25 Comments

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  Comment by Erin — February 29, 2012 @ 10:45 am

  One of my close friends was visiting from Connecticut, we must have been around 16 because I was already driving. Late one night we snuck into the garage to smoke, I had never tried a cigarette before. 16 year olds are not the brightest and we did not put together the fact that the garage was located right under my Mom’s bedroom. She immediately came down asking us who was smoking. We both denied it vehemently, but I don’t truly believe she believed us. I do not have a great poker face.

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  Comment by Beth G — February 29, 2012 @ 11:59 am

  I could not have been more than 10 years old when I began my budding career as an actress. A playmate was contantly bragging about her big sister. Eventually, I couldn’t take it any more: I decided to invent a big sister of my own. I had the friend convinced that my big sister was away at college, and for months shared tales of my older sister’s deeds. Eventually, my conscience caused me to admit the lie that theorectically could have remained undetected to this day because my stories were that good!

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  Comment by Shawn "Father Wizard" Colton — February 29, 2012 @ 12:31 pm

  I can’t lie, anymore If I do I’m forced to turn myself into a toad.

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  Comment by Barb Ferrer — February 29, 2012 @ 1:16 pm

  Okay, admittedly, I’m a professional liar, too, as a writer, however, this story about my first big lie is absolutely true and yet when I tried to include a version of it in one of my books, my editor made me take it out because she said it was too unbelievable. (As a writer, I’m also long-winded…) So I’m putting it down not because I want the DVD (already have all of them), but because I want this story documented somewhere, dammit.

  I was a pretty typical latchkey kid of the late-70s/early-80s, with my parents divorced and my mom working long hours. So I’d come home, do my homework, get dinner started, blah, blah… my cousin, who was in a similar situation, was required to come with me, as per our mothers’ orders, so that neither of us would be left completely alone. One of these days, somewhere in my twelfth year, my cousin, who is arguably, one of the stupidest people on the planet, decided it would be a good idea to make French fries for dinner, never mind that neither of us had ever made French fries. I was doubtful, but even though I was the older by a year, she was five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, so French fries it was going to be. While I set to cutting up potatoes, she grabbed a large cast iron pan, poured copious amounts of oil in, and turned the heat to high.

  You can see where this is going, right? Right. All of a sudden, the oil ignited, freaking her right the hell out, to which she responded by… pouring a pitcher of water on the fiery oil. Cue huge column of fire and her freaking out some more (I was freaking, too, especially as I’d been yelling, “No… don’t—” as she poured the water. Finally, I remembered my basic science, grabbed the baking soda, and poured the entire box over the mess, which doused the fire. Afterwards, we were left with a smoke-filled house and my mother’s BRAND NEW harvest gold range & hood a sooty, blistered mess. Cue me, REALLY freaking out, because we didn’t have a lot of money and it was brand new and OMG, she was going to Kill. Me. DED. So I ran next door and fetched my neighbor, who was a professional graphic artist/commercial painter and begged him to come fix the hood, which had taken the brunt of the fire damage. Initially, he was reluctant, because he was all about responsibility and honesty, but he also knew my mother and knew she would Kill. Me. DED. So he mixed up his paints, sanded the hood, and repainted it, which I cleaned the kitchen and opened every window in the house. (My stupid cousin didn’t help, since she felt I should have known what the oil would do, so it was clearly All My Fault.)

  Miraculously, my mother, she of the eagle eye and nose that a drug-sniffing dog would envy, never noticed except to note, “Why didn’t you girls make anything for dinner?”

  Me: “Well, we were hoping you’d let us walk over to McDonald’s and get cheeseburgers and French fries.”

  I finally told her the truth… twenty-five years later.

  And she didn’t believe me. Because, in her words, “You’re a writer, Barbara, you make things up like this for a living. And believe me, if something like that HAD happened, I would have known.”

  And so, like Tim, recounting HIS story, that was pretty much when I knew I had a gift for lying and could maybe do something with it.

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  Comment by Georgia "Texasartchick" — February 29, 2012 @ 2:26 pm

  When I was a kid, my parents always confiscated our plastic Halloween pumpkins full of candy immediately after trick-or-treating ended so they could ration our candy to us over the next month. When I was 3 years old, I’d managed to get hold of all 3 of our pumpkins the morning after Halloween. I was busy gorging myself on the scrumptious forbidden candy when my mother came wandering into the living room. She found me literally standing knee deep in candy wrappers and chocolate smeared all over my face and hands.

  She asked, “Georgia, have you been eating candy?”

  “…no.”

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  Comment by James Davy — February 29, 2012 @ 3:08 pm

  My first lie i can remember was when i was 4, i think. A friend who is allergic to peanuts and was eating out of a bag of funions. I ate a peanut brownie then reached into the bag and grabbed a Funion. My friend got really upset and was yelling at me and asked me if i washed my hands first. I was startled and lied and said i had washed my hands between the brownie and the delicious snack. He continued to eat out of the bag. 0_0

  Luckily he didn’t have a reaction and I’m fairly certain he is still alive.

