when I was probably around 8 or 9, she got me an ice cream cake. I don’t like ice cream cake at all. It’s not even cake! I like cake, I like ice cream, but not ice cream cake! Well, she was so happy that she ‘had gotten my favorite cake and flavor right’ that I just went along with it.
The next year, I got another ice cream cake. I still didn’t say anything, not wanting to hurt her feelings again. And again the year after that. This has been going on every year since. I’m now 30.
Only my wife knows that I don’t like ice cream cake, so each year she secretly gets me a cookie cake for when we get home and we don’t tell my mom.”
53. I Swear I'm Not In A Band, But I Guess I Am If You Want Me To Be
“Not me, but my ex from a few years back. We did long distance for a while as he had to travel for his job and he moved to Japan for a year. One day, he rang me to tell me about what happened.
He and his friends had just gotten paid, so they decided to have a ‘crazy day.’
‘Let’s go get super snazzy, ‘made-in-3-hours’ tailored suits!’ they said, and so they did.
Then they won some tacky bling jewelry at the pachinko arcade. After a few more brewskis, they decided to go to a hairstylist and get their hair styled up into crazy colored mohawks to match their ties. The little guys in the hairdressers were convinced they were some famous western pop group, purely because they were dressed so weirdly and all wearing the same clothes.
They kept insisting they weren’t in a band, but the hairstylists were all like, ‘Oh please tell us! We won’t tell anyone you’re here!’
So in the end, my partner just relented and named the band with the first words that popped into his head:
‘Fitted Kitchens.’
Eventually, word got out, and my poor partner had to spend a year in Japan with people running up to him shouting, ‘Fitted Kitchens! Fitted Kitchens!”
They would ask him for photos and autographs. On the wall of the hair salon, there was a framed photo of my partner signed, ‘All the best, Fitted Kitchens.’
Eventually, we broke up amicably (long-distance sucks) and he married a local girl. He tells me that when they fly back to see her family once a year, people still ask for ‘Fitted Kitchens’ autographs. This has now been going on for 10 years.”
52. My Father Told A Fantastic Lie To Get A Job And Kept It For 35 Years
“Not me, but my father told a fantastic lie to get a job.
He was born in the UK and emigrated to Canada in the late 1970s. He had just left Africa and was looking for a stop-gap job that’d keep him out of the poor house for a few years before making his way south to Texas for work in a ‘better’ climate. Being young and single in those days meant he was essentially barred from all union jobs, which in those days and in my hometown were the best you could hope to get.
He worked at a foundry for a few months and managed to get an interview with the union. They asked him about normal stuff like education and training, but then they asked about family. He told them he’d come to the country and fell in love with a local woman. They were engaged and his goal was to work and save money to get her a ring and a decent wedding.
He really sold it. Told them about her family, her siblings, where they were thinking of getting married, the whole nine yards. He got the job.
Fast forward a few months, and as he’s training, he ends up face-to-face with some of the managers who’d interviewed him. They remembered him and asked how the wedding plans were going and how his bride-to-be was. He told me his face went pale and he started babbling about how she was taking over the whole thing, shutting him out, and racking up the costs.
Apparently, all the managers nodded in agreement and moved on.
Then, every few months, the same managers would see him and ask for updates. He kept the charade going to the point where he’d have to get married, or he’d be found out and possibly fired. Even deported. So, he doubled down. The next time they asked, he paused and flatly told them she had dumped him for not making enough money.
The managers, I was told, were furious at her. They told him not all Canadians were like that, that he’d find a nice girl, and that if he wanted to talk they’d buy him a drink at the pub after work.
A couple of years later, someone asked about his ex-fiancée. He made up the worst lie on the spot: she met some jerk-face lawyer and moved away. Nobody wanted to ask him about women ever again. Kept his job for 35 years.”
51. My Grandpa Had A Mistress And Lied About It For Over Twenty Years
“My grandpa met my grandma while he was on spring break in Florida, sometime in the early 1950s. He made up a fake name–not entirely sure why–but then apparently became so obsessed with her that he admitted it, basically stalked her, and then transferred to her university.
Given selective details, this story would seem to have a happy ending: 60+ years later, they’re still married.
Given three other specific details, no happy ending.
One: They had two children–my mother, and a son who passed a month or two before he would’ve graduated high school.
Two: Grandma has Alzheimer’s, and has for nearly a decade.
Three: This is where the lying comes full circle, although not in the way one might assume. Grandpa has a mistress.
Initially, I was appalled, given my grandma’s condition, but my mom insisted that he’s a lonely old man who deserves some reprieve from the slow loss of his wife.
Wasn’t really buying it, but whatever.
Eventually, my mom started talking to the mistress, and what did she find out? They’ve been together since 1990, the very year he bought a winter home for my grandmother, where ‘his work’ prevented him from staying full time.
The real kicker? The mistress (who knows about his ‘real life’) has apparently threatened to leave him many times because he keeps two-timing her with other women.”
50. I Pretended To Be Russian For Two Years And They Never Found Out
“There was a couple that one of my good friends knew in high school. We would hang out together on weekends, eating out, seeing movies, and such.
The first time we hung out, my friend suggested that I pretend to be Russian, since he found my fake Russian accent to be hilarious. Fortunately, for the sake of the joke, they were both extremely curious about life in Russia, so I regaled them with nonsense tales from my ‘homeland.’
‘There is no heater in Russia, so we make fireplace in the meedle of room.’
‘In Russia, polar bear is national bird.’
‘In Russian hospital, only booze is used for sterilizer and anesthetic.’
This went on for about two years. I’d even make a point to do my ‘American’ impression for them, which was just me talking in my normal voice. They thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. Little did they know that it was foreign accent inception.”
49. My Coworkers All Think I Have A Twin Brother
“There was this lady at my job who was in her mid 50’s and recently divorced. She would complain about her PC having issues and would constantly ask me to come and fix it for her. After mentioning this to a few people, they all told me that she asks all the new guys that start to help her with her PC but then turns it into some type of romantic rendezvous.
I kept brushing her off, until one day she blatantly told me to come fix her PC. She would make dinner for us and we could have wine and watch the sunset (she lived on a houseboat). Obviously, I refused and told her that I was going out of town that weekend.
Fast forward to the weekend, and I am at the mall buying some stuff. Lo and behold, who do I see? You guessed it.
She storms over to me all kinds of annoyed and calls me out.
‘I thought you were going out of town?’ she says.
With a dumb look on my face, I say, ‘Huh?’
‘You told me you were going out of town. What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, you must mean my brother! Does he work with you?’
‘I didn’t know he had a twin!’ she replies. ‘That’s so cool! I’m a twin too!’
I make some more awkward small talk and say my goodbyes, laughing inside at the fact that I just got away with this. She comes up to me first thing Monday morning telling me how she met my twin brother. Of course, people overheard. That was 15 years ago.
People still think I have a twin.”
48. My Relative Lied To His Partner For An Entire Year Right In Front Of Us
“I didn’t do this but I am related to someone who did. We’ll call him Mike.
After a crushing divorce (no kids involved), Mike was completely distraught. He went from a handsome 6’2” confident 30-year-old man to a husk of his former self. I had no idea divorce could change someone as much as it changed him—his esteem and sense of self-worth were crushed. His ex-wife was a cruel woman who did some horrible things we only learned about afterward.
Mike was always an upstanding person. Honest, helpful, generous, very loyal to his family. Even though he didn’t recognize it, there was a lineup of women waiting in the wings to go out with him. Sadly, he was feeling too depressed and useless to see this.
One day, Mike was at a bar with some friends and he met a woman. For whatever reason, he told her he used to play basketball in the European basketball league for some German team.
Now, this honestly wasn’t a stretch since Mike was tall, very athletic, and had been given a scholarship to University to play basketball (a knee injury ended his run).
What was a stretch was Mike having a lot of money from his time as a pro player and planning to build his own mansion and retire at 30-something.
I think it was awful but I get why he did this.
He was lonely, didn’t think he’d ever see this woman again, probably just wanted to feel important, and he fell back on the ‘what could have been’ of his past. He probably thought he could have one night of feeling special.
The problem is, he did see her again. And again, and again. They actually really started to like each other. Before you knew it, they were going out for a year—and the entire time she thought he was some former big-shot millionaire pro basketball player.
His actual situation was that he was living at home, jobless, and 50k in debt. The loss of job and debt can be credited to his ex but that’s too much detail to get into here. He played off living at home by saying he was there waiting for the details of the new mansion to be finalized.
