Lies, Lies, Lies!

Have you ever noticed that some people are decidedly more gifted at lying than others? I’m not going to comment on the frequency with which anyone lies. If I tried that, I’d be kidding myself. How would I know with any certainty?

On the other hand, sometimes spotting lies isn’t exactly difficult. Have you ever heard of Koko the gorilla? In a nutshell, she’s a gorilla who was trained to have an extensive sign language vocabulary. Adding spice to the story, she enjoyed raising kittens – presumably as gravy for the psych students already masturbating furiously over the fact that she exists. There’s a famous story about her lying. According to the story, she was throwing a tantrum one day and ripped a steel sink off the wall of her cage. When she was later confronted about the mangled plumbing, she denied involvement. Her skeptical trainers then asked her who else would have ripped the sink off the wall of her cage. Her sign language reply can be paraphrased as “The kitten did it.”

Koko wasn’t the best liar, but she did a respectable job. She made a valiant effort to frame an innocent bystander, correctly choosing a scapegoat who was both at the scene of the crime and unlikely to argue. That said, I give this lie a 3/10.

This beats out most of our toddlers. They’re delighted to tell their parents that they didn’t break something, even if Mommy was in the room yelling “Don’t break the lamp!” at them and watching the whole thing. I give that type of lie a 1/10.

An example of a 4/10 would be if you went up to a Psych student and asked them something like, “Do you masturbate furiously to the thought of Koko the gorilla?” They’ll deny it, but you still know they do. Still, since it’s impossible to prove, the lie is starting to get some substance to it.

An example of a 7/10 would be if you went up to Koko’s kitten and asked it “Did you tell Koko to rip the sink off the wall? Did you do it to distract your handlers while you coordinated shipments of Peruvian cocaine?” The kitten would just ignore you silently, refusing to answer the question. The fact that it’s content to pretend to be a Cabbage Patch Doll for a cranky gorilla is clear proof that it’s on the lam, but there’s no proof either way. The kitten is smart enough to play dumb. You don’t want to mess with that kitten.

It’s pretty rare that you encounter a 10/10, and I prefer to keep it that way. To that end, I’m withholding the example, but let’s just say it isn’t a coincidence that the kitten has an untrustworthy gorilla doing its dirty work.