Out Walking the Dog

I was out walking my dog just a little while ago on a quiet dead end street when this car drove by. I took notice because there was no one around, but didn’t worry about it. I just noticed the license plates were local, and the guy behind the wheel was in his late 40s, early 50s. He had blondish hair and wide set eyes.

Read moreAs the car came back from over the hill from the direction of the dead end, I noticed the man’s window was down, so I knew he was going to stop to ask me something. I was a little uneasy at this point because there wasn’t a soul around. Behind me was a wooded park, and I would be between him and trees. Naturally, as he stopped, I stepped about 10 feet back and off to an angle. I don’t like being approached by strangers in cars.

He looked up at me, gave a polite (fake) smile and said, “You haven’t seen a loose dog around here, have you?”

“No,” I replied feeling slightly uncomfortable.

“Okay”, he said, scanning his rear view mirror.

“What kind of dog are you looking for?” I asked him.

“Uh, um…uh….a….Doberman Pincher,” he replied scanning around.

The way he said Doberman Pincher was as if it were a question! Not good.

Why is this guy struggling to identify his dog? Why is he scanning his rear view mirror and looking around? My alarm bells were blaring, and just at that time, my neighbor appears about 40 feet away! Was I relieved!! The guy in the car notices him instantly, too.

“If I see this dog, where do you live so I can bring him back, if I do spot him?” I asked with a little more confidence since my neighbor was there.

“Well, it’s actually a neighbor’s dog…and I told him I’d go look around for him.” At this point, he is slowly letting the car roll away from me.

I knew at this point everything this guy just said to me was a lie.

“What street do you live on?” I asked probing for more information.

He hit the breaks, but is giving me definite clues he wants to bolt. “Walberg,” he told me, “about a mile and a half away.”

“Don’t worry about bringing the dog back,” he said, “Just call the sheriff.” As he saw my neighbor approach, he turned his head and put his foot on the gas and eased out of there.

Something was very off about this guy.

My neighbor and I chatted a few minutes and I told him the story. He said, “That’s interesting. The guy only went up about 3 more houses and turned around. He never even went to the end of the block (which is a dead end).”

Hmmm…he is looking for a dog, and he doesn’t even drive to the end of the road to see if the dog is down there, the area closest to where he tells me he lives nearest to! Also, in hindsight, he didn’t say, “You haven’t seen a doberman pincher loose, have you?” He saw my dog and “dog” was the first thing that stuck in his head and formed his lie. Uh!

My neighbor and I then chatted about the car, and you know, I couldn’t come up with one detail about the car. My neighbor then identified it was a late blue model something, to which I replied, “I think I could identify his face, but that is all.”

My skin is crawling!! I don’t want to know why this guy just lied. Thank god for neighbors!!

Trying to Fake Me Out

Naturally, you can guess, when people know I am a lie detector, one thing they do is try to fake me out with a lie, jokingly, to see if I will catch it, and my husband is no exception.

Yesterday, I was out and about with a friend, and when I came home, I asked my hubby if he sat outside and relaxed. Before I left, I told him it would do him wonders if he did, so I was hoping, when I came back, that he did just that. He needed some fresh air (after painting my office, of course!).

Read moreHe was standing over a huge, delicious pan of lasagna when I asked him, “Did you take some time to relax today?” He was looking down, trying to cut a piece and serve it.

He said very seriously, “No, I didn’t.”

His face was as still as a piece of wall art. I was in the dark for a second. Then he said “No, I didn’t” again, and in an instant, something caused the lower portion of the center of his left eyebrow to twitch in a flash.

“Ah!,” I said as I grabbed my plate of lasagna from him. “You did sit out. I am so glad to know that. Do you know your eyebrow just twitched and gave you away?”

My husband look up at me, grinned and looked left and then right and said, “It did?”

I smiled and sat down at the table to share Sunday dinner. “That was amazing,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before.”

Unless my husband happened to get an involuntary body twitch at the exact precise moment of his lie, there was no other explanation for him to show a sign of tension like that. I think he was working so hard to prevent himself from making any smirks or smiles that his face was so tense, it hiccuped.