This woman he was seeing came to weekly family dinners, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and more for over a year and somehow he managed to steer her clear of his lie.
I remember one time when we were at Christmas dinner and another family member mentioned they were learning to speak German.
The woman was interested, and she said to Mike, ‘You know some German, too, right?’
Everyone looked at him funny, but he laughed, saying, ‘Not enough, just what I’ve picked up in movies.’
He played it off and nobody really understood her reference and she didn’t really seem to care.
It’s not like speaking German is a requirement for playing basketball. I think back on that now and consider how terrifying those moments must have been—there were so many that only make sense in retrospect.
One family gathering, she sits down and has a long conversation with another lady and she outright talks about Mike’s past and future goals. The lady she speaks to just nods her head, politely thinking, ‘Is this the Mike I know? Is this guy really famous? This can’t be right, can it?’
But being somewhat new to the family (one year) and knowing he did go to school on a scholarship, the lady thinks maybe there’s some truth to it.
Later, she asks Mike within earshot of others and again he manages to deflect. Pure terror for him, I’m sure.
Eventually, one day, while Mike is at work (new job), she’s at his parent’s place (where she spent considerable time—entire weekends) and she casually says to his mom something about him being a millionaire and how long it’s taking for his new house to be built. It all comes crashing down.
While Mike is at work, his mom and his partner are having a long discussion about how Mike is 50k in debt, never played pro ball, does not own a big piece of land, and will most certainly not have a mansion in the near future.
Imagine Mike’s emotions when he gets a call from his mom to tell him that his partner just left the house furious because she found out that his lie finally got figured out.
Imagine his mom’s reaction to finding out he’d been dishonest for so long. That totally wasn’t his character.
That woman went on to make Mike’s life a living nightmare for a good two years after. She. Was. Angry.
It was so messed up. Like I said, I know why he did it and I can understand how hard it would be to find the right time to say, ‘Baby, I’m nothing like what I said I was. You still like me though, right?’
I can only imagine how stressful a full year of family interaction was—constantly wondering if she’d say something to out you, or your family would, or whatever.
Still can’t wrap my head around that one. I’m sure I left out some juicy details, too—it was just crazy.”
47. My Wife Thinks I Have Another Kid, And I Never Corrected Her
“My wife thinks I have another kid. I don’t.
Short version of the story. When I was 16, my partner got pregnant. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me, and it didn’t end well. I was eventually told that she’d been two-timing me and another guy was probably the dad, which was confirmed shortly after birth. I haven’t spoken with the mother since I was 17.
I’m now 39.
A number of years later, a cute girl and I were trading stories about how crappy our life was when I started talking about my ex, who had been screwing around on me, and who became pregnant. Wanting to embellish the story up a bit, I made up a lie about how the paternity test confirmed that it was mine, how she ran off back east to live with the baby when it was born (not a total lie, she really did move back east shortly after the birth), and how I have no idea where my daughter is or how she is doing.
The story garnered me all sorts of sympathy and got me some action, which was the goal.
Fast forward three more years, and I married that girl. Been married to her for 13 years now, and we have two kids together. She still thinks that I have a third kid out there somewhere, and that someday, some young woman is going to come knocking at our front door looking for her long-lost dad.
And it gets even worse. My wife, thinking that she wanted to be honest with our children, told them one day that they have an ‘older sister who they might get to meet someday.’
My young son mentioned this to my mother, who predictably went bananas. My parents, of course, knew about the pregnancy, had just retained a lawyer when the baby was born and they knew about the paternity test, but they’d never actually seen the results.
I’d received the confirmation myself and they never questioned it when I told them that the test showed that I wasn’t the father.
Caught in a lie between my wife and my mother, I lied to my mother. I told her that the test was negative, but that the test had been done on the other guy and verified he wasn’t the father. I was. I told her that I’d lied to her because I was a scared kid, and that when she vanished I thought it would just ‘go away.’
My mother, of course, wanted to hire a private investigator to track my ex down (she still had many of the various legal papers from the pregnancy with plenty of identifying information for her), and it was everything I could do to talk her out of it.
I ended up having to get very forceful about it, telling her that she had no right to impose those kinds of changes on my life. It worked, and she backed off.
So, today my wife thinks I have a long lost kid, my mother thinks she has a lost grandchild, and half my family thinks I’m a terrible father for not tracking my child down, for lying to my parents, and for not ‘being a father’ about it.
Shoot.”
46. I Hated My Job So Much I Almost Made My Venomous Snake Bite Me
“I once told people that I had been bitten by a venomous snake to get out of a job I hated for a few days. They knew I kept venomous snakes as pets and I thought it was a great idea.
I had already called in sick one too many times and I just could not face them if I did it again. I am young and in good health–there is just no way even an old, frail person would be ill as much as I was calling in.
So, yes. Snake bite.
Turns out, they were fascinated and wanted to see. So I had to wrap my foot up in a huge bandage and hobble around for weeks. Luckily, I was moving to another job (which I didn’t hate) a few weeks after that. I didn’t have to deform my own foot or actually let one of my venomous snakes bite me so that I would not get busted.
Truthfully, I was not far off from doing so.”
45. I Swear I'm Not A Con Man, I'm Just A Really Great Actor
“A couple of years ago, I went to a bar in a town I didn’t expect to be in very often, and I decided to don a Scottish accent and make up a backstory for a fictitious version of myself.
Now, I doubt my accent would have fooled someone actually from Edinburgh, but by the end of the night, I had a group of Americans and one bemused Australian chatting with me about the things that make the US a strange place to visit from abroad.
Shots were bought, back slaps given, and a good night had. I thought nothing else of it.
Until I was seeing a girl from the next town over and she took me to her favorite bar. That bar. We walked in, someone greeted me by my ‘name,’ and I did the only thing I could do–cheerfully donned my fraudulent accent, explained that my business trip had been indefinitely extended, and spent the next twenty minutes furtively explaining to my girl that I wasn’t a con man, just an ex-actor with terrible impulse control.”
44. My Friend Faked His Way Up The Marketing Department Without Ever Graduating College
“A friend of mine was in his second year of university and at a networking/business development event at the school.
This guy was never much of an academic but was someone you would call street smart and good with people. My friend hits it off with the CEO of pretty sizable company.
At the end of their chat, the CEO says, ‘Stay in touch and let me know when you’re graduating.’
My friend is pretty quick on his feet and said he was an alumnus, there to help mentor students and catch up with other alumni.
CEO set up an interview in the marketing department because he liked my friend’s ideas during their initial conversation. Of course, since the department head was told by the CEO to interview the guy, it was just a formality.
Friend got the job and dropped out of school. Eight years later, he is now the marketing director of another major firm and had never graduated from university, although he puts it on his resume.
But by now, his work experience is so strong that no one even cares about the school.”
43. I Lied About Making It To The Final Harry Potter Auditions
“In the UK, there was meant to be an ‘open call’ for Harry Potter auditions. But due to the fiasco over the director of the first film, it never happened.
However, I’d still sent my letter off as suggested by the tv show Blue Peter who announced it. I never heard back but for some reason, my 11-year-old brain was really ticked off at not getting a chance.
When I started secondary school, people kept telling me how much I looked like Harry Potter (the illustrated one the books showed, not Daniel Radcliffe, because at that point the news hadn’t broken yet). To this day, I have no idea why I just went all in and told my schoolmates I’d gone all the way to the final auditions.
When Daniel Radcliffe was confirmed, everyone asked me what he was like so I told them he was horrible (pre-pubescent me was not jealous at all). I kept that up all through secondary school until we left because it was too embarrassing to admit otherwise.
And no, I haven’t met Daniel Radcliffe.”
42. I Told My Boss I Liked Sports, But I Really Didn't Know The First Thing About Them
“I told my boss I liked sports during my interview when he was asking me questions about being a team player.
I didn’t know the first thing about any sport other than whatever I heard from my friends (stats and teams). I made up a bunch of stories about how I played ‘a bunch of things’ in college. It wasn’t a complete lie. After all, video games are a sport now, right?
When he called me to tell me I got the job, he noted that he had signed me up for a few fantasy leagues. Luckily, I had to finish my three-month probation before I could join any ‘recreational activities’ (i.e. in case I got fired and couldn’t pay up).
I ended up spending all my time outside of work learning about basketball, football, baseball, and hockey (stats, franchise history, key players, plays, why everyone hates Tom Brady, and more).
A year later, I now run the football league at work.”
