Do not mix truth with falsehood or
hide the truth knowingly.
—The Qur’an 2:42
One of my earliest memories is of lying. (How’s that for entering consciousness?) I’m not proud of it, which is probably why it stuck so hard, but I thought cheating was the way to get ahead back then.
To set the scene, my extended family was on vacation—which I deemed a “beach-cation,” due to my youthfully ignorant grasp of words and an acute observation of where this detour from normal life took place.
During rainy days on beach-cation (which I recall feeling were a divine injustice), we’d play indoor games for entertainment. These included your stereotypical board and card games, of course, but sometimes the adults would teach us new games, like Pin The Tail On The Donkey.
This was no ordinary game of Pin The Tail On The Donkey, however; there were stakes. Arcade tokens for the winner, to be exact: entertainment currency for the local coin-operated game center we’d be attending during this annual visit.
Now, I sat back and observed a few foolish-looking cousins bumping into walls after being spun around or wandering into donkey-less rooms while blind, and I was determined not to be a loser like them. Fortunately, when it came time to blindfold me, my uncle did a poor job with the bandana, and there was a crack at the bottom through which I could kinda, sorta, maybe see.
Without knowing how to make myself look convincingly lucky, I waltzed right up to the poster and pinned the tail where any anatomically correct donkey had one.
“Could you see?” my uncle said.
“No!” I said.
“Tell the truth,” he said.
“I swear!” I said.
And—bless his heart—he pried no further and coughed up the coin.
But I remember holding those tokens in my hand, feeling something I’m not even sure I could have named back then: guilt.
I didn’t earn those coins, not honestly anyway. I lied, and that didn’t feel good, and I never wanted to feel that again.
Consider this my public admission that I, the dishonest donkey-pinner, did wrong. I hope this confession absolves me of my sin and frees me from the guilt I’ve been holding onto all these years.
Sorry, Uncle T!