Pinocchio Clones

In the restaurant business, a big personality is a requirement.  You have to be able to talk to people easily and make small talk and jokes at leisure.  You have to know your stuff, but what happens when you don't?  

We lie.

My roommate had a table of two elderly ladies.

"Are you seeing anyone in this establishment?" One of them asked.  

"Yes." She lied.  "His name is AJ." She pointed at the host at the front door.

"Aw, do you love him?" 

"Yes, I love him very much."  The ladies clapped their hands together excitedly and squealed like little girls.

"That's so great!  I don't see a ring though."

"Oh I'm only 23, there's plenty of time for that later."

"Do you both want kids?" 

"Yes we both want lots of kids." She held back her laughter as the ladies' smiles grew wider.  She introduced them to our friend AJ and they barraged him with questions which he was hardly able to field without her help.  He's never been a server and not exactly an avid talker and floundered miserably until he was able to escape.  

We lie about everything.

"Are you in school?"  While I could easily say, yes, 'I'm just finishing up my undergraduate degree at UMass even though I'm already 25' , I find myself fastforwarding to the future where I'm already in law school and I spin that story.   Let's face it, it sounds better and sometimes it's just easier to lie than tell the truth about ourselves.  

We have to lie to suit your personality and your interests.  If you're sitting in the lounge avidly watching the Celtics game, I'll find out some random fact and talk to you about it like I too follow the C's even though I don't think I've ever watched a whole game.  

We lie about your children being well behaved, about the gaudy broach you're wearing and tell you it's alright and we're in no rush when you take fifteen minutes to decide on a glass of water to drink.  

We lie about our job too, namely the food.  

"Yes sir, the carbonara is fantastic," minus the gooey texture it transforms into as soon as it comes off the stove and I'm sure without the ten pounds of salt and astounding lack of pancetta it would be good.

"It should just be a couple more minutes until your food's ready," except it will really be ten because I totally forgot to put it in the computer.

It's not spiteful.  We don't do it to be mean.  It may be a bit manipulative, but that's business and we're in the worst kind of it.