Lie of the Beholder – A Yuletime Tale

Gather "round, ye chillun's and hear my yuletide yarn…

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Digidreamgrafix, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Christmas decorations

"Tis the season for all things wintry sprinkled with a dash of impoverishment.

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, A Christmas Visitor…poor urchins feature in each.

Matter of fact, Your Humble Correspondent has his own penchant for the impecunious.

If he ever found a beautiful orphan with a proverbial heart of gold, her world would be radically altered by morning and she'd probably be pregnant.

(Which, in all honestly, also says rather a lot concerning his own jolly psyche.)

Alas, in my experience most orphans are in person bitter, sexually promiscuous and worst of all…*shudder*…copiously tattooed.

So on to more tangible holiday baubles!

The Various Forms of Appreciation

Back around a million years ago my grandfather (yes, my family tends to have children late in life) was over to New York City on business when coming of a meeting he spied a hot blonde secretary.

(Whoa…unplanned monologue…a secretary? Just how genetically ingrained is it in me of wealthy men falling for poor girls? *sigh*)

Anyway, grandfather did the only reasonable thing before leaving town which was to buy her a diamond as big as the Ritz.

Needless to say, grandmother did not long remain taking dictation.

One supposes that having a large bunch of carrots adorning the gold band, left hand, made her feel important, as women seem to deem such things vital to lasting matrimony.

They may be right, as the union continued many years until his passing, upon which tragedy struck —

For the iceberg what had sunk the Titanic was…faux.

That's right, Sportsfans, while quite wealthy the old fellow had beguiled her with a fake.

She was livid and brought up his posthumous betrayal at every convenient (or otherwise) opportunity.

Except, the catch here was that grandfather used the "diamond” money for all sorts of other less glamorous but more speculative investments. In at least one moderately-sized town, out of several McDonald's restaurants eventually built, he previously owned the land on which over half the establishments sat.

Somehow grandmother never quite put two and two together to comprehend the funds which kept her extremely comfortable after his absentia were at least in part made possible by the good earth itself rather than the shiny rocks which came therefrom.

To her, the lie was the only reality that mattered.

Believing is Better than Receiving

Let us, in the spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, spring forward many (many) decades.

Having returned to Chicago from New York this author was taking a young lovely to the Joffrey ballet.

Important to note is the dame in question was about the most attractive physical specimen I have ever known — she was the type to make every other female seethe with hatred whenever she walked into a room because it immediately diminished their attractiveness ratings by half in comparison.

She was sex on an ice cream cone…and impossibly poor.

At a downtown restaurant just before jumping off to see the plies prior our own pas a deux I took out a gift I had picked up down on Canal Street (basically Chinatown) in Manhattan.

Inside was a fake Christian Dior watch I had chosen on a whim as a cheeky present

For those unfamiliar, at one time you could get anything fake on Canal Street from Chanel to Louis Vuitton to Rolex to Patek Philippe and ranging from obvious forgeries to "Hmmm…could it be real…

To which I admonish, NO, they are ALWAYS fake. Only, if you are smart you'll spend the extra bucks and get a "good” fake which means not only the item itself is meticulous but they also fake the watch clothe and the watch container and "guarantee” cards and whatever else would be when authentic.

So I pass over the offering after dessert and, unlike grandfather, I tell her that it isn't real — only fun.

The conversation went as follows:

"I was thinking of you on set. After shooting I got you this to wear. It might be amusing to you.”

"Oh my goodness!”

"No, don't get overly excited. It's only a fake.”

"I love it! This is amazing! No one ever gave me anything like this before!”

"No, serious, it isn't real. I only got it so you could wear every day and not worry about losing a real one.”

"You are such a kidder! It's real! I know it's real! I love it!”

(END SCENE)

Social Instructions, Sans Embarrassment

Okay, so if you are curious the reason for these anecdotes, and particularly why at Christmas, it is thus:

1. Always tell the truth, BUT,
2. Never insist on the truth.

My grandmother felt very betrayed by the fake diamond mentioned above, even if it meant a large fortune later on.

My Chicago Lolly needed to believe that the fake watch she received from me was real, as salve for her soul.

Thankfully Your Humble Correspondent is not entirely an idiot and after the third time telling my gal her watch was fake I eventually understood that she had to have it be authentic as a validation of her own self-worth.

Foolishly, even stupidly, in the moment it took me a while to recognize that sort of jewelry was so far beyond anything she might expect to ever own it really was like a dream come true for her.

Mercifully, I did realize and by the fourth time she insisted it was legitimately a Christian Dior…I "admitted” it was the genuine article.

So hopefully this helps you — Tell the truth, Don't force it.

A Very Important Moral

Want to hear another story about fakery? (It's good, and true, I avow.)

Charlie Chaplin took Paulette Goddard as his third wife. (Probably…it was a Mexican ceremony.)

Now Chuck, as all of us gentleman of the Old Guard, liked gals in the sixteen to eighteen range. (That's legal in my state, so shut up. Moreover, that's legal in most of the world, so shaddyup!)

Everyone knew this fact, particularly Ms. Levy. So when she met The Little Tramp she told him she was…sixteen-years-old.

In actuality? She was all of TWENTY-SIX years at the time.

Obviously, Charlie was about the most powerful man in Hollywood with extensive connections and immense resources — in other words, he could well afford to put enough private detectives on her to know everything from her first words spoken to the size of her brassiere.

No doubt, Chaplin knew the score…which leads us to the final lesson of the day:

Clever women figure out what a man wants and give it to him.

Clever men figure out never to let a woman know he's wise to her schemes.

Truth is what makes you, or your Lolly, happy.

Merry Christmas! (Ho! Ho! Ho!)

Guy Somerset writes from somewhere in America