The Great Lima Bean Lie

My innaugural lesson on the art of manipulation came at the end of my first day in kindergarten. My brother was the teacher.  After Mom picked me up from church school, she drove to the carpool line at Henderson Mill Elementary where we waited for Jim. As kids filed out along the sidewalk, I saw my big brother (11-months older) ending his first day of first grade. He approached our car with something the color of school bus yellow smeared down his jeans, like a Playdo explosion. When he hopped in the car, he announced he had a present for Mom: Lima beans from lunch. He "thought of her" when he saw them (he knew she liked Lima beans) so he wrapped them in a napkin and stuck them in his pocket.

Even to a five-year-old in the backseat this didn't sound believable. I had watched Jim in countless face-offs at the dinner table refusing to eat vegetables, any shape, color or size. Mom had a "you're not leaving the table until your plate is clean" approach to child-rearing. In this regard (maybe only in this regard) I was easy. I eat everything. Not Jim. He tried his best to swallow vegetables whole. I heard him gulp heaps of anything green (the tiniest peas caused the biggest gags). Jim probably thought he couldn't leave the cafeteria without cleaning his plate. The great Lima bean lie seemed to work; Mom reached across the bench seat of our Buick and gave him a big hug.

What's your earliest memory of someone telling a white lie?