MDBCs 04 Apr 2024

The holiday of unknown origins comes just a few days after another holiday that celebrates trickery and lying - April Fool's Day and a few weeks before Honesty Day, a made-up holiday that honors the virtue of honesty and truth-telling.

Acceptable Lying

While the name suggests that the holiday encourages people to tell lies all day long, we would like to think that the day is not an actual celebration of lying but an acknowledgment that lying is part of life, and sometimes people have to lie to make others feel better. Such lies are called white lies and are possibly the only form of lying acceptable within most religions, cultures, and societies.

Other acceptable forms of lying include: lying while playing a game (bluffing), lies made for the purposes of amusement of the liar or other people (jocose lies), and untruthful statements made without any malicious intent (honest lie).

This holiday is also known as National Tell a Lie Day in the US.

How to Celebrate?

While we cannot in good conscience endorse or encourage lying, here are some harmless ways to celebrate this "fictional" holiday:

Missed April Fool's Day? Use this day to make up for it by playing harmless tricks on friends, family, and colleagues.
Make up silly stories about harmless things and recount them to the people around you. Who knows, you may even get a laugh or two out of your listeners!
Read more about how to detect deception and lying.
Play games that require bluffing.
Read tales that warn people about the dangers of lying. Some of these tales include The Boy who Cried Wolf and Pinocchio.

Did You Know...

...that a true or false response to the question this statement is not true leads to a contradiction called the Liar's Paradox? If the response to this statement is that it is true, then the statement is false, and if the response to the statement is that it is false, then the statement is true.

***

I purchased a new desktop-publishing program that surprised me by containing a make-a-paper-airplane option. I decided to give it a try. After I selected the plane I wanted, the software gave me a choice of accessories available for my plane, including a stick-up tail, adjustable flaps and an AM/FM radio. Out of curiosity I chose the AM/FM radio.

The program responded with a message box stating: "Come on, be serious. These are just paper airplanes.

***

Luke, our venturesome 14-month-old son, was at my mother-in-law's house. He was playing with her car keys when the phone rang. After hanging up, my mother-in-law realized that Luke had put the keys down someplace, but she couldn't find them anywhere. Thinking quickly, she gave him another set of keys.

As she pretended not to look, Luke toddled around the corner and into her bedroom. Then she watched as he carefully placed the second set of keys under her bed—right next to the original car keys.

***

I had finished my Christmas shopping early and had wrapped all the presents. Having two curious children, I had to find a suitable hiding place. I chose an ideal spot—the furnace room. I stacked the presents and covered them with a blanket, positive they'd remain undiscovered.

When I went to get the gifts to put them under the tree, I lifted the blanket and there, stacked neatly on top of my gifts, were presents addressed to "Mom and Dad, From the Kids."

***

A man rushed to the jewelry counter in the store where I work soon after the doors opened one morning and said he needed a pair of diamond earrings. I showed him a wide selection, and quickly he picked out a pair.

When I asked him if he wanted the earrings gift-wrapped, he said, "That'd be great. But can you make it quick? I forgot today was my anniversary, and my wife thinks I'm taking out the trash."