41. I Lied To An Online Friend About Watching A Movie Up Until The Day We Met In Real Life
“I had never watched Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. I was discussing movies with a friend I met online and lied to them that I had watched it. The friend was like, ‘Oh, cool. I haven’t watched it though.’ I thought the matter was laid to rest and moved on to other movies for discussion.
Our friendship grew stronger and we finally decided to meet in real life.
Even though I was excited to meet them, the lie about the Japanese movie kept pestering me, and was scared that they might ask me about the movie I haven’t watched. And unlike online chatting, in a face-to-face conversation, I won’t be able to take help from the internet.
So, I downloaded and watched the entire movie before meeting this person. I don’t regret watching the movie. But the trepidations might have been avoided by not lying to them in the first place.
And no, the friend didn’t ask me about Seven Samurai when we met.”
40. I Pretended To Lie About Going To Mexico, When I Actually Did Go There
“Okay, this is my proudest and most involved lie.
In my junior year of college, a friend asked me what my spring break plans were. I told her that I was going to Mexico. I had a bit of a reputation for fun-natured deceit, so she was dubious. I guess something in my tone didn’t quite feel right to her.
Now, I really truly was going to Mexico with a mutual friend and his family.
But I know an opportunity when I see one. So for the next several minutes, I pretended that I was lying poorly about going to Mexico. She eventually left the conversation pretty sure that I was lying.
Later that night, I’m hanging out with the mutual friend, and she approaches to ask whether we were really truly going to Mexico together. My buddy caught on immediately, acted confused, and assured her that he was just going with his family.
She was now confident that I had been lying.
I spent the next several days until spring break keeping up my act, pretending that I was a crappy liar but only ever telling her the truth. I sent an email to most of our mutual friends saying, ‘If this friend asks what I’m doing over spring break, tell her I’m going to Mexico,’ expecting that one would ‘betray’ me by telling her about the email–which indeed happened.
That kind of thing.
In Mexico, my buddy and I took and sent her several pictures–all of which looked entirely unlike Mexico. Like, me in the kitchenette of the hotel room wearing a bathing suit and a button-down shirt, with my backpack conspicuously in the background. Or a picture of the both of us in the ocean, but taken from so far away that you could never tell it was us.
Pictures that were engineered to look like we were trying to keep up the ruse.
When we got back, in order to convince her that we truly did go to Mexico together, we offered to each independently answer really specific questions, like what we did for lunch on the second day. We answered most of them correctly, but with the occasional slip-up. After weeks of confusion, she concluded that we had both watched some vacation movie and were reciting facts from that to get a consistent story.
Anyway, it’s been two years now, and I’m locked in. I can’t undo the lie. I have tried to eject by just telling her the truth, but I’ve been telling her the truth the whole time. At this point, I’m resigned to knowing that no matter what I do, she will always be 90% sure we never went to Mexico.”
39. I Lied About Being Sick To Stay Home From School, But It Cost Me My Appendix
“When I was 16, I had a school exam to take on a Wednesday. I had not studied for it and was too lazy to do anything, so I told my mother that I was sick. She kept me home from school, and I ended up playing video games the whole day.
Thursday rolls around, and I was still lazy and hadn’t studied. I told my mother I was still sick, and I just wasn’t able to go to school.
She told me okay, but if I was sick again the next day, we were going to see a doctor. That was fine–I had intended to study that night for the exam anyway.
Friday comes, and yet again, my lazy teenage self hadn’t studied. So, yet again, I’m way too sick to go to school.
My mother says, ‘Okay, pack up, we’re going to the doctor.’
I thought, ‘Whatever, we’ve got insurance and they’ll just tell me I have the flu.’
So, to the doctor we went.
After a multitude of tests and stupid human tricks, I was diagnosed with appendicitis, and scheduled to have my appendix removed. I argued and said that couldn’t be the problem, but, of course, the doctor knew better. I was too far in at this point, and couldn’t simply say, ‘Sorry, mom. I was lying to get out of a stupid school test.’
So, here I am twenty years later with no appendix.”
38. I Hated When My Wife Called Me From Another Room, So I Faked Going Deaf
“I got busted in a long time lie.
When my wife and I started going out, she was always asking me to do something when I was sitting down, or yelling at me from another room, which is a major pet peeve of mine.
One day, I was playing with little firecrackers…as a grown-up. I went to toss one but the wick burned down quickly and went off by my ear.
I lost hearing in that ear for about three days. During those three days, when she called for me, I never really heard her so instead of asking me to do things she found it easier to do it herself. She stopped shouting from other rooms and just came to me instead.
My hearing came back fully but I played it off as partially damaged. This will seem rude, but when she would call my name I would ignore it two or three times and she’d usually just give up and leave me be.
I played it off for about a year and a half until my daughter was born and they stuck this thing in her ears to test her hearing. I asked how it worked, so they stuck it in my ‘deaf’ ear to demonstrate how it worked.
The nurse said, ‘Your hearing is perfect,’ and my wife shot me a puzzling look.
She questioned me about my hearing later that night. She was worried something was wrong with the machine they used to test our newborn baby’s hearing.
I came clean, she was more amused than mad, and I still don’t know how that machine works.”
37. My Mom Lied For Years About My Birth Certificate And Got Away With It
“Not my lie, but my mom’s.
When she was 22 years old, she ended an abusive relationship by hastily getting on a greyhound bus with 2 toddlers and moving 2,000 miles away. She didn’t pack a single thing.
Fast forward a couple of years to when she registered me for kindergarten. The school required a copy of my birth certificate. She didn’t have it and must have panicked, telling them that there was a fire in the hospital after I was born and there was no record of my birth.
This little lie hung on for years, and every time I needed a birth certificate (trip to Canada, little league sign up, driver’s license), it would come out again.
I’m pretty sure that most people knew it was a lie but never said anything. We always had to jump through some hoops. For instance, my mom had to provide a family bible that was signed by three generations in order to register me for school. Ultimately, it was never a big deal, but it is a little lie that she maintains to this day.
When I moved to college, I ordered a copy off the internet. When it showed up in the mail, she deemed it a miracle that it somehow survived the fire.”
36. I May Not Have Done The Coursework, But I Worked Hard To Keep Up My Lie
“When I was younger, I was a real lazy kid. I never did homework unless I was on my final warning and extracurricular activity was a joke.
Once, I hadn’t completed a piece of coursework for Math. For Americans, this is serious. I was maybe 14 or 15, and ‘coursework’ was essentially one long piece of homework you’d do over the course of the year that accounted for a substantial part of your grade.
And I hadn’t done it. This was like, 40% of my Math grade for the year, as I was getting ready to start applying for places for my next step in education. When my teacher asked where my coursework was, I just said, ‘I gave it in already.’
Now, she knew this was bull. The chances I would have done it, let alone given it in early, were next to none.
The next day she told me she couldn’t find my coursework, so I just said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, I handed it in.’
I didn’t want to admit I lied and have to be punished or, worse–actually do the work.
It came to a point where my father, my math teacher, the head of the math department, and the deputy head of the entire school were in a room together.
My dad was big on math and science, and would always make a huge deal every time he found out about me skipping work (which just made me better at hiding it). Screaming, grounding me, throwing my video games away, you name it. This was very intimidating.
But I didn’t fold–in fact, I doubled down. ‘I gave it in on a Wednesday,’ I said. ‘I remember because it was raining so I figured I may as well hand it in at lunch.
I remember because you were teaching that class below us–the one with Callum–next.”
I went so far out of my way, I even looked at another student’s coursework (sneaking into the math room at lunch) so I knew some of the stuff in it.
And they bought it. I committed enough that at the end of the meeting, they were all kind of awkwardly sitting there. A month later, the teacher read out what grades everyone got for their coursework. I got a ‘B’.
That was the best grade I’ve ever gotten for math in my life.
In fact, that B bumped my overall grade up enough that I managed to get into the school I wanted.”
35. I Don't Know How To Break It To My Neighbors That I'm Not Actually Asian
“I’m 100% European, but my broad face, small eyes, and epicanthic folds sometimes make people suggest some Asian origin (despite me having gray eyes, pale skin with a lot of freckles, and honey hair). I usually don’t tell people they’re wrong. It even amuses me a bit.
One of my neighbors is an Asian family. I really like them more than other neighbors because they have four kids and are always so lovely with them and each other, and that’s something I really appreciate in people.
My other neighbors mostly yell at their kids, spank them, drink, curse, and blame each other for being not rich.
I always smile at my Asian neighbors and don’t actually mind having small talk if they start it. They also always were more friendly to me than to other people.
