last first day

Today was my last first day of college..maybe ever. I was, naturally 15 minutes late to my first class. I fully lied on the way to school. I rarely lie, I exaggerate (not intentionally, but because my memory always has the fish a few inches longer). I thought about my exaggerative memory a lot today, because my mom always says after I finish a childhood story, "Oh Alli, it wasn't that good." For example, I believed in Santa a little too long because my pre-school, Peace Lutheran, played a fun trick on a group of 4 year olds containing me. They played Christmas carols and then had some adults on the roof pounding their feet (my teacher said it was reindeer),followed by a classic Santa "ho ho ho" and more pounding feet, and finally my teacher flinging open the door and having presents for us. My memory- I saw Santa that day.. really I did.
So.. about today..I hate lying. It's not a practice I partake in- to be honest, I'm really bad at it. Today on the trolley, I got carded for a trolley pass and I showed last semester's and the trolley cop (whose only armor includes a walkie-talkie to call the real police) got really upset. I don't think I was the first person that day to pull the trick. So he demanded to know why I hadn't bought a regular pass. I explained that I was on my way to school to buy this semester's. Seemed valid to me. He looked at me and grabbed the only other thing on his belt armor, a ticket booklet. Now, this fine is not some lame $15 deal, I've heard from a couple people that MTS fines are over $100. I blurted out, "I was told it was alright." He squinted with his gray-haired eyebrows, and asked (as if we were in an interrogation), "Who said that?" At this point, I'm committed to the lie. I need to run with confidence in the direction of total dishonesty or take the big ticket. I thought to myself, "I have books to buy!" I said, "An officer at Old Town."
I'm shaking, it so obvious that I'm not good at this and that no officer told me a single thing. He wants a description- what color hair, race, pant color, age... he's now just toying with me. I looked up for answers, but instead I just wanted to admit that I'm a sinner. The guy across the way had gray hair, Hispanic, brown pants, and middle aged. That's my answer. I HATED the way I felt. This man had something to prove, so he takes his talkie and radios Old Town, gives the description, waits for response, etc. This bought me some time, and got me closer to SDSU. He came back to me after a bunch of "10-4"s and said, "I think you're lying." I said, "I have $2.25 here in my purse, I'm getting off at the next stop and I'll pay". The next stop was SDSU, he agreed saying that he'd radio (shock!) the Security Office and he wanted me to buy a pass and then show it to the office. I nodded. I got off and did as he said, but the Security Office was completely empty, so I waved it at some glass and got to class late. The $100 dollar ticket would have taught me a lesson, I think this was more humorous than anything else. I woke up at 6am and it's 11:15pm right now, so much has happened today in 17 hours. Legit, fun, exciting things that are newsworthy...and I chose to write about a lie?