Betina's Secret Life. . . Revealed

Ever found yourself at a cocktail party where you hardly know anyone and everyone seems intent on intimidation? So-and-so has just been promoted to managing partner of a Big Eight accounting firm, the guy on your right has just been tapped to be Ambassador of Lichenstein, and the woman looking down her nose at your Liz Claiborne best is the editorial director of "W?" Well truthfully, neither have I. But in case I do find myself in that position, I am prepared. Following the advice of a Glamour magazine article I clipped a generation or two ago. . . I intend to lie my butt off.

Yes, yes. I can hear the creaking of spines as my fellow riders shake their heads in dismay. But truly, a well crafted and patently outrageous lie will sometimes do what no amount of earnestness and self revelation can. . . allow you to have a good time under extreme circumstances.

I've had my "big lie" in the holding pen for. . . um. . . a few years now. And at the rate I'm going, I'll probably still be holding it when I reach the Pearly Gates. (And I do not mean Bill's maiden aunt.) So here it is:

This woman. . . the queen of the mud flaps and the object of universal trucker lust. . .



is me.

It's true. In my youth, I had a brief, somewhat harrowing episode as a silhouette model. It was the same, sad old story: I met a guy in a campus bar and after a few too many diet-and-whatevers, he took me back to his place and put up a sheet and turned on a light. I giggled my way through that first degrading session. . . confusing being ogled and outlined with the beginnings of true love. Soon he was plying me with spiked Tab and Jimi Hendricks music. When I couldn't hold myself up any more, he propped me up and sprayed my hair stiff to get a few more silhouettes out of me. Then he took me back to my dorm and pushed me out of the car, and sped away.

I had no way of knowing he was a fly-by-night graphics dealer posing as an art student. He was slick-- I'll give him that. He realized right away that he had a potential gold mine on his hands. He began selling my silhouettes to cheesy print shops and rubber auto accessory manufacturers. Imagine my shock when I was driving down the highway with my respectable fiance three years later and looked up to find my silhouette-- my precious, innocent art-- decorating the mud flaps of a tractor trailer filled with Smack Ramen Noodles! And suddenly they were everywhere!

Now, as successful author, I've finally made peace with it. Sometimes, when I hit a truck stop by the interstate and see myself reclining all over those trucks' federally mandated mud flaps, I feel a small spot of warmth in my stomach. I have indeed made a difference in the world. . .

Cough, cough.

The advantage of this particular "big lie" is its versatility. I can change the story to include a number of sessions comprising a whirlwind affair-- so as not to seem too cheap. I can also claim that it was MY art-- that I produced quite a few silhouettes, which I misguidedly sold to a duplicitous art gallery owner. I can play the wounded "artiste." "There are a number of mud flaps that I'm very proud of. . ."

The aim of the "Big Lie" is entertainment in the face of stultifying boredom or staggering one-upmanship. Not to be taken seriously. . . until you're too old and too senile to remember that it's a "big lie" and you just begin to believe and enjoy it as the truth!


What about you? Don't you think it's about time you invented an alternative past for yourself? Or maybe several? With a writer's imagination, you ought to be able to come up with something really good! Care to share?