When we just started talking, however, they made some ethnic jokes which I just smiled to, not wanting to tell them they’re wrong about me. And now, they are ranting to me about how hard it is to bear that supercilious attitude locals show to us Asians, and how we should all stick together.
And I just nod and sigh as I totally don’t know how to say to them I’m not actually Asian.”
34. That Time I Lied About Meeting A Swedish Girl And Ended Up Actually Meeting Her
“My friends and I were going to the movies but a few of them flaked, so we wanted to make them regret not coming. We made up a story where I met this Swedish girl visiting NYC and I got her number.
Eventually, we made a social media profile for this imaginary girl after we went ‘out’ again. I just googled ‘Swedish Girl’ and used a random picture for the profile pic.
The picture I used happened to be a singer-songwriter named Nina Nesbitt. I started looking up her music and I actually ended up loving it. I loved her music so much that I ended up becoming a big fan and seeing her in concert a few times.
As a result, I got several pictures together with my ‘girl.’ To this day, my friends still believed this all happened because I ended up proving all my claims.”
33. We Fooled My Friend Into Believing Our Mutual Friend Had A Twin
“Told a female friend that one of our mutual friends was actually an identical twin. I ‘introduced’ her to his brother (him acting) and she has believed it ever since. It’s been seven years. Whenever she is around, we make a plan about ‘who’ he is that day.
I have doctored photos of the two ‘brothers’ together at a variety of events around my house, and contacts for both of them in my phone.
All of our friends are in on it, and make an active effort to keep the lie going.
She always gets so upset when she hears that ‘both’ of them were at an event that she missed because she, and I quote, ‘never gets to see them together.'”
32. I Made My English Friends Think Green Day Never Caught On In The U.S.
“This doesn’t affect my life exactly but I told two of my friends who live in England, over Skype, that I had no idea who the band Green Day was. I then privately messaged other Americans they knew and told them to act like they also do not know of Green Day. I also texted my roommate to come into my room and when I ask her to pretend like she didn’t know who Green Day was.
Which went a little something like this.
‘Hey, do you have quarters for laundry?’ my roommate would ask.
‘Yeah,’ I responded. ‘Oh, hey. Maybe you could settle this. Have you ever heard of a band… what are they called again?’
‘Green Day,’ said my English friend.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Green Day.’
‘Green Day?’ said my roommate. ‘No. Nope. I don’t know who that is.’
My English friends have concluded that Green Day just never caught on in the United States and I continue to jump through hoops to maintain the lie.”
31. My Church Thought I Was Leaving To The Peace Corp And I Never Corrected Them
“When I was 18, I mentioned to this girl who was a friend at church that I was looking into going into the Peace Corp. I really was but had no immediate plans.
A few days later, the pastor came up to me and said how great what I was doing was. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I took the kind words and went on my way.
Over the next few weeks, a few other people said the same thing. I still didn’t realize what they were talking about, but still–people were saying nice things, building me up, so I just kept taking them.
Cut to a month later. I’m in church and the pastor calls me up (this was a small church). He then proceeded to tell the congregation that I was leaving for the Peace Corp within the next few months.
I had to make up where I was going, what I was doing–basically everything. It ended with the pastor and the elders coming on stage and praying over me (may God forgive me).
That ends and the weeks go on with no word of me leaving. I thought it may have just blown over and I’d make an excuse one day as to why I didn’t go.
That is, until I get to church one Wednesday afternoon. As I walk into the door, I’m greeted with a surprise! That’s right–they threw me a surprise going-away party.
Long story short, I enjoy the cake, talk about my ‘trip,’ and end the night. What else am I supposed to do?
Lo and behold, two weeks later, 9/11 happens and I use that as an excuse as to how my trip got canceled.
Anyway, some people that were my friends at that time still bring it up from time to time.”
30. I Once Told People I Was Canadian And It Stuck Ever Since
“My lie started in 6th grade.
At school, the teacher was asking all of the students if they were born in-state or out of state. It was at the start of the year, so no one really knew anyone just yet.
Most of the class mentioned that they were born in-state, so I thought it would be cool if I was born out of state. When the teacher asked where I was born, I ended up saying Canada.
Little did I know that the last person to get asked was actually from Canada.
The real Canadian was intrigued and started asking me where in Canada I was from. I ended up telling them Vancouver, British Columbia. I actively kept with the lie for several years, since I had become good friends with the real Canadian. I got so involved with the lie that I ended up learning Canadian mannerisms and ended up with a spot-on Canadian accent, but not the cliché ‘eh’ and ‘aboot.’ More like a Mid-Western accent.
Nowadays, I work on phones speaking with clients for 70% of the day, and typically when small talk is made the client will ask if I am from The North.
I will often reply with a ‘Sure am.’
Then they will often mention, ‘So you must be from The Mid-West or maybe Canada.’
I just go with it. Although, I never bring it up if they don’t ask. I am actually from The South.”
29. We Fooled Everyone So Well, They No Longer Believe The Truth
“I went to an all-boys Catholic high school and was in all the plays. Being an all-boys school, we had to get girls to play the girl parts somewhere, so we did a kind of unofficial theater swap with a nearby girls’ Catholic high school. We did their fall musicals, they did our spring musicals.
Point is, my friends and I were friends with a lot of the girls there, and as our school let out half an hour before theirs did, we would often drive over to them and hang out after school.
This one day, we’re all over there talking to a few of our friends when this new girl who no one’s ever met before shows up. She’s friends with one of the girls in the main group.
Well, me, the new girl, her friend, and my friend Jon are all standing around talking to each other. The new girl and I are standing next to each other, and we haven’t been introduced yet.
At one point, Jon looks at us and says, ‘Wait, are you two related or something? You look identical.’
Without missing a beat, both of us respond, ‘Yeah, you guys didn’t know that?’ and we improvise our relations right on the spot. He didn’t believe us at first, but we convinced him.
A couple of minutes later, Jon and the other girl (I think they were going out at the time) went off on their own together, leaving me and this girl.
‘Hi, I’m Sean.’
‘Hi! I’m Alice!’
‘You want to keep this going?’
‘Definitely.’
And we did, for three years. We 100% fooled everyone so well that friends of mine would approach me and ask if I would mind if they asked her out. We got our families in on it–my dad would ask her to say hi to his ‘sister’ when she got home.
We told everyone the truth at my high school graduation party, but most of them thought that was when we were messing with them. Most of them flat out refuse to believe we’re not related at this point. It’s been 10 years.”
28. My Family Still Tells This Story At Parties, But Inside I'm Really A Penguin Fraud
“One time, when I was very young, my family took me on a vacation to Hawaii. We were staying at a really fancy hotel that, for some reason, had penguins in its lobby. I know it’s strange for penguins to be so close to the equator, but I guess the hotel owners had a taste for juxtaposition. Anyways.
So the penguins were in a little penguin-pen with a fence around it, waddling around as they do, and as my family walked by them, they became a topic of conversation for the day.
Well, one day when my family was at the pool enjoying the summer sun, I had to go to the bathroom. As I headed out to the bathroom by myself, I wandered by the penguin pen. I thought it would be so cool if I convinced my brother that I actually got to pet one of the penguins.
So I did. And he, of course, promptly told my parents about my penguin petting adventure.
Now, I was already head-first in the lie, so I figured I should just commit to it and add some more details to make it more believable. Apparently, six-year-old me thinks that believable consists of becoming an apprentice to the penguin trainer. I told my parents that I met the guy who took care of the penguins, and that he not only let me pet them, but also feed them and hold them.
I told them he asked me to come back the next day to learn about penguin care.
Needless to say, my parents were excited for their budding penguin zoologist son so they asked the front desk for the contact information for the penguin caretaker. I figured the jig had to be up at this point, but the caretaker actually answered the call and suggested we meet to learn about how to take care of the penguins. Thankfully, he wasn’t free until we left Hawaii to return home, so I didn’t have to face the penguin master.
They still tell the story at family parties. I just laugh and smile, but inside I am really a penguin fraud.”
27. I Became A Civil Engineer By Googling Answers And Watching YouTube Videos
“Back in 2008, I was working in a warehouse picking and packing orders as a college dropout. The economy went face-up and I ended up getting laid off. I then ended up working as a contractor for a large telecommunications company that was in the middle of some project as a surveyor.
Basically, I overhear a bunch of people in permitting department have a problem for which I saw a pretty common-sense solution, so I just spitball the solution their way and they all get impressed and tell my boss.
