Yesterday something interesting happened when I went shopping at White House black-market. I walked into the store and one of the salespeople there asked if she could help me with anything. I turned around to to answer her question, and something occurred that had only happened one or two other times in my life. I was face-to-face and eye to eye with another adult. I couldn't hide my smile. I said you're 4'9" too?! I said it in such a way as to indicate that I was very excited to see somebody else that was the same height as me. I mean, we had something very rare and special in common here. She said, with a note of displeasure that I didn't quite understand, "No,I'm 5 feet exactly." Somewhat taken aback, I said, "but...really?" I didn't say anymore about it and the remaining (somewhat uncomfortable), conversation was regarding clothes.
Here's the thing, I was looking at this woman right in the eyes. Not only was she not even an inch taller than I, she clearly wasn't 3 inches taller. I was completely confused. Is it possible that she had been measured incorrectly her whole life? Or maybe someone wasn't telling her the truth? It took me until almost an hour after I left the store to realize that she was lying about her height.
This actually brings up a couple of issues. The first one is the act of lying about yourself to begin with about such things as your height your weight or age, which never occurred to me to do. The second thing is then, what do you do when you're face to face with somebody who knows right away that your lying? In her case she just stuck right to the lie. Which I think sort of made her look stupid and me uncomfortable. Or was I at fault for embarrassing her even though it wasn't intentional?
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