A group of US swimmers lied and got caught after claiming they had been victims of an armed robbery when what actually happened was that they had vandalized property while drunk and were made to pay for the damages.

I kind of feel sorry for them, especially after all the negative publicity that has led to some of their sponsors cutting ties with the athletes. 

They shouldn’t have lied but it’s easy to see why they did. Most people lie to get out of tricky situations but the problem with lying is that it’s a slippery slope and the more you lie, the easier it becomes. 

I think we all lie or have lied at some point. I recall two lies from my childhood because I can’t share lies I’ve told recently for obvious reasons, but anyway, I once told a big lie and it had to do with money. 

Don’t judge me! I must have been in Primary Three and my parents didn’t have a car then and so we usually took the bus to school. Some kids in my neighbourhood who attended the same school convinced me to walk to school, which wasn’t that far from where we lived and save my bus fare for snacks. 

For about a week, I had enough money to buy lots of treats including ice-cream, popcorn and chips. I made the terrible mistake of sharing the snacks with some of my siblings and coincidentally, an older cousin who was living with us at the time had mentioned that she had lost some money. 

Suspicion fell on me and I was questioned about where I had suddenly got all this money I was spending. I was so scared of coming clean, afraid my parents would never give me the bus fare again so I lied that a teacher had rewarded me after I excelled in a test which no one at home bought and everybody assumed I had indeed stolen my cousin’s money, which hurt and left me wishing I had just told the truth. 

Another incident was also school-related. I happened to be friends with a girl whose parents were rich, (and no I wasn’t scheming, we just became friends). I knew her family was well off from the kind of snacks she carried to school. While the rest of us lined up for the paltry school lunch, she usually had milk, cookies and lots of other things the rest of us didn’t have. 

Plus, she wore different shoes each school day, had multiple schoolbags and was picked up by her own driver so yes, they were rich. One Saturday, her driver didn’t turn up and usually, as hangers on tend to do, we would wait for her to be picked up before making our own way home. 

It was a Saturday and school closed at 12:00pm and the latest I was expected home was 3:00pm. However, my posh friend asked me and a few other girls to accompany her to her grandparents’ home from where she would then try to contact her parents. 

We were treated like guests and you know how time flies when you’re having fun so before I knew it, it was almost 6:00pm and I knew I had to leave, praying I would get home before my parents did. 

Unfortunately, they were already there and on being quizzed about where I had been, I lied that we had been practicing for a concert but my Mum being one of those mothers who never missed a PTA meeting which means she would have known about any upcoming events, I was caught out. 

A few canes later, I spilled the beans and I remember my Mum asking why I just didn’t say I had been with a friend. Honestly, I don’t know why I lied. See how easy it is to lie?