Lies, Lies, Lies...Yeah

I consider myself a fairly honest person. I don't cheat on my taxes (not intentionally), I don't steal from my neighbors, I try not to make promises I can't keep. However, I am guilty of committing a food lie or two. I'm sure you have probably told a food lie (especially you parents) or have been a victim of someone's food lie. Here's my story.
My son, Justus, like many other kids was a VERY picky eater as a young child. He refused to eat any beef or pork (I never tried to force him to either) and very little fish or chicken. He did and does love vegetables so I was happy with that, sort of.
When he was about 4 years-old he tried his best to convince me that his diet should consist of Chicken McNuggets, only Chicken McNuggets. Of course that wasn't happening. But I did find that the quickest way to him to eat meals that I prepared was to tell him that we would have McDonald's for the next meal. Needless to say that "next meal" would only happen about once a week or so. Okay. That was food lie #1. Not too bad. It gets worse.
One of the meals that he would occasionally agree to eat without the bribe of my "McLie" was that delicious dinner staple of the Midwest-THE CASSEROLE. In this instance it was TUNA casserole, but I never told him that there was tuna in it. Tuna had been added to his long list of "food don'ts" about 6 months earlier, so I knew he would refuse to eat it if he heard that word.
As with any lie, this took a lot of work to pull off. The entire family had to be brought in. The word TUNA was never to be used in the kitchen again. Cans of tuna had to be hidden and quickly disposed of once emptied. I managed to pull it off for quite some time. He turned 5 and still unknowingly loved tuna. Then, as it always does, the truth came out. I must have gotten lazy and forgot the first rule of my "food lie club": Don't talk about Tuna.
One evening as Justus sat polishing away his second helping of casserole, I was chatting on the phone with a friend of mine. My friend asked what I made for dinner that night. Unbelievably I answered, "I made TUNA casserole." All hell broke loose then. Justus jumped up from the table, confronted me about my food lie, busted the rest of the family and vowed that he would never trust any of us again. When he finally stormed away he was mumbling something about food conspiracies and I think he threatend to move out.
How could I have been so careless? My carefully crafted lie, all the extra steps to hide the lie-everything fell apart. Justus barely spoke to the family for about a week. He spoke to me the least as he considered me the ring leader of this tuna conspiracy. Eventually everything went back to normal or so I thought...
About four weeks later Justus was supposed to clean his room. I was in the kitchen, cleaning up from the night's dinner when I called out to him to see if he was through with his room. "Yes, Mom," he replied in his sweetest voice. I think we all watched a movie that night and then sent Justus off to bed. When I went to tuck him in I walked into a disaster area, not a bedroom. I brought him out in front of the rest of the family so that we could discuss his lying about his rrom. I told him that I was hurt that he lied to me. Without a pause he looked me squarely in the eye and said,"You lied to me...I lied to you." And walked away! I was dumbfounded as was the rest of the family. I should have dragged his little butt back in the room, but I was speechless. We all sat there dazed and confused. Then it finally registered: he was talking about the TUNA!!!! We almost fell off of our chairs trying to muffle our laughter!
I let him get away with that one. After all, he was the victim of my food lie and he did have a hell of a comeback!