💾 Archived View for lesogorov.site › glogs › 2303 › Predisposed-Sneakiness.gmi captured on 2023-07-10 at 13:35:12. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-04-19)
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I find myself often inclined to go about things in a less-than honest way or in a way that conceals myself.
I'm not entirely sure when this all started, part of me thinks I've always somewhat been like this, but I remember first noticing it one night when I was 12, slinking down the stairs. I realized I just instinctively was walking on the inside of the stair, where it had the most support, because it results in less creaking; and that I was making large, slow steps to try and create as little noise as possible. My parents never really enforced a strict bedtime so it wasn't like I was doing anything wrong by getting a late night snack, but nevertheless I was hoping not a living soul would be aware of my being in the kitchen.
Looking back I did a lot of sneaky things growing up, throwing away my graded homework so I wouldn't be reprimanded if I got a bad grade when I was in 1st grade, ducking down behind a mound of dirt to hide from a rancher when I went hiking on semi-private land when I was 9, looking through my parents' tax filings so I could have an example to forge their signature a handful of times growing up. Of course most of these things are mostly harmless (especially with the rancher since I'm 90% sure he saw me), most had easier paths where I simply could have just been honest and asked for a signature, but nevertheless I instinctively took the sneaky path.
This has carried with me now into my early adulthood. Roomie says I scurry. Whenever I'm in the kitchen when he gets out of his room. I'll hide behind a corner and peak out to see if he's coming my way. If he's in the living room, I'll slink into the bathroom, trying to only be visible for the briefest amount of time without making a commotion by running. I'll take food from him, and secretly replace it, though he's caught on and knows that to look for.
One night when I was on a walk, I ended up being fairly close to Roomie and I's job right when they were closing, so I figured I'd ride back with Roomie. Instead of walking up to my group of coworkers and being outright that I was on a walk and happened to be in the area, I hid behind one of the pillars and waited for them to disperse, before walking out to Roomie's car. He laughed at me, I had made sure to get his attention when I was behind the pillar, but he thought it was odd that I chose to hide over just walking over to them. In hindsight it would've been totally fine to walk up to them, but I yet again chose the sneaky path.
I've lied a couple times to get off work. After class one day I was supposed to take a shift, but I felt totally drained, I was just getting over a bad cold, but I felt like a zombie and couldn't imagine being a cashier for the next 5 hours. I called in and said that I had hurt my foot the day prior and thought I was going to be ok enough to fulfill my shift but after walking to class I realized I couldn't be on my feet that long. Jose was the manager who answered the phone and he said to take it easy and ice my foot for the next couple hours and to call him if I was feeling better around closing. Well after a couple hours of laying down, the guilt of not fulfilling my shift got to me and so I called and said I could come in. Naturally I couldn't just walk in without any injury without them knowing something was up so I stuffed a large, pointy rock down my shoe, so that unless I walked on the side of my foot I was experiencing pain. This gave me a good enough hobble to make them believe me. The thing is by the end of the shift I was starting to believe it too, I had gotten so far into the fantasy of how I had hurt my foot that I forgot all I had to do was take out the rock to make it all go away.
The second time I lied was yesterday. Roomie's girlfriend had a performance she asked me to attend, but instead of just asking to leave a little early so that I could go, I devised a whole plot on how I would get out early. I would change Roomie's contact to "Dad", have him call me and text me a few times in panic saying that he needed me to take him to the hospital, frantically tell my supervisor and leave as fast as possible. I didn't even plan on showing them the texts, but if they did have any hesitation, I'd have my proof right there. I even came up with kidney stones as to what the ailment was, since he frantically had to drive himself to the hospital last year due to pain related from kidney stones. I had to cover all my bases, make sure Roomie was on time, make sure John, a coworker also in the performance, knew I wasn't there and that I was "taking my dad to the hospital", and make sure in the unlikely chance my dad was called that he would say he was at the hospital. The whole time at work prior to the plan being put in motion I was thinking "man it would have been a lot easier just to ask". It's not like they can physically stop me from leaving and it wasn't that busy of a day in the store so I wasn't screwing them over by leaving.
The plan went off without a hitch, I was able to get myself worked up into enough of a panic to be believable, so much to the point that Roomie got a few texts asking if I was ok. The car ride to the performance was nerve-wracking, I felt like I was driving to actually go pick up my in-pain father to take him to the hospital. I had to be continuously talking myself down and reminding myself that my father was in fact fine. The performance was great, though Roomie's girlfriends' group was the worst of the three due to not receiving the costumes in time for the show. Nevertheless I feel guilty and I'll need to keep up the act for at least a couple days until it's passed through the store. Really this last time has kinda enforced that I shouldn't lie to get out of these sorts of things. Hopefully I'll remember that next time I need to get out of a shift.
I know this kinda makes me sound like a compulsive liar, and I guess for at least with getting out of work, I would say that's a fairly accurate description of my actions. However when things do matter, I don't lie. I try and be as honest as possible with the people around me and it brings me great shame when I do lie. There have been times when these overly-complicated plans have saved my ass, but also I need to recognize that one of these days they are not going to go so smoothly and that I really ought to just be honest. My mom would have a tendency to be a little sneaky too and it would get on my nerves. John, the coworker, has been lying left and right recently and it's starting to negatively impact his relationships with people, me included. So then knowing this why do I still get that itch, see that out, and go for it, instead of just being a decent human being and telling the truth.
I guess I'm just predisposed to being sneaky and I ought to try to keep it under control.