So, while I couldn’t be 100% certain it was a lie by his twitch only, the odds were quite high that it was, and when I told him it was and he smiled, I knew for sure that I had called it right on the money.

The odds were low that he experienced an involuntary twitch at that precise moment, and more than that, they were low because the twitch didn’t repeat itself–which is common for the average twitch we all experience, without reason, from time-to-time.

I am so grateful my husband thinks that my abilities are something to poke fun at, and he is very playful about it. That is a big blessing!

Most Flattering Lie

It was the summer, after my freshman year in high school, that a group of girls thought it would be fun to spend one of the last waning days of summer at Six Flags amusement park. Fearing that one of us could get separated or lost, we all decided as geeky as it was, to wear our school gym shirt, because they were purple and had our school name plastered on the front. We knew we’d stand out in a crowd and find each other if one of us happened to get lost.

I don’t remember much from that day, to be honest, except that we saw some cute guys, and rode on the American Eagle roller coaster with them over and over again. One of them was really sweet and took to me, but at that age, without a car or a driver’s license, you just parted ways and said goodbye. We simply shared a few laughs and shrills.

Read moreFast forward two or three months later: I was sitting in class, my sophomore year, and a staff member from the principal’s office interrupted the lecture. She asked if I could be excused. Friends had been alerting me that all the girls in the school with my first name were being taken to the principal’s office. At first I thought it was a joke. Now I knew better.

I specifically remember this woman, who was escorting me to the principal’s office, looked at me notably strangely.

I was completely perplexed. What was this about? Did another person with my name do something wrong, and I was going to get the blame? I had to admit that I was on edge. I was never called to the principal’s office before.

As we walked down the hall toward the office, she said to me, “Did you go to Six Flags this summer?”

Thinking that was odd, I said, “Yes, why?”

“Did you meet anyone there, while you were there?” she continued to question me.

I thought for a minute, “Yes. We met a couple of people from another school who were our age.”

“Do you remember their names?” she inquired.

“No, not really. I think one guy’s name was Mark. Why?” I questioned her again. We arrived at the office.

As we walked in the door of the office, there was a group of staff staring at me–five or six women and a couple of men whose eyes were fixated on me. They were looking at me intently. I couldn’t help but feel like I was under the microscope. I felt really awkward. I couldn’t figure out what this was about. Was I in trouble? For something I did over the summer? That would be crazy. What was going on?

The lady who walked me to the office said, “I think we found our girl!”

I was even more intrigued.

“Well”, said the principal, “we got this letter in the mail from a guy who says he met an ‘Eyes for Lies’ (of course, not my real name), that he borrowed money from her, and he really wanted to contact her so he could pay her back. Here is the letter. It is quite long and involved. He wrote it to my office, and ask that we assist him in locating you. He’s quite an interesting fella.”

The letter was two full pages from a spiral-ring notebook.

I sat there in disbelief as Dan’s photo fell out of the envelope. I remembered his name by this point, but the funny thing was, he didn’t borrow any money from me. That was an outright lie.

I spoke up, “This is so strange, because I didn’t lend him any money.”

I couldn’t help but be flattered when I read the letter, by the way it was written. So painstakingly neat, and with care and thought. Clearly this guy had a crush on me, and wouldn’t let it go. I had no idea.

I couldn’t believe this stranger went through so much effort to contact me again. The ladies giggled, and one said, “I think he has a huge crush on you!”

Another joined in, “Look at how much effort he went through to find you!”

“Are you going to contact him?” asked another.

I must have turned beet red. Before I answered, another one spoke. “Yes, it is funny,” said a lady with red hair. “We’ve been talking to all the girls with your name in the school, and none of them related to the details he gave until we found you. You were the last one out of five girls, and of course, you were the right one. For a little while there, we thought maybe he had written the wrong school.”

For days after that, the staff all looked at me as I walked by. You could almost hear them thinking, “Is she the girl who got that romantic love note?” You could feel the walls chattering behind me.

All the girls who shared my first name asked me what all the fuss was about, because they were not privy to why they were questioned by the principal’s staff.