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  Comment by Laura — February 29, 2012 @ 3:16 pm

  The first big lie I remember telling was when I was probably around 6 years old. My oldest brother had bought I bag of vanilla tootsie rolls (the best kind) and I had snuck into his room and eaten a few of them. He found out that they were missing and everyone immediately blamed my other brother. He kept denying it and when everyone asked me if I had taken them, I said no. My brother ended up getting in trouble and I felt pretty bad, but knew that telling them at that point would just get me into even more trouble, so I never told them.

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  Comment by corinne — February 29, 2012 @ 4:00 pm

  I don’t really remember anything until high school, when a group of us would lie about staying over each other’s houses, then actually drive out to the beach, go to Denny’s, and sleep in our cars in the Walmart parking lot (open 24/7 so if you need a blanket or bathroom you’re set).

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  Comment by Andrew — February 29, 2012 @ 7:19 pm

  One of the first lies I can remember telling was at the lunch table. I grew up with a fraternal twin brother and at a young age we looked almost identical to one another, except for one distinguishable trait… our hair. I shared a brown hairdo with my mother, father and sister, while he and he alone had a bright orange hairdo. A friend at lunch had brought up the fact that we were twins and I used the opportunity to “break the news” to my brother that he was not truly related. I told him that on the night of my birth he was found in a pile of ooze on the side of the road, pointing out that no one else in the family shares his red hair. Friends found it funny as I continued to poke fun at his hair and it garnered him his nickname ‘red’ which stuck with him all through school.

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  Comment by Liz Williams — February 29, 2012 @ 8:09 pm

  I convinced my brother, just after the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie came out, that in the part where Harry is in Tom Riddle’s Diary, I was Hagrid. I told him that I was away for a few days (I had been away) and that I didn’t do the voice, just the action(since you can’t see Hagrid’s face). He was totally convinced for MONTHS!

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  Comment by Heather — February 29, 2012 @ 8:11 pm

  The only really big lie I remember telling was like late 5 years ago, I told my boyfriend that I loved him only to break up with him a couple of months later.

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  Comment by Rachel — February 29, 2012 @ 8:11 pm

  The first big lie I remember telling was when I was about 5. My sister had this baby doll bathtub and I colored the bottom of it with black crayon. When my mom asked if I had done it, I told her, “No, it was Alyssa,” (one of the neighborhood girls). We saw Alyssa that night and my sister asked her about coloring on her bathtub and she was horrified that I had said that, since she obviously hadn’t done it. I tried laughing it off and saying it was supposed to be a joke, but my mom didn’t think it was too funny. I got in trouble.

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  Comment by Lynda — February 29, 2012 @ 8:22 pm

  I’m the youngest of four kids. I was the sweet innocent one that never got in any trouble. This didn’t make me very popular with my older siblings who were much more wild. When my parents went away for a weekend when I was eleven, leaving my big sister in charge, she decided to through a house party. There was underage drinking and loud music and a house full of people. And I watched TV up in my parents bedroom and tried hard to pretend that I didn’t hear anything. After the party, it was kind of hard to hide the new hole in the pantry door, or all the cigarette butts and beer cans scattered around, or the puke. But my brothers and sister did their best to clean it all up. When my parents came home and naturally figured out within five minutes that there had been a party, Mom asked me about it, and I said… “I don’t know, I was upstairs watching TV and I didn’t hear anything.” Which was sort of true. Kind of. It saved me from being blamed by either my siblings for my snitching or by my parents for trying to hide it. This is how I learned the benefits of lying. ^_^

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  Comment by Suzanne K. — February 29, 2012 @ 8:34 pm

  I was three when I told my first (memorable) lie. I was visiting my grandfather’s, with my sister and older cousins. I vividly remember this old ceramic goose on his back patio — it was white, with a blue bonnet on its head and a pink ribbon around its neck. It was in a hand-made straw nest with three small white eggs joining it in the nest. For the love of cheese omelets, I have no clue why I felt the need to crack open one of those eggs on the concrete floor, but I did, revealing nothing but a hollow (and now broken) plastic egg that I had no way of putting back together. I hid it as best I could in the nest behind the goose, but my grandfather noticed it about half an hour later and called all of us girls to find out who did it. I blamed it on my twin cousins. He bought it. They denied breaking it. So did I.

  Apparently, I was a good liar.

  Or just really freakin’ adorable.

  To this day, it still haunts me that I did that, and I regret never getting the chance to apologize to him before he passed away when I was seven. I did apologized to my cousins however, as they’d had to endure a long draw out lecture of why lying was bad. I’d gotten out of said lecture, but my personally inflicted guilt-trip was obviously effective, as I still have issues telling anyone anything but the truth these days.

  Over a broken faux egg.

  …Yes, I know I’m a weirdo. But at least I’m an honest one.

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  Comment by Casey — February 29, 2012 @ 8:35 pm

  The first big lie I remember telling was when I was little and my mom would leave money sitting around, I would snag it, then say Thai had no idea where the money went. Must have had about $200 after about 3 months… Heheh.