My boss comes to me with another issue and asks for my help to solve it. I just Google it and copy the answer in an email and change some wording.
My boss is impressed and interviews me for an FTE position. He asks if I went to school and I say yes, that I finished 4 years. I get hired on the spot as a Civil Engineer, making more money than my 22-year-old self knew what to do with.
Meanwhile, I keep getting asked questions about things I never heard of and just Google answers, rewording them so it sounds like me saying it. Slowly, more and more responsibility gets added to me and I’m expected to know how some tools work. I go on YouTube and learn how bore rigs work and some of the process.
I get asked to draw maps and plans and do things with words I didn’t understand.
I befriend some actual engineers on a forum site and ask them. They give me detailed instructions on what the symbols mean and one of them does an example map for me. My boss is more impressed and gives me a raise.
The construction crew hit a water line on a route I drew out. Boss tells me there’s a meeting the next day with construction managers about what happened.
I start worrying and ask forum engineer guys. They tell me to blame the utility locator and inspector. I do that and get off scot-free.
I celebrate my 8th year working as a Civil Engineer with this company in September. I’ve been promoted and put in charge of people. To this day, I still have no college degree, I’ve managed to avoid detection, make a reputable name for myself, and everything I learned has been from Google and Internet forums.
This saga is still ongoing as well.”
26. I Created Family Folklore Based Off An Extremely Embarrassing Moment
“When I was in high school, around 9th or 10th grade, I was on the golf team. Yeah, I know, real cool right?
Well, I wasn’t the coolest kid, but I definitely wasn’t a nerd. Anyway, after practice one day, there were these kids who were pond fishing on the 18th hole of the course. So my buddies and I, being the social butterflies that we were, went and chatted with these local yokels.
Mind you, I had never cast a fishing line. My family never went fishing when I was a kid or anything, so I was a newbie at this. On my first attempt, I threw my whole body into it, which ended up with me in mid-waist deep pond water. Wonderful–now I get to get picked up by my friend’s dad sopping wet.
Meanwhile, everyone–and I mean everyone–around was laughing at me.
It was truly embarrassing, but I somehow just chuckled it off, got some towels, got as dry as I could, and then got the ride home.
By this time, the embarrassment was worsening. When I finally got home, no one was home but my older sister, so I ran through the house as fast as I could and got directly in the shower. When I came out, there were all these ‘Why are you showering right now?’ type of big sister questions.
This is where I elaborately lie about how I got chased by the golf course crane (bird) because I had ‘gotten too close to its eggs.’ Chased so much that I jumped in the water to avoid it.
Why would I tell this ridiculous story? I have no idea. Needless to say, the absurdity of this story was such that it became a story my family would frequently ask me to tell. After a while, it was so much of a folklore that I couldn’t (and haven’t) ever tell the truth to them.
Oh well, it was a funny story for them, so what’s the harm? Good times.”
25. Our Families Didn't Know The Truth Of How We Met Until Our 10th Anniversary
“I originally met my wife on one of those massively popular sites way, way back when it was new, and meeting people online was a huge social taboo.
I had to make an excuse of where I met her for my family, so I told them we met at Universal Studios (as she worked there at the time).
She had the same problem and told her family we met at her college.
These two parallel lies were maintained for three years until our wedding day, when we slowly let a very select few know the truth.
It wasn’t until our 10th wedding anniversary that we came clean with both sides of the family and told them both (at the same time) that both lies were false and we actually met using an online site.
We’ve now been married 12 years and have a kid together.
We always waited for the two families to talk enough with each other to realize the stories didn’t match, but that never came.”
24. I Told A Lie Which Later Turned Out To Be A Prophecy
“I miscalculated a turn and swerved my first car into a giant column and bashed the door in. I told everyone in my family that someone must have backed into the door while I was in class. A mechanic who was either dumb, lazy, or a bro confirmed my story.
The joke of it all is that a week later, after the car comes back from the mechanic, someone actually backed into it while it was parked.
My lie had become a prophecy. My parents were so angry that they refused to fix it again.
To this day, the car is still in my parents’ driveway with a dented door, broken handle, and tons of scratches, and anytime someone asks, they talk about how I got crashed twice within one week.
I’ve never told them the truth because I knew they would give me lots of crap for it.”
23. I Secretly Lead A Double Life As Both A Lawyer And A Secretary
“I graduated from a decent, second-tier law school at the height of the financial crisis, passed the bar, and could not, for the life of me, get a job.
I had a couple of document review jobs that didn’t last long and then I was unemployed for about 22 months (almost two years) despite applying for everything under the sun—retail, dog walking, etc. Finally, when I was weeks from losing my unemployment benefits, I got a temp job as a legal secretary (which I did before going to law school).
It felt like a miracle. I hadn’t paid rent in months, the electricity was only still on due to a mistake by the electric company, my parents are long dead and I have no support system in terms of relatives or friends who I could ask for financial help (in fact, at the time, it seemed like every other person I knew was losing his or her job).
I was so grateful to get that job (the exact kind of job that I had zero problem getting several years earlier). It saved my life. I was seriously close to ending up on the street—I had completely run out of options and was living in sheer terror.
So after a year of temping and feeling like the most grateful human on earth, they offered me a permanent position at a salary that seemed astronomically high compared to the $400/week that I made on unemployment (and I live by myself in one of the highest cost-of-living cities in the country—maybe second or third highest).
Now, it’s five years later and I’m still working there, as a legal secretary.
The lie is that half my friends think I’m a lawyer, which I don’t feel like I actually lied to them about, but I told them I got a job, and they said where, and I said, ‘At a law firm,’ which was true. They understandably assumed that I meant as a lawyer and when they didn’t actually ask me what kind of work I was doing at the law firm, I just didn’t have it in me to correct them.
Why would they question it? I went to law school, got admitted to the bar, and worked in a law firm—what else would I be doing there?
My entire life is divided between people who know me as a legal secretary and people who think I am a lawyer (technically I guess I am a lawyer—I’ve maintained my bar registration and kept my CLEs current for some stupid reason).
There are a couple of people (as in, two or three) who know the truth—that I graduated from law school, passed the bar, and am working as a legal secretary. Not only do I not want the people who think I’m a lawyer to find out I’m a secretary, but I also don’t want the people who think I’m a secretary to find out I’m a lawyer.
It’s just embarrassing that I spent all that money and time and hard work on law school to do a job that a high school graduate could do (I’m not saying it’s an easy job or that you don’t need to be smart to do it but a smart, competent high school graduate could do it). Also, there’s an ‘us versus them’ thing (socioeconomic) between the secretaries/admins versus the lawyers and I feel like if they found out that I’m really one of ‘them’ I would come across as uppity, or at least, you know, not cool.
Especially now that I’ve hidden it for over five years.
On top of that, I have law school loans to repay on a secretary’s salary. My own brother, who I love like crazy, thinks I’m a lawyer and I know he’s so proud of me and thinks it’s so great that his sister is a fancy lawyer (we are of humble background).
I have some friends who suspect that I’m not really a lawyer and they ask me questions like, ‘So what is your exact title?’
I say things like, ‘Well I’m practically a secretary,’ or ‘I might as well be a secretary,’ when in fact I am a secretary.
I didn’t lie on my resume and the HR department knows I’m a lawyer, and of course, like all HR departments, they told a bunch of people who had no need to know. So several people at work—mostly lawyers but also some of the paralegals—know that I’m a lawyer and they ask me about it and I just cringe from embarrassment, like I’m someone who couldn’t handle working as a lawyer and went back to being a secretary, or like maybe I did something very bad and got disbarred, or was just too stupid to get a real job (which is apparently true), but I wish they didn’t know.
And they say things to me like, ‘Oh you’re so much better off, being a lawyer sucks,’ but they have no idea how much it’s killing me to know that all the hard work I did in law school, studying for the bar, and striving to improve my life all came to a disastrous end, and how much debt I have that I will never be able to repay.
They don’t know how much it’s killing me to have this double life where I always have to try to remember who knows what and make sure those people who think I’m a lawyer and those people who think I’m a secretary never meet.
I’m dreading what happens when one of my law school classmates turns up as co-counsel on one of my boss’s cases.”
22. I Pretend I'm Blind Every Time I Walk Through This Part Of Town To Avoid This Man
“I was crossing the road, wasn’t paying attention, and almost got hit by a car.
A guy behind me shouted, ‘Look out, idiot!’
I quickly hurried on to the second crossing which he caught up to me. I was mortified and so at the second crossing, I reached under the pelican crossing button to feel for the rotating knob that blind people use to tell when to cross and stared half at the ground to the left as if I was better positioning my head to tell where the cars were.