The teachers, as well as my friends, were all in disbelief that a guy could have such a crush on me that he would go through all this effort to locate me. They teased me that I was one lucky girl!!

Dan and I exchanged a few letters, and chatted on the phone once, but I had lost interest. Living some 20 miles a part, at that age, was just too much distance to surmount, and he sounded too monotone on the phone for me. But I must say, it was one of the most flattering lies I was ever told.

This all came back to my mind, this week, because my mom found Dan’s photo in my collection of things stacked away in the basement, and happened to put it into a photo album, not knowing who he was. All the memories came flooding back when I was flipping through the album and she asked, “Who is that?” When I told her, she instantly remembered that flattering lie.

I wonder what Dan is like today. Is he a charming, assertive and successful man, or is he someone who stalks people and has intense, inappropriate crushes? I shudder at the thought.

“The Truth About Liars”

There is a show that ran last month in Canada (maybe you Canadian readers saw it)? It’s called “The Truth About Liars”, and was on the CBC. It featured both Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan. The website lists the show as a full-length video, but when you click on it, it says it is unavailable. I suspect this is because I am a U.S. viewer. However, the preview is available, and I thought you would enjoy it.

The beginning voice-over is Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan. You then get to see her. She hasn’t been in many videos, but here she is! Interestingly enough, as the video closes, the voice-over is Dr. Paul Ekman. Enjoy!

It appears that the CBC took down this video today after I posted this. Perhaps they don’t want the U.S. audience to see it? Sorry for this. Here is a link about the show (where you will find the video links to the show and preview), and here is another link to a segment of the show with Dr. O’Sullivan talking about expert lie detectors (I suspect “wizards”). Does this play for you?

Rod Blagojevich


Clip of Rod Blagojevich talking to Barbara Walters on The View
January 26, 2009

Read more I just decided to spend a few moments this morning to watch Rod Blagojevich, as several of you have requested my opinion, and all I can say after watching the first clip of him talking to Barbara Walters, on “The View”, is that he is one slippery man!!

It’s incredible.

Walters asks him some very direct questions, and he refuses to say anything. I sat there and said, well, if he claims to be being treated unfairly, well then, speak the truth, but he doesn’t want to do that, either. This is behavior that does not support honesty.

Blagojevich is as evasive as one could get. He won’t confirm or deny he even said some basic words. That’s absolutely hilarious, actually.

Why would he do that, you ask?

Well, its another avenue he can use later to refute anything. He can deny he ever said such words, that it isn’t even him talking, etc. You see, at this point, he doesn’t know what the wire tap tapes about him contain. I suspect he has no idea how conclusive they are, and so until he knows the whole enchilada against him, he doesn’t want to say anything that he can’t later refute. That’s slippery! He wants to claim all these things, but he won’t stand on anything. It’s absurd.

Blagojevich seems to find himself very important and has a grandiose sense of self, he doesn’t seem to show a lot of emotions when he talks, he wants us to believe the world is out to get him, and that the rules the rest of the politicians abide by aren’t fair to him. Add to that his evasive language, and the picture it paints, to me, isn’t far off from what Cynthia McFadden has said others have called him in this interview.

Cynthia McFadden did a great interview, by the way. She really corners him good! She says, “This kind of talk would be okay so long as you didn’t act on it. Is that what you are saying?”

Blagojevich says, “I think if you explore ideas and discuss things, and you are willing to think outside the box, and you test a variety of things, and you know you’ll end up doing only the right thing, once you sort it all out, and that there is a process unfolding, that that is part of what it takes to be a leader and make the right decisions….”

It’s total nonsense. I think that speaks for itself, personally.

Do I trust Blagojevich? No, I don’t. He hasn’t done one thing to support his honesty. Not one thing. Instead, he hopes he can convince people by being firm, aggressive and in-your-face about absolutely nothing, but proclaims his innocence. I suspect that this behavior has carried Blago a long time, but that isn’t working anymore.

Blagojevich has had mannerisms from day one that have always had me on alert, and made me very cautious about him. I am not surprised at all to see him where he is at right now. I was surprised this didn’t happen sooner, actually.