Let me ask a question.  How important is “honesty” to you?

I’m not talking about perjury, or life and death situations.

I’m not talking about cheating on your spouse or the IRS.

I’m not talking about letting the teller in the bank or the cashier at the grocery store know that he/she gave you too much money.

I’m talking about little white lies that we are all faced with when we are in relationships.

The classic question is, “Honey? Does this dress make my butt look fat?”

If you’re the man in this situation, what do you say if the truthful answer is, “Absolutely and unequivocally yes!” Do you tell the truth, or do you spare her feelings and tell a little, white lie?

And, if you’re the woman who is asking the question, do you really want the truth if the thinks that freaking dress makes your ass look like a battleship? Or do you want him to lie, and just not tell you that he’s lying?

My wife seems to think that the truth should always be told, no matter what.

I disagree.

Charles Nelson Reilly once played a role in a skit on The Carol Burnett Show where, no matter what the situation was, he ALWAYS told the truth.  He would come into a couple’s house and say things like, “Mind if I put my feet up on your CHEAP coffee table?” By the end of skit, everybody was ready to strangle the son of a bitch.

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As some of you know, I have been struggling with the perception of growing older lately. And these feelings were initiated by the fact that, after a recent hearing test, my doctor told me that I had a sixty percent hearing loss in my right ear, and that I was an excellent candidate for a hearing aid.

That fact depressed me. When I spoke to people about my feelings, most of the responses I got were statements like, “Hearing aids are so small now-a-days that it won’t even be seen when you’re wearing one.”

That isn’t the point. I don’t really care if people see it or know that I have it in my ear. In fact, I’ve told most people I know that I am getting one.

The point is, I NEED a freaking hearing aid!

Only two people responded to the news in a way that let me know that they understood how I was feeling. One was my daughter, who just grabbed my arm and said, “Oh Dad! I’m so sorry! I love you!”

The other one was a young theater friend of mine. She is a sweet young woman who simply stated, “Jim, you’ll NEVER be old to me.”

These two folks understood my feelings. They “got it.”

So, I’ve been struggling with these “old” feelings for about a week.

Okay. So, I came home after getting a haircut last night, and my wife took one look at me and said, “Wow! You really got it cut short this time! Now, it’s really obvious to me how much your hair is thinning!”

It was like she had slapped me in the face!I was shocked by her response, and when I told her so, she got defensive and replied, “? If I asked you how I looked in an outfit, and you lied and said I looked good when I really looked ridiculous, I’d be angry at you.”

My response to that was, “So, you think my haircut makes me look ridiculous?”

She said, “I didn’t say that.”

I thought, Yes. You did.

Then she said, “You wouldn’t want me lie to you, would you?”

For me, the answer to that question at this particular time in my life is, “Yes. I would. I really and truly would.”

What are YOUR feelings about this? Is it wrong to tell a little lie to spare somebody’s feelings? Especially if there is no harm done by that lie, and nobody will ever know that you told it?

Or is lying dishonest, no matter what the circumstances, and honesty is ALWAYS the best policy?

To my way of thinking, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.