Trust.

I told myself I should find more levity in life, what with the governments and civilisation headed into the shit as fast as... well shit off a shovel I guess.  Ashes to ashes, shit to shit.  On the other hand, my supervisor suggested I write more often and who want's to read happy thoughts? The point is I'm completely ignoring that search for happiness and focusing on something I realised I disliked when a man stopped me in the street on Monday morning.

"That's a very stripey shirt, I'm not gonna lie."

A particularly normal day at the office.

Thanks for your honesty.

There are undeniably stripes there, in a very striking way.  It is a striped shirt.  That's why I bought it.  You're probably realising I'm not concerned with his proclamation that the shirt is stripey (and probably the dark of the night sky some minutes later).  I take umbridge to the latter half of his sentence.

'I'm not gonna lie' is simultaneously seen as 'endeering' by the non-liar and 'cause for concern' by anyone who can interpret language.  If you have to apend your truthfulness onto the end of a sentence, does that mean everything else you say is a lie?  If so, your friendly statement just made me very aware.  Spectacular in its entirely opposite-to-intended effect and its superfluousness, akin to 'no offense but' and 'I'm not racist but' ,I feel we should drop this phrase from our book of phrases.

In an ideal world, the encounter would have gone like this.

"That shirt is fucking stripey."

"For real."

No 'to be honest' or 'honestly' or 'in all truthfulness' needed, thank you.  Now, I will confess that I am guilty of having used some of these extensively in the past and now that seems ridiculous to me.  So, as part of my self-improvement drive I will now wipe these constructions from my mind and instead of subconsciously giving the wrong impression that I'm a pathological liar I will hide my true intentions away.  That's the high road right?

A nice relaxed song to calm us all down.

Coming next time: I speak about contradictions?