After we crossed, he apologized saying, ‘I’m so sorry. I just called you an idiot and I didn’t realize you were blind.’
I told him I just have some sight problems, mainly with motion, but he didn’t need to worry about it. Anytime I walk to that part of town now I pretend to be partially blind walking down the street for fear of seeing him again.
I have yet to tell anyone—especially my actually (legally) blind dad.”
21. I Lied About Having A US Passport And Had To Make Up A Cover Story
“Back in grade 7, a bunch of kids in class were talking about how they had passports from the US, Canada and Europe.
Being an insecure 13-year-old Asian kid in an American international school in Asia, the idea of having a passport or ties to the West seemed like a good way to seem cool, so I told one of my buddies that I had a US passport to seem more ‘international’, and didn’t think much about it after that.
Fast forward a few years later, I was complaining to the same friend about how going to university in the US would be hard for my family because of the ridiculously high tuition costs for international students. He seemed confused at what I was saying and reminded me that I had a US passport. It was at this moment that I realized that he still remembered the stupid lie I told him five years ago and awkwardly tried to make up another story about how I gave up my US passport for some stupid reason.
I thought the cover-up was awful, but he somehow bought it and started giving me trouble about how stupid it was for me to give up the passport.
Now, every time the topic of passports comes into discussion, I have to listen to this guy tell me why it was a bad idea to give up my US passport while watching the confused stares of the rest of my friends that have no idea that I told this lie five years ago.”
20. I Told One Lie And Ended Up Having To Watch Every Single Football Game For Seven Months
“In the interview for my current job, my boss told me he was a huge Arsenal fan (football team in the UK). I told him I was a season ticket holder and I go to every game (I rarely ever watch football).
Three months later, I get the job. The day after every game he would ask me about last night’s performance, asking me what I thought they could do better, etc.
After faking my way through the first conversation I actually started watching the games just so my lie wouldn’t be uncovered. It got so bad I would get friends who went to the games to buy me match-day scarves & programs which I would bring in the next day, and occasionally book days off when Arsenal was playing away.
After seven months of keeping up this ridiculous lie (which required me to spend hours becoming an expert on a team I didn’t care about) my boss took voluntary redundancy, and I slowly started fading out of football conversations in the office.”
19. My Lie Caused Me To Get Eight Rabies Shots For No Reason
“My lie resulted in me needlessly having eight rabies shots.
When I was 8 years old and exploring near my house, a dog chased me through the woods. I got away, but I slipped and gashed my knee during the chase. When I told my parents of my harrowing chase, I said the cut on my knee was from where the dog bit me.
My parents had us roam the neighborhood for the entire rest of the day.
We found the dog and he was totally nice, so I said that wasn’t the dog. We canvased and I had to exonerate every single dog.
Since we couldn’t find the (imaginary) dog that bit me, my father said there was a risk of rabies and we went to the ER.
After six sessions of eight shots over the next few weeks, I could finally rest easy and my secret has been safe ever since.”
18. I Lied About My Allergy To Banana Peppers And I Couldn't Eat Them For Four Years
“In high school, we had a lady in the cafeteria who made literally everything and never changed her gloves. I would see them go into the trash, then into every food imaginable.
I always had her make me these little Italian sub sandwiches, but I would cringe at the thought of those gloves touching my food. But because I am a nice person, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or tick her off, so I had to come up with a lie that would result in her wearing clean gloves.
The next time I asked for my sub, I blurted out, ‘No banana peppers! I’m allergic. Can you also change your gloves?’
She seemed irritated, but she changed them for me. So I continued this lie every single time. One day, my high school partner walked in and heard me announce my allergy to banana peppers and he freaked out. He was so shocked and concerned, and he guaranteed he’d seen me eat them before.
I told him he must be mistaken, I’m deadly allergic! I had to sell it because the cafeteria lady was listening and ready to catch me in my lie.
After we left the cafeteria, I could have simply explained this whole ordeal to my partner and we both could have moved on with our lives. However, I chose not to. He was very high-strung, controlling, and had about zero trust in anyone including me.
I didn’t want him to realize how easy it was for me to lie, because then any time I said anything he would get defensive and call me a liar. So for the remainder of our relationship about (4 years), I never once ate banana peppers (such a sacrifice).
Now I have a new partner who is way better and I can eat all the banana peppers I want!”
17. I Lied That I Was Jewish At My Old Job And Felt Horrible About It
“I used to work at RadioShack back in the day and I remember it being around Christmas time when I was ringing a customer out. Bored and hating my life, I would say something outrageous and slip it in after every other transaction.
Well, this one customer wished me a Merry Christmas, to which I replied that I was Jewish. Of course, the Jewish FedEx man overheard me and was absolutely fascinated with this notion.
I sarcastically said that I converted to Judaism several months ago and was really getting into the religion. He took my sarcasm as enthusiasm.
I should pause for the cause here to note that I am a black man.
Well, each time he came into the store to talk about Judaism, I had to go along with the lie because I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was actually not Jewish. He would even teach me words and sayings in Hebrew and I would often greet him by saying Shalom.
God, I truly felt awful about it. I kept that lie for as long as I worked there.”
16. My Buddy Tricked His Wife Into Thinking He Was Color-Blind And She Wasn't Happy
“This is actually my co-worker’s story.
He was hanging out with a girl he’d met recently, and said something derogatory about color-blind people. Said girl took offense, as her brother is color-blind.
He responded, essentially saying, ‘I can say that—I’m color-blind, too.’ He is not color-blind.
He went on to marry this girl and had a choice—come clean, or commit. He committed. For over a decade, he pretended to be color-blind.
People would do the thing they usually do when they hear someone’s color-blind, like ask what color this is or what color that looks like. He kept it up, giving totally fake answers to these questions.
Finally, after something like 12 years he finally just couldn’t do it anymore. He came clean. As you can imagine, she was somewhat displeased with the past decade of dishonesty. They are still married, though, and I think it’s something they can both laugh about now.”
15. I Fooled My Fellow Soldiers Into Thinking I Followed The Hopi Faith And I Quickly Regretted It
“When I joined the Army, there was a metric ton of paperwork to fill out. By the time I got to the religion section, I was burned out. Thinking I was clever and not realizing how dumb I was being, I decided on the spot that I followed the Hopi faith (I know, I was an idiot).
The sergeant got all interested and started asking me questions, which I cheerfully answered from my memory of history class.
It got pretty elaborate.
Fast forward to the end of the form where I have to swear under penalty of perjury that everything was true. Unease starts to set in. These soldiers have spent a lot of time on me. They’re all staring at me, serious as a heart attack and way more professional than I could handle as a dumb teenager. I was convinced that if I admitted I was not a Hopi adherent, I would go to jail immediately or something, so I went with it.
Into my personnel file it went.
At basic training, the drills had no idea what to do with me. They asked me what religious concessions I needed and, panicking, I said I couldn’t hurt any animals in the field and had to meditate daily. They agreed I could stay awake after light’s out to do so. Guess whose dumb self meditated for half an hour daily when I could have been sleeping?
I kept this up for years until I staged a ‘religious awakening’ because dang, was it awkward having that ‘we are inclusive and want to support you’ discussion with every new commander and chaplain.”
14. I Never Told My Dad I Used His Historical Coin Collection To Buy Candy
“When I was in elementary school, I would wait for the bus outside of a small convenience store. Many of my peers would go inside and buy some cheap candy most days and take it with them to school. I didn’t get an allowance so I never had any cash to buy any myself.
One day, I came across a cooler filled with rolls and rolls of pennies in my father’s closet.
Jackpot! There were so many rolls that there was no way my father would know if some went missing. So each week, I would take $3-4 in rolls of pennies and buy some candy with it.
Fast forward 10 years when my father is talking about his growing coin collection. He mentioned it all started with pennies that his father gave him and he spent a long time organizing them and rolling them by year. Apparently, some were quite expensive.
So I’d been spending history to purchase gummy bears and sour keys. He’d probably murder me if he found out. I’m now 30.”
13. I Made Up A Fake Story To My Aunt And Uncle And Felt Awful About It Afterward
“I did some backyard summer work for my aunt and uncle when I was younger. A lot of it was moving brush from the backyard to their van, to the dump, or whatever nearby. I must have made at least four or five trips when I heard this horrendous screeching noise as I was turning to pull into the waste area. Naturally, I kept going.
I saw the look on some guy’s face who was leaving, and it read something like, ‘What in the world?’
