Habitual Liars

To give a little background on this story, I teach at an alternative high school in an unnamed outlying county bordering Louisville, Kentucky. Here is some hints on which one it is: meth and child molesting. Without going into too much detail, my students are 15 or 16 year old 7^th and 8^th graders who for whatever reason have not been able to cut it in regular school. We can all remember the level of difficulty of seventh and eighth grade academics, with the adding and subtracting and differentiating nouns from not nouns. Pretty much all you have to do is show up, spit on your paper, put your name on it, and not be a total asshole. Essentially, it is a bunch of kids who are a cross between Jethro Bodine and a wannabe Mashall Mathers. It is kind of a tough job, I guess, being that it is not the kitchen at Taco Bell or answering complaint calls in a cubicle. The kids have a wide variety of reasons they are there, ranging from living with child molesters, having their houses burned down by their father’s while they are in them, and just plain poor DNA and being really fucking lazy.

I had this class going pretty well and I have an assistant, but to my surprise, one random day in October, I had some 23 year old kid from Americorps show up, saying that he was there to help. I really had zero idea of what to do with him. He was given an office, which I felt was slightly weird and unfair. I mean, who the fuck was he? I was in my seventh year teaching and an office was totally out of the question for me. I told him to just hang out in the room and help students when they needed some type of assistance, which allowed me more time to play on the internet. He was weird, but I figured another adult in the room could not hurt.

One of the first things I noticed that was peculiar was that he constantly dug into his ears. It was one of the most gross and disgusting things I have ever seen. He did it to the point that his skin was peeling out of his ears and they were turning all red. You might be thinking the skin peeling and the redness were part of the symptoms, and I would agree. However, he was totally causing the symptoms.

Then he started telling me all about himself, and everything he said was a total, knowable, provable, unnecessary lie. Andrew, which is his name, lied about everything from what he had for breakfast, what route he took to drive to school, what mundane thing he did the night before, and it turns out, what he had been doing the first 23 years of his life. We have all dealt with or run across an habitual lawyer at one time in our lives. They all tell crazy unnecessary shit that gets bolder and bolder with time. The first couple of lies, before you know that there is a real issue, just seem really impressive, mostly due to the fact that you have no real reason to not believe him. Andrew told me that he quit an $95,000 a year job to join Americorps (turns out he just graduated from Reed College in Oregon in May). It was a bit much, and I figured a little exaggerated, but whatever, everyone stretches the truth a little sometimes. A few weeks later, he had to leave school early to fly to England to read a paper that was “accepted to Oxford”. Impressive, maybe true, but my lying antenna was activated. Rather than carry on for pages about each lie he subsequently told, I will list them.

1) His 23-year-old girlfriend was chief of staff for Indiana Senator Evan Byah.

2) He had to drive said girlfriend to D.C. during the biggest snow storm on record so she could help pass health reform.

3) He had to drive a couple of congressmen to Frankfort to meet with the legislator, so he had to miss his rugby game, being played at Iroquois . The game was to decide the regional championship and was being played against the Cleveland Flees. A quick internet search revealed that his team was playing in Dayton, not Louisville, and their home games are played in Cherokee Park.

4) He drove the car from Gone in 60 Seconds.

5) He was in the movie “Into the Wild”.

6) He played college baseball (his school, Reed College, has no college baseball team).

7) He was approved for a mortgage based on “projected future education and income”.

8) He was moving to a sweet condo in DC that he was buying with his girlfriend.

9) They were going to get married strictly for financial reasons if the offer for the condo was accepted.

10) His girlfriend’s name is Caroline.

11) His girlfriend’s name is Sophie.

12) He has a girlfriend.

What is sad about this guy and others like him is that they would be okay if they would just stop. People don’t care what you do, what douchey great school accepted you, what senator your dad knows, etc. We all know a pretentions homo who went somewhere like Duke or Vandy and loves to tell everyone all about their crazy stories.
On a separate but kind of related note, people don’t want to hear about the different types of bourbon and fine beers you like. If you describe any drink as having a smoky or oaky aroma, you are total phony douche fag. Nothing beyond claiming that you are the new, improved Jesus and then proving it by flying is really going to be super interesting or impressive.

Andrew has since been fired for generally creeping everyone out.