Lateness
 

Best thing to say:

"Sorry I'm late." If that. No explanation necessary.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

I wasted much of my youth believing that such a thing would be anti-feminist and demonstrate a lack of integrity.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Not knowing your audience can kill you. When I used to show up in court in any of the various Bumfuck, Northern Minnesota courtrooms, I had my "special" suit on (think "Salvation Army") and my "special" shoes (think "ditchdigging".) If I wasn't getting homied, and instead faced some other Cities lawyer who spiffed up, I'd end up having a casual conversation with the judge while prettyboy-or-girl shuffled their papers, or getting jurors to talk to me instead of doing the reticent act that they did with pretty-whatever.

My type of suit
 

I needed to see this again.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

The way you "accidentally" dropped C- notes on the floor certainly helped.

Poster Boys
 

Fantastic. I am wearing my paint-covered ass-ripped jeans and ancient buttersoft holey t-shirt to my next meeting.

If I'm forced into lawyer drag, though, I did just pick up a drop-dead sexy charcoal grey pant suit on massive sale. I don't do skirts.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Note that this qualifies for the Costanza Rule for those of us with female bosses and/or wives. Just don't tell her that the "female problem" is her.

Poster Boys
 

You DID invent it. She was pointing out (using Sebbyspeak as part of the joke - hence the "cat" and "chick" lines) that she didn't buy the navy suit.

You, on the other hand, are using it not specifically as Sebbyspeak, but rather as a I'm-being-condescending-to-mom/dad/etc-by-referring-to-mom/dad/etc-as-a-name-other-than-what-you'd-normally-call-them-but-just-to-sarcastically-clarify-I-mean-mom/dad/etc.

Congratulations, man-pleaser known as bnb.

Poster Boys
 

Thank you Immature Misogynististic Whiffer known as Coltrane

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Yeah, but up there, you drop crumpled notes. Here in the city, they need to be fresh and crisp.

Poster Boys
 

This is basically how I dress for most stuff; the remainder is basic black pants and conservative in cut but not in color shirts or, in winter, good sweaters.

If anyone doesn't like it, screw them.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

1. I have no poker face. Whatever is "in my hand" is reflected all over my face.

2. Even if I could keep a blank face for playing cards, my guilt about lying would show in my face and my voice.

I'm a terrible liar.

Poster Boys
 

Sometimes, it's so hard to think of something to say to a chick when all you want to do is buy more time to look at her tits.

Poster Boys
 

You're welcome Ms. (and I stress "Ms.") Missing the joke behind the pointing out the obvious to something obvious a la answering rhetorical questions double whiffer known as Paigow.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Me too. This actually helps me get away with stuff though because this fact is well known and I never let anyone forget it. So if ABBA says something that seems like it is a lie, it couldn't possibly be a lie because ABBA is a notoriously bad liar and is upfront about that.

That said, I do not lie often. Just on an as needed basis.

Poster Boys
 

I'm not sure this will work as an appetizer, but we'll go ahead and test market it in limited areas. Who knows? We may find a niche market.

Poster Boys
 

I am mostly sure that the board will agree I am mainly correct that you are the whiffer. Why don't we make it a poll, dear, since you don't know when to shut up?

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

This is a board full of lawyers, hon. The only people here who can do this without setting off alarm bells in a four-block radius are you and me. All others are better advised to just go on the attack ASAP, and plausibly maintain the outrage until the audience loses all interest or desire to perpetuate the conversation.

This is brilliant. Also, if someone asks for a detail on which you didn't prepare, say, "Dunno; I didn't notice"* and keep going. At a point of calmer introspection, you can decide whether it will sound more implausible for you to suddenly remember and fill in the gap.

Also, don't smile unless its contextually appropriate to the lie. Liars often smile in a manner that doesn't crease their brow, because it's fake. People who say they can catch a liar's eyes are only partially right --- it has to do with facial muscles. When trying to spot a lie, watch what the liar does immediately after delivering a whopper. Usually their hand will fly up to their neck, ear, or cheek in some primordial defensive reaction, but it doesn't necessarily occur while the lie passes their lips --- it's more in response to what how the other person responds.

*Or, if you're Sebby, "Beats the fuck out of me, dude."

Poster Boys
 

Nuh uh. We can use it as at our spinoff chain Cooters Asia, and call it Floppy Woos.

Poster Boys
 

I thought Floppy Woo was the Pekingese dog in that James Herriott book (All Creatures Great and Small, I think).

ETA now that I think about it, I think his name was Tricky Woo. I think that would attract a slightly different clientele.

NFH of the day
 

JHC dude. Slow day at work? You've posted more today than you have in months.

And for my NFH of the day - here is a mad cow. (spree: use of the f-word and the t-word)
Cute, until the end which is stupid.

