Practiced Liars

  I was at a job interview and they asked me, "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?"

  In my head, I cycled through all the common ones; invisibility, x-ray vision, flight, the ability to shoot fireballs from my penis. I'm not sure the last one applies, since a superpower shouldn't also be a side effect of Craigslist dating. Then it hit me, "I already have a superpower. My body releases it's own anesthetic anytime I go to the dentist".

  I don't actually have a superpower, but I figured for the interview, that would be a good chance to get one of my obvious lies out of the way early.  In the Spontaneous Trepidation Disorder handbook (that's not a real thing but it would sound a lot cooler than "general anxiety disorder", aside from the whole STD acronym, unless it came with the fireballs), the rule of thumb is for every three lies I tell, two of them have to be obvious, so I can get away with the third.

  People with anxiety are the most practiced liars. We can lie at a level usually reserved for con-men, or Presidential candidates, or red heads. (see venn diagram : Donald Trump) Most of the time we know you aren't buying it. We're testing the waters to see what we can get away with.  Usually it starts off small with something  like "No honey, I didn't eat all the girl scout cookies", "John stopped by after I got home from work, and he must've eaten those 2 boxes while I wasn't looking". Then it progresses a little, and when discussing how many sexual partners you've had, and you hold up six fingers, but you're actually holding up a 1 and a 5. Then, eventually you end up at a conversation where you have to say "Noooo, I don't watch shemale on female porn. That's just dirty", when in reality I enjoy lesbian porn and I enjoy straight porn. It's your classic two birds, one stone scenario.

  The lies are a coping mechanism because it's impossible to explain panic disorder to someone who hasn't experienced it. I tried once to liken it to a car crash. You see the other car coming, and you feel the impact, along with the helplessness and loss of control. But it's much more than that. It's like the car crash, and then you fall hundreds of yards off a bridge into an icy cold river, but the windows won't roll down, and the car's filling up with water, and then it starts to get hot because the car is on fire, only you're like, "how the fuck?? We're underwater!" So you pop off the headrest and break the glass to swim out only to notice you're actually upside down in a dunk tank in the middle of your high school auditorium wearing a straight jacket, and everyone is there pointing and laughing and taking pictures, and fucking Cathy and all her snobby friends are mocking your fear and one of them is spray painting "UR A PUSSY" on your locker.

  So you dislocate a shoulder to slip out of the jacket. You swim to the surface, and catch your breath. Your heart rate slows down, and the flash bulbs of the cameras in the auditorium start to transition to one overhead light. Slowly, you become aware of how damp your shirt is, sticking to the pleather dental hygienists chair. But then you look up to see Cathy wiping your spilled spit cup off her scrubs, and you overhear her talking about how because of you they need to update their emergency response policies.

  Then you wait to do it all over again tomorrow.