1.) One who says things are not what they are.
2.) One who says things are not what they look like.
3.) One who will not even acknowledge what things look like.
I tell ya, it's that last one that's particularly interesting. For instance, take some random, we’ll say, for the sake of any virgin ears that might be listenin' in, a “muck up,” like breaking a window. The first disagrees either in whole or in part the where, why, how, when but usually who (i.e. they) concerning any “muckery” to the window. Now, to their “credit,” if that word (even loosely and, yes, even in quotes) can be applied to such situations, such parties willfully acknowledge the window is for all intents and purposes irrevocably, unequivocally, irrefutably “mucked.”
The second reasons, while acknowledging that the window does indeed appear “bucked to the double duck of totally being mucked,” that the “muckery” is not as it appears. Meaning that through some unknown intervention (more like divine providence depending on the grandiosity of the lie) the window is for some reason not actually broken only appearing as such. It is of this class that car salesmen belong.
But the third, oh the third! They are the ones who reply simply, “What broken window?”
They acknowledge neither that the window is totally without question mucky mucked-mucked with a capital MUCK or even will acknowledge that it clearly appears that way (i.e. “That window doesn't even look broken. That window looks fine to me,” or any comparable scrumscramdoopery.)
The upshot to all this is the following: the first lies only to others, the second lies a bit to others and also a bit to themselves, and the third lies only to themselves.
Now, if ya hadn't guessed, I've been seeing a lot of the third kind lately. No, not that third kind, but, boy believe me when I say, “I wish!”
Needless to say, but necessary all the same, if one such muckety muck will not even muse that a muck has been mucked then they are not as much a kind of liar as much as they are a kinda liar. For they do not deceive anyone externally only their own sorry selves.
But, good reader, be wary. For if we fall pray to entertaining any such ‘kinda liars’ and allow them to place themselves in our lives then ultimately we might just end up questioning whether there was any window there at all.
And, well, I guess that's another for the shelf.
Lenwood S. Sharpe, Director
Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum
Parts Unknown, The Woods, U.S.A.
