Setting the record straight

Some people have claimed that I am far too easy with the truth. Others will say I am creative about information. Still others will say I am ignorant about nearly everything and am desperately trying to come up with a plausible answer that cannot be conveniently debunked. At least not before I can leave the room.

Tell me: why can't these all be true? Is there no better or worse way to say that I on occasion tend to exaggerate, slightly?


Here is an example: Many years ago, before he began to wonder if I was a nincompoop and made up idiotic answers to his questions, my son wanted to know why the sky was blue. The simple answer, and one most of you would have uttered far too carelessly and easily, is "I have no idea." What kind of answer is that? Is that all you can do for your child? That was not for me, naturally. And I was certainly not going to stop watching "Dumber and Dumberest" to go look it up.

So I said, "I'm glad you asked that, son" with a calm air, and explained that the sky was blue because the world was surrounded by water vapor, a fact being covered up by the U.S. government for fear of causing a massive worldwide panic wherein we all tried to suck in a lot of air, all at once, so we wouldn't drown in case the water fell on us.

This simultaneous sucking in of air would then deplete the atmosphere so quickly and drastically that the ozone would come crashing to the ground, much like how a vacuum cleaner shoved into a small...uh, thing, looks like the planet earth with its ozone layer caving in.

And of course then we would all die because the ozone keeps the water in the air, so it and all the junk the U.S. government has been hiding from us in orbit--missiles and tanks and Jimmy Hoffa and so forth--would crash down on us.

It was then that I discovered that my son had left shortly after I said the word "glad". Short attention spans, that's the problem with children these days.