cure for pathological lying — 1 thorough investigation

the atm is the small confessional of modern life and i refuse to use it. cure for pathological lying, the table promises, includes self-knowledge. the_ex, unnamed in this paragraph and most others, has a volvo now and a different last name in some sentences. the drawer of certified letters is the cure i happen to have. pension is faith-based. so is balance, on a friday, at the cash machine on the corner i avoid by half a block.

at the desk. friday, 9:42am. carla is in a vendor walkthrough on the third floor with a notepad she will not open. i have, by the count i keep running, until lunch.

so. the question this morning is whether there is a cure for pathological lying, or, instead, a thing people call a cure because the alternative is admitting that some habits do not retire, they get demoted. i lean toward the second. the post is, at heart, an inventory of the cures i declined.

noted: the atm i avoid is the one on the corner with the camera tilted three degrees toward the door.

1. cure for pathological lying, the atm version

the version i tested this week was small. on monday, late, i walked past the cash machine on the corner and did not stop. on wednesday, on the way to the office, i did stop. i pressed the buttons for the balance enquiry. the small screen told me a number that was, in detail, a small surprise. i took the slip and did not look at it until i sat at the desk. that is, in my own audit, a cure of the cheapest kind.

the working theory of cure for pathological lying, assembled on the back of that slip, is that the cure is whatever stops the lie from paying. the atm pays nothing. the slip is a small fact in a font no one designed to flatter you. with the slip in the back pocket, the lie i tell about my balance is a lie with a witness in receipt-paper.

i would not, in good faith, recommend this as a method. the slip is, on a strict reading, kin to the receipt wallet i keep meaning to organise. that is enough, on a friday morning, to call a small cure.

2. the_ex would file the cure under “theatre”

the_ex, back when we were a unit, used to call my self-corrections “theatre” in the kitchen voice reserved for things she was not going to argue with. she meant, i now understand, that the correction was the show. the lie was the floor under the show. the show went on, and the floor stayed where it was.

i didn’t argue at the time. i’m not sure i can argue now. the_ex is in a different city, in a volvo that adjusts at the back, in a sentence somebody else wrote about her. the kitchen line stuck because it is, in the way unkind true things stick, accurate.

the comparison between her version of the cure and mine is short, table-shaped, and unflattering.

the table is one-sided. her column has the verdicts. mine has the deferrals. the atm does not care which column you sit in. the atm wants the card back.

3. the certified letter drawer as the only consistent record

the drawer of certified letters is, as of this morning, the only object in the kitchen with a reliable opinion about the state of my affairs. it is wood. it sticks slightly. on the running tally i keep, eleven sealed envelopes sit in there from various authorities, two from a bank i don’t bank with anymore, and one with my old middle initial that suggests the investigation was forwarded by somebody who took it seriously.

the drawer is the cure i have. that is the sentence, on a friday at the desk, i least like to look at. the drawer keeps a count and does not lie about it. my count, on most weeks, is the drawer’s count minus three, because i forget the december ones on principle.

the seventh microwave hummed at me from across the kitchen last night when i walked past the drawer. it is, i recognise, not capable of opinions. but it hummed. the note on the desk says: the drawer is the only honest tenant in this place. that sentence will not survive the morning.

4. cure candidates, by how much i avoided them

i made a small ranking, ordered by how aggressively i declined each candidate, not by how effective each one is. you may, of course, copy it.

1. removing the audience. the audience is the newsletter. the newsletter is the rent. the math, on this candidate, declines itself.
2. a confidant who is paid to listen. i looked at the website twice in the elevator. the website asked for my zip code. i closed the website. the cure declined me back.
3. opening the certified ones. i scheduled this for last sunday. and the sunday before. the schedule is, by now, a kind of religion. the practice is, by now, a kind of nothing.
4. the notebook by hand. i bought the notebook. i wrote on page one, “this is the cure for pathological lying”, in pen. i closed the notebook. the cure, in handwriting, lives on page one of an otherwise blank notebook in the desk drawer.
5. the atm balance enquiry. see section one. partial credit. the smallest cure on the list, performed once a week, on the corner i avoid the rest of the time.

that is one cure attempted, three deferred, and one declined on principle. statistically, an audit is also a cure. recursively, this is fine.

5. the atm receipt that summed me up in eight digits

the slip from wednesday is in front of me. it is a thin grey thing with a number, a time, and a small four-digit code that is, presumably, the machine telling itself which transaction this was. the number is the balance. the time is 7:42am. the four-digit code is oddly familiar.

the slip is, i think, the cleanest piece of writing about me i own. it does not exaggerate. it does not omit. having no adjectives, it accuses me of nothing. it states the figure. the figure is, on a friday, the only honest sentence in a building of about three hundred people. the 1999 patricia highsmith adaptation about a man who borrows other people’s lives a thumbprint at a time would find the slip a moral relief, and i mean that as half a comment on the slip.

the cure, if i squint, is the slip. small enough to fold, cheap enough to throw away, on a corner i otherwise avoid by half a block.

THE SLIP. KNOWS. THE NUMBER. I. MOSTLY. DO NOT.

i have written a separate post on the long-form description of the rung itself, written by a man who has, statistically, stood on it, which is the rung directly below this investigation. read that for the definition. read this for the cures, ranked by avoidance.

6. verdict, the cure is a faith i declined to keep

12:51pm. walkthrough let out. carla walked past with the unopened notepad and a paper cup. she said “long one”. i nodded.

the inventory, this lunch hour: one slip, one drawer, one notebook with one sentence, and one table where the useful column was somebody else’s. the audience, regrettably, is the rent.

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