Turns out, I ended up wrecking the whole side of the van against the fence or sign or something pulling in.
I was mortified. It wasn’t my vehicle, and it wasn’t one I was used to driving (much larger than mine), but the mistake was made.
I could have told them the truth about what happened. It’s not a huge deal, but I don’t know—I was embarrassed. I feel like my aunt and uncle are just removed enough from parents where I couldn’t be honest, I suppose.
So I began to lie.
I made up a story about how someone my age at the dump carelessly backed their trailer up into the side of the van. I was only able to get the license plate number, which I made up. I made up a phone number too. I said I didn’t get insurance info because I was rattled. I said when I called the number back, it was some foreign family, so he obviously gave me a bogus one.
I called a bunch of random numbers, hanging up, until I got a foreign family’s number I could use.
I raced back to the dump and scoured the area, looking to see if there were cameras. Otherwise, my story would be ruined, obviously. I googled the location and tried to see if they had cameras—turns out they didn’t.
I made up a name and lots of other minor details.
I remember, after weeks had passed and I was still going back—and believe me, I have never, ever been so anxious and felt so awful and on edge about anything before—they still said that they ‘wanted to catch the guy, to make him pay for running off!’
I refused the funds they were paying me to go toward the van, which I guess was my way of pathetically making up for it.
The worst part? I called my father after it had happened, as I was basically forming the lie. Feeling it out. I still didn’t know exactly what I was going to do.
‘Why are you so upset? It was an accident,’ he said.
‘I don’t know! What if they’re mad? Or what if they don’t believe me?’
Then he said something I’m just realizing now will probably stay with me for a long while, ‘Well, I believe you.’
Ugh.”
12. My Coworkers Think I'm Canadian, So I Just Went With It
“Everyone at work thinks I’m Canadian. Spoiler alert: I’m not.
On one of my first days, I was talking with one of the FOH managers and imitated a Canadian accent and someone passing by heard. They asked me later if I was Canadian so I just went with it and said I was. So I’ve slowly built up this long back story with the help of the FOH manager who is the only one who knows I’m not Canadian.
Here’s my back story: I’m from a small town called Slatesville. It’s a lumber town. My dad was an engineer with Caterpillar working out there until I was 12 and we moved to the states. Sometimes I’ll slip in a ‘sorry’ in a Canadian accent to a conversation when it’s been a while since mentioning anything Canadian.
One day we were talking about passports and I mention how I had two because of dual citizenship. That pretty much cemented my Canadianship.”
11. A Lie I Told My Parents Took Me To Court And Got A Man Arrested
“When I was 11, I wrecked my new bike and it broke into several pieces. I had several scratches and bruises from it. I walked the pieces home and when I got there, I told my parents I was hit by a van that took off because I didn’t want to tell them that I wrecked my new expensive bike.
The police came. I gave a description of a white van with a large black mark on the side of it.
There were, of course, no witnesses and there were no marks on the bike indicating it was hit by a vehicle. We lived in a small town and I thought there was no way there was a white van with a black mark across the side of it.
Sure enough, a couple of hours later, the police spotted an exact match of this van I completely made up.
They asked me if this was the van. Embarrassed to admit I was lying, I just told the officer it was the van. The owner of the van was arrested. I was too young to understand the consequences of my lie.
I even had to go in front of a grand jury. There, I admitted I wasn’t really sure if that was the van and the innocent man had the charges dropped. My parents to this day still believe I was hit by a van and the man got away with it.
If he’s reading this, I’m sorry I did that to you.”
10. Everyone Thinks I'm Lactose Intolerant When I Really Just Hate Milk
“Pretty much everyone I know thinks I’m lactose intolerant.
It started a few years ago when I was asked by a coworker why I didn’t drink milk, I just said I couldn’t, without thinking much about it. I just don’t like drinking milk. After that, I never forgot that I told her that and I thought to myself that I can’t be seen with any dairy products at work, in case she notices.
After about a year, I started seeing a girl and it was going pretty well. It was a serious thing. Due to the type of work I did back then she was able to come see me at work and she brought me yogurt. The thing is, all this time I avoided dairy products at work made me automatically just say, ‘I can’t eat that, I’m lactose intolerant.’
She still thinks I’m lactose intolerant. We live together and have a child on the way. I’ve been thinking about if I ever want to tell her or if I should just stick with it. We’re really used to the lactose-free diet so it’s not a problem anymore.”
9. My Friends Assumed I Was Jewish And I Never Corrected Them
“In college, I wanted to throw a Christmas party for all of my friends that stayed over the break like I did. Turns out, they were almost all Jewish. So I thought it’d be fun to attempt a Hanukkah party eight nights in a row.
I love throwing parties and I spent a long time reading about Hanukkah, down to even memorizing the prayers for lighting the menorah.
My friends were impressed and assumed I was Jewish after that year.
While I’m not in any way Jewish, I kind of look Jewish, and have a somewhat common Jewish last name. So it just went on for years. I still celebrate most main Jewish holidays because I feel like while I didn’t lie in the beginning about it, eventually, I started to make up a little story around it. Like that my mom’s technically Jewish but I wasn’t raised Jewish.
I kind of hate that the lie has gone on. But on the other hand, I do enjoy the traditions. I’ve been doing this since 2007.”
8. I Think My Dad Is Lying About Being In The Secret Service
“My dad has always said he was in the Secret Service for three years in the early 60s. We all knew he was in the Navy, but I never really believed the USSS part. He would tell stories about Kennedy and some things he did, but they always seemed too out there.
Anyway, five years ago my wife applied at the USSS, and the form asked about relations in the Service, past or present.
He got a little spooked and said you can’t ever put my name down—it’s not in the records.
Fast forward a year, my wife started working there and, with her super-duper clearance, decided to look him up. Nope, nothing. She tried some variations on his name, birthday, and hometown but nothing came up.
He still says that he was there, and on loan from the Navy and so that’s why he wasn’t in the system. It may be true, but it’s doubtful. He’s 80 now and it’s really not worth it to call him on it.
I’d love for him to come up with some solid evidence saying he was, because he’s a great storyteller and I’d love for them to be true.”
7. Every Year I Tell My Mom I Love Her Ice Cream Cake When I Actually Hate It
“When I was young, my friends were all getting Dairy Queen ice cream cakes and I wanted one for my birthday. My mom, being a Martha Stewart wanna-be (and I mean that in the sincerest way possible), decided to make one herself.
Well, that’s great and all, but imagine melting ice cream and re-freezing it—it’s just not good. That coupled with whatever chocolate sauce she used made them nearly inedible.
But for years, I’d risk my dental work and stomach eating at least a portion of the cake in front of her.
Every year I tell her, ‘Yum, this is great. Thanks mom!’
It got easier as I got older and I could ‘take it home to finish it’ when I had my own place. But I’ve never been able to bring myself to tell her that every one of those cakes has been horrible.
I almost burst out laughing once at a birthday party for my own son. She gave me this look and raised her eyebrows as she commented, ‘Oh, he’s getting a store-bought ice cream cake,’ as if I was some kind of slum lord parent.
All the while, I was thinking, ‘Heck yes, he’s getting store-bought. It’s actually edible!’
This whole thing ruined my desire for ice cream cake as a whole. I now just plainly don’t like ice cream cake.
But I’ve got a great mom even if her ice cream cake can be used as a weapon during the apocalypse due to its consistency.”
6. My Family Still Talks About The Lie I Told When I Was 12 And They'll Never Know The Truth
“When I was a kid, I went to let my dogs in.
One didn’t come when I called and after a whopping ten seconds of looking, I couldn’t find him. I immediately assumed he’d gotten loose and panicked my whole family. I had them out looking all over the neighborhood for him and everything. I walked back outside, determined to find where he escaped from, and he was just standing there staring at me.
I was too embarrassed to fess up to whipping everyone up into a panic, so I had to think of some excuse for why I couldn’t find him. The best thing my 12-year-old brain could come up with on the spot was that he got stuck in our dog food dispenser and I pulled him out. For some reason, everyone bought it (he was a miniature schnauzer and it was a big enough dispenser that it was at least plausible).
Both of our dogs have long since passed, but this incident still gets brought up at family gatherings all the time. Over the years, details get added by my family, my brother swears he was the one who pulled him out, and it’s become so embedded that I just don’t have the heart to tell them that I made the whole thing up.
My whole life is a lie.”
5. I Told My Dad A Ridiculous Lie To Get Out Of Trouble
“I’ve got one I’ll be rolling with to my grave. Last night, I was finishing Deadwood after studying for finals.