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  Comment by Tanya Ramsey — February 29, 2012 @ 8:37 pm

  Not sure if this qualifies or not. I don’t lie well. I have a deeply guilty conscience so I tend to feel guilty even if I’m telling the truth. The closest I can come to a “big lie” would be a “big secret” (though nowhere as cool as fake psychic. Just sayin…)

  Anyway, when I was about 10, my brother and cousin and I decided to have a picnic in the woods near the big rock pile next to the duck pond. We had sandwiches in little plastic bags and built a little fire after clearing away some dry grass next one of the big boulders and lining the little pit with smaller stones. In theory, this was an excellent fire pit. In practice, it didn’t account for the high winds that day or the fact that it was the dry season. A lick of fire slipped between the rocks and caught on the grass. Instantly it was ablaze and very quickly created a bonfire many feet in diameter. And there was a LOT of grass to burn. On top of that, we were right next to a large field many acres across and filled with corn.

  We went into action. Forming an assembly line from the duck pond to the growing fire, using the sandwich bag (my idea, thank you) to move water to the deadly blaze.

  Against the odds, and in spite of a mishap where my brother actually FELL into the fire at one point, we managed to get it out.

  We covered the scorched area with more dry grass (a lot of very good thought went into this, seriously) and decided to never speak of it to the people with the power to deliver punishment.

  We kept that secret for almost 20 years before finally telling our parents.

  My mom wasn’t pleased with us.

  Luckily, we could outrun her.

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  Comment by Brianne — February 29, 2012 @ 10:04 pm

  When I was little, maybe 4 or 5, I was supposed to be cleaning my roommate and of course I really didn’t want to. So I sneaked out, thinking my parents didn’t notice, and then came back in with a “disguise.” I had a yellow robin cape which I put over my head to make myself look blonde. I then pretended that I was someone else to my parents and they played along. I think I ended up cleaning my room anyway, but as my new character.

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  Comment by AkiraGPig — February 29, 2012 @ 10:23 pm

  The first lie I remember telling was when I was four years old, and it nearly got someone killed.

  One morning in preschool, I dared another preschool kid to climb up a to the first branch on a tree in the playground (this was during the 1980’s: the age of lawn darts and minimal adult supervision). Afterwards, I told him that it was perfectly safe to jump down from that tree branch, because I had done it before (LIE).

  This other preschool kid following my directions and launched himself off the branch and towards the ground… which resulted in a broken arm for him.

  I’d like to say that I didn’t laugh when I saw the poor kid crying on the ground, but that might be a lie too (yeah, I was a horrible toddler…and human being).

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  Comment by Amy — February 29, 2012 @ 11:19 pm

  This episode and the last one are not showing up in iTunes to download. The last episode I was able to get was the one with Dave Holmes. So sad, I am really missing my Pop My Culture fix! 🙁
  Is anyone else having this problem?

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  Comment by Vanessa — February 29, 2012 @ 11:22 pm

  Yes, Amy! It is an iTunes issue- they are reportedly working on it currently. For now, you can listen through our site or nerdist! Sorry for the inconvenience, and hopefully the glitch will be fixed soon! You can actually get the episodes on iTunes if you search for the podcast (they are not being added to subscribers right now for some reason!)

  xo,
  Vanessa

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  Comment by cozzett rivers — March 1, 2012 @ 12:34 am

  I was ten and i tried to drive the car and i crashed it into the garage. my mom came home and asked me if i had crashed it. told her it was my brother because i couldn’t reach the gas. Sorry if your still grounded Alex lol.

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  Comment by Brian — March 1, 2012 @ 6:00 pm

  I use to be a kleptomaniac when I was young. One time in 4th grade I stole a classmate’s Gameboy and a few games. I was sitting in my room playing with this newly acquired Gameboy when my mom walked in. She asked where I got it from and I made up an elaborate story that I traded it with my Sony Walkman(this was back in the early 90’s) which I hid under my bed. I had to keep up with this lie for months as she would ask me everyday trying to break me 🙁

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  Comment by NL — March 2, 2012 @ 1:09 pm

  Vanessa was pretty cute on this episode! “Shipping” dates back to The X-Files fandom. It stands for “relationshippers” — people who wanted Mulder and Scully to get together. Now it’s used for any show, movie, book, where the fans want two characters to get together. I’m not even 30, and I feel about a million years old typing that. 🙂 // My first big lie was when I was about 7 or 8. I was spending the night at my grandparents’ house. For some reason, I thought it’d be a good idea to jump on the bed. Well, the bed and the house were a million years old, so instead of a fun jump, I got a loud “THUMP.” When Grandpa asked if I was okay, I knew I’d get in trouble, so I lied and said I fell. As far as I know, no one knew it was a lie, despite the fact I didn’t have any bruises or anything.

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  Comment by Michael G — March 3, 2012 @ 1:07 pm

  The first big lie I remember telling was in 3rd grade, I tried so hard to get out of a school project, and said I had to go to my grandma’s funeral. Well, of course, word got back to my family about this excuse, and ended up having to do even more work. Needless to say, I don’t lie much. I’m too lazy to care.

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  Comment by Dianna — March 6, 2012 @ 2:33 pm

  I told my little sister that the spleckled brown spots in Doritos were boogers. Today she is thin, and I still eat Doritos.

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