Growing up, I was confused: often I was told that “honesty is the best policy” and then, when I would be honest about something – often brutally so, like the time I asked the Asbestos Survey man if we would die from inhaling it, and he said "perhaps" – I would be told: “that saying doesn’t apply in that context, silly”. This got me thinking about all kinds of other things, like what other sayings there were that could be easily misinterpreted. They were troublesome years, as I got to know what I could and couldn’t say, and I offended people on a daily basis with my comprehensive honesty that left no stone unturned...
I recall one particularly devastating memory – devastating not for me in any way, at least until I understood the mental torture I had put the person through – of a hairdresser coming to cut my hair at home (she would come to my home because it was another way of keeping me in the house so I couldn’t be honest at a whole load of people who I otherwise would do). She walked in, her hair was sticking up a mess everywhere, and I said, “I know it’s supposed to look good, but it looks utterly rubbish, doesn’t it? Is that the look you were going for? The utterly rubbish look?” This sent the hairdresser packing before she could get within six feet of my hairy scruffy head.
So that was a problem, and mum sat me down and told me never to comment on how other people looked. Which was why I took it to heart. The next time we were walking down the street I said to someone in a wheelchair “I would comment about how you don’t have a right leg, but I was told never to, as it would hurt that person’s feelings, have a nice day”. Suffice to say after that we had to have a big serious conversation to make sure that I didn’t alienate our family from the entire village.
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