I realize that I had forgotten to take the family’s recycling bin out to the front of the house so that the public waste services can take our recyclables from us free of charge.
Now our family has been doing extensive home renovation at their own pace and our bins are over stacking at this point.
So I knew how important it was to take the trash and recycle bins to the curb in the evenings.
So I go to take the thing out at 11 P.M. when everyone is asleep as inconspicuously as I could–except my parents sleep in a room right next to the back door. Knowing this, I always try to stealth my way into the house when I’m out or need to throw something out.
I go out to do the task and realize my brother had already taken the bin out while I was watching Deadwood.
I walk back to the door to see my dad glaring at me maybe trying to decipher if it’s me or not. So I wave and reveal myself by shouting, ‘It’s me, dad!’
I get inside and see he was gripping a hammer and seemed on edge for good reasons.
This morning, my mother calls me and tells me that my dad didn’t sleep that night. She told me that he thought the house was being invaded and that he slept next to an assortment of weapons (Bowie knife, hammer, and other stuff I’m not sure about) and I’m like, ‘Shoot.’
So not too long ago before I made this post, I was questioned by my dad hoping to know what my reasons were last night—’better have a good reason, boy’ kind of thing.
I told him I pooped my pants and went to throw out my pants and he just shook his head and told me next time to turn on the lights.
I now will live with the lie I made up about invading my own house because I pooped myself.”
4. I Got Four Promotions And Made My Way To The Top By Doing Absolutely Nothing
“I am a lazy man. Extremely lazy. It took me 6 years to graduate college and that included summers because I never had the discipline and self-motivation.
Miraculously, after finishing college, I got a low-level contract job working with Excel at a prestigious company. After a while, the tasks I was doing were so repetitive they should be automated so I told my boss and he said I should get it done.
The only problem was, I didn’t have any programming skills but someone I know did.
So ‘I’ went and programmed this brilliant program that is designed at the level of a 30-year advanced programmer who makes 7 times what I was making in that role. You could say he was the Wozniak to my Steve Jobs.
Needless to say, it was a huge success. I automated out my role and the other members of my team.
And then I turned my sights on other tasks the team was responsible for and repeated the process. Now I was a superstar. I was quickly hired full-time with a huge pay raise and benefits. I moved to another team where I became the youngest person ever to be in this role for this very prestigious company.
As for the team I left behind? They have since expanded the use of my programs from a few accounts to the entire corporation and hired a whole team in Asia to run this program on a service request system.
To the world, I am some kind of a beautiful mind. In reality, I have the foresight to see how to make things better but lacked the skills to do so. So now I’m still at this company on my fourth promotion (looking at my fifth very soon) and leading a team of 12 people who are designing products for me and I still have such minimal skills in programming.
I am the definition of the saying, ‘fake it ’till you make it.’ I paid off my student debt and bought a condo in an expensive city just one year out of college. Ironically, once you get high enough in position, you have other people do the work for you.
I am like the Steve Jobs that nobody has heard of.”
3. I Went To Great (Painful) Lengths To Secure The Job I Have Now
“I was unemployed for several years after a small business I owned folded in 2008. It was a terrible period in my life. I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Each job rejection felt like the loss of a close friend and I honestly didn’t know what I was good at anymore since everything I enjoyed doing ended up in failure.
One day, I get a lead on a dream job.
The pay is pretty good and there is a clear path to move up in the company. I put on my best (and only) suit, clean myself up and absolutely nail the interview. I get a call the same day to meet the partners for a second interview the next day. I was even told that no one else had come close to being a better fit for this position and that meeting the partners was essentially welcoming me to the company.
I run out and spend $200 on another suit to make sure no one sees me in the same one as before. I go home and obsess over my resume, thinking of any angle they might take to question my recent unemployment. I set 5 alarms on my alarm clock for three hours before the interview in five-minute increments. I take a sleeping pill and head off to bed.
The next morning, my eyes crack open. I look over to my bedroom window, which is covered completely with black-out curtains because my sleeping habits had been so bad. There is just enough of a gap to see some sunlight though. My heart stops. I had set my alarm for 6 A.M. There shouldn’t be any light.
I rush to the window, grab the curtains and rip them off the rod to confirm my fears that it’s not 6 A.M.
I jump over my bed to grab my phone—maybe it’s only 8 A.M. and I still have time to make it. I hit the home button and let out a gasp. It’s 9:45 A.M., and not only is it 45 minutes past my interview, but I have four missed calls from the office and a text message from someone I’d only met once saying, ‘Are you alright?’
Opening my alarm app showed that I had set my alarm for 6 P.M.
Fudge.
I lost it. Every painful moment I’d experienced up to that point had come together to collectively beat the crap out of me. I knew I had to think of something to explain my absence. I ended up with an idea that had no chance of working, but because I was so out of it, I had convinced myself that it was a lock.
I go to my bathroom and move my straight razor so it hung over the counter by a bit.
I then swung my hand and hit the blade with the outside of my hand, knocking it off the counter. It was an accident that was sure to sound plausible. I look at my hand.
I stuck my hand in a garbage bag and grab my keys and drive to the nearest neighborhood clinic. It had only been 10 minutes and that bag must have had a pint of blood in it.
I ended up getting 21 stitches which set me back another $400. I looked like I’d just finished storming Normandy when I had the nurse dial the phone for me.
I gave my story about how I’d knocked the blade off the counter and needed 21 stitches. I also told him that the wait had been several hours in the emergency room which should cover most questions he might have thought up.
I even decided to up the ante and insist that I come in for the interview after I had a chance to clean myself up.
I don’t know if it was the medication I was taking, or my ‘whatever’ attitude, but I was calm as a cucumber. I even unwrapped my hand to show everyone my wound.
Long (long) story short, I got the job, I’ve worked here for 5 years, my life has made a complete turnaround.
I’ve moved up from an entry-level position to a director position. To this day, every time I see the faint scar from the stitches I get a little proud of myself. The only side effect I’ve had is a little numbness in the area of the cut. There is absolutely no scar from the cut itself—only 42 tiny dimples from the stitches.
The first few months, I was terribly embarrassed to think about what I had to go through because of a stupid mistake that should have never happened. Eventually, I began to see it as the length I was willing to go to fix the situation I was in.
Not many people get a permanent physical reminder of that.”
2. I Run A Cake Business, But I Never Make Cakes From Scratch
“I run a cake business. I charge people hundreds for wedding cakes. Every last one is made using Pillsbury cake mix I buy for $1 a box at Walmart.
I suck at baking. Every time I’ve ever tried to make a cake from scratch, it sucked. But baking is like my whole deal. My friends all call me ‘the cake girl.’ It’s like my whole life is a lie.
People compliment my cakes all the time, telling me how delicious they are. Telling me it’s so much better than box mix cake. Telling me they could never bake a cake so delicious. Well, guess what? For $1, they can also make a cake just as delicious. Just add oil, eggs and water.
In my defense, I love cake decorating. I make all of the frostings and fondant from scratch.
I just hate baking cakes! I base my prices mostly on the decoration of the cakes and not on the cake itself, if that makes sense.
Still, no one knows about this except my husband. Even my best friends think I slave over the oven mixing and baking these cakes. I have been doing this for years. If anyone knew what goes on in my business, my reputation would be in the toilet for sure. I keep telling myself I have to learn how to make the cakes without the box mixes, but I never do it.
I feel like such a sham sometimes.”
1. My Health-Conscious Wife And All Her Friends Don't Know They're Eating Butter
“A bit of background info: My wife is very health conscious. No fats, extra sugar, or stuff like that in our foods. She even insists on making a lot of stuff from scratch. I had to talk her down from getting a goat just for the milk.
One day, I decided to be a little sneaky and put some butter onto my corn on the cob. Knowing that she would throw out my butter if she found it, I removed all of it from the package and smashed it into Tupperware.
I jokingly labeled it ‘Not butter’ for good measure and hid it in the back of the fridge.
Anyway, the next day I come home and my wife’s found the Tupperware. I swear up and down that it’s not what it looks like, and that it’s a low-cal butter substitute for health-conscious people. She was skeptical at first, but she eventually bought into it.
From then on, things got out of hand. She kept showing off my Not Butter substitute to all her health nut friends. They began to demand it. I can’t tell you how dirty I felt taking their funds for some butter I just smashed into plastic tubs and handed to these dummies.
My wife even helped give an official name to the product, which she still can’t believe isn’t butter.”
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