Mad mad cow

Poster Boys
 

Bitch, please, you have to license the Cooters brand from me first.

Poster Boys
 

All I know is that it's fun to fight Paigow with Paigow*.

*creating a post that has the possibility of being funny on so many different levels but is so utterly illegible and unintellible that no one can discern where the joke is and on what level. So, at whatever level someone else respnds to, the Paigow can reply that it was on a different level, although even she (or the Paigower) didn't really know which level it applied to in the first place. In reality, it has no levels.

Try it! It's fun. Or does Dave Eggers already have a monopply of this tripe?

Poster Boys
 

Mascot, please. A deal's a deal. You agreed to have your mug featured on the logo and accepted a salaried position as head chef. Read the fine print. I expect to see you in the kitchen flipping cooterburgers, as agreed.

Poster Boys
 

I thought she was responding to your question about the cut of meat they used to make your bologna sandwich, but I was having a hard time hearing you over the tractors. Entertaining place -- myself, I never would have noticed that shack.

NFH of the day
 

That made my day.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

As I tell every client before a dep, the three greaatest words in the English language, next to "I don't recall" are "I don't know."

No one, and I mean, no one, EVER gets me to commit to anything in writing. People send me "recap" letters all the time and I routinely write back "I diagree with your characterization of the conversation, but I'm not going to play revisionist historian here. Act accordingly." Know nothing until you need to know someonthing - and when that time comes, be very prepared and know it all.

No one can ever accuse you of lying if you never know anything.

Poster Boys
 

Get back to your job at the nuke plant, fat boy. "Cooter" is either Paigs' or mine. I think its hers, but I'm a greddy self congratulatory fuck.

Poster Boys
 

Of course you never would have noticed the place. You only "eat" at places that sell Thunderbird with the requisite brown paper bag.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Thank you, Peter Wallison

"The peasants are revolting!" "You're telling me -- don't they ever bathe?"
 

And we love you for it, your Majesty. Even though we sometimes mix up Jane Austen with that cute chick from the Go-Gos.

That being said, to respond to Sebby's point, I don't see a whole lotta chick lawyers here in Podunkville wearing tight and/or revealing stuff . There are lots of billowing shirts and pleated pants on the men and women in the business casual offices. And no skirts shorter than more than a few inches above the knees, or clingy tops without jackets, at non business casual work places. A few, yes, but not many. Alas.

I don't know if this carries over to Not Work clothes because I am old and don't go to the hep places where that "New Wave" music gets played.

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

This explains why I never seem to have the time to write those memos to file that some people are foolish enough to request.

Well, this, and the female problems I am always having.

Nicole Richie Flashing
 

I hope you are right. But I've heard another rumor that it involves Katherine Harris.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...rris_mh601.jpg

Poster Boys
 

So, you're saying she's wrong for fu'ing me for inventing the term?

Disco Stu never lies
 

I think I posted this story many-a-board ago, but it still makes me cringe with embarrassment for the guy.

So there's this associate (at Cravath, NTTAWWT) who has theater tickets or some such thing for one evening, and he has to leave by a certain time. It's getting to be 6:00 in the evening, so work is rolling in, and he hears the partner to whom he is indentured coming down the hall. What to do?!?

Well, his answer to that conundrum was to hide in his coat closet (and for those of you who have been to Cravath's [new -- as in now they're 12 years old] offices, you'll know that the coat closets are those "built-in" kinds -- the kind that really just fits a coat and some minor personal effects -- not the walk-in kind.]

So, partner comes into this schlub's office, and sees him away from his post, and wonders whether he's gone for the evening -- so, naturally, decides to check his coat closet to see if he's gone.


[Seriously, I'm cringing now...]

NFH of the day
 

A. You really should have the word "Sound" in your spree.

B. No worries, though, as fourteen of us just crowded around and watched and laughed our asses off.

Disco Stu never lies
 

Dave (as Girl Drink Drunk): I'm looking for paper clips!

Out of the Closet
 

that a CSM partner would go rummaging through my closet to see if I left for the evening would make me cringe too

Disco Stu never lies
 

I was curious about this Girl Drink Drunk expression and to my great amusement, found this at urban dictionary. It's verbatim:

HOW TO LIE WELL?
 

Exactly. Akin to the shoulder-shrug and turning away. Very good.

And (not to dredge up an old conversation, but...) as a rule, men can get away with showing up late more easily than women. I think people assume women were doing something frivolous, while a man must have had a good excuse. Ahhh, the double standard...

Kind of like: a woman with pictures of her family on her desk puts her family before work, while a man with pictures of his family on his desk is a "solid, family man". [This is an actual bit of "evidence" from a survey on this subject -- I didn't make this up.]