To Be or Not to Be - Why It's Important To Always be Yourself

When we bought the property where we planned to build our house, there were only a few houses on this road, and the road itself was less than half a mile long. We were looking forward to living on a dead-end street and enjoying the peace and quiet. But about two weeks after we bought our land, the road was extended, building lots were sold, and soon this road became Timber Ridge Road.

When people started building on the lots farther down the road, above the lake, somebody decided this was a neighborhood for snooty people and started calling it "Snob Hill." While I disagree with the idea that the houses are any bigger or better than many houses in the area, or that the people who live in them are "snobs," I get a bit amused when people tease me about it. I always tell them, "Yes, I've always wanted to be a snob, and now I'm doing my best to learn how."

Actually, I never had any desire to be anything but what I am. Well, I might not mind being a brain surgeon or a beach bum, or the queen of England, but shoot, I'm perfectly happy with my life just the way it is.

But I wonder if most of us, at one time or another, haven't wanted to pretend for just a while to be something different from what we really are.

Recently I watched a British comedy where this man's girlfriend introduced him to her friends as a psychiatrist, although it was far from the truth. It was interesting to watch as one of the friends asked him for an appointment, and his uncomfortable attempts to convince the man that he wasn't a psychiatrist without portraying his girlfriend as a liar.

I hadn't thought of it in years, but once, a long time ago, my husband and I tried to be somebody else for a few minutes. I've always said I would never be a good liar, because I can't remember things well enough to keep my story straight if I told anything but the truth. And I'm not a good actor by anybody's description. We didn't set out to deceive anyone, but it was sort of like we got backed into a corner and were forced to try new defense tactics.

We had gone to Hawaii for our 25^th anniversary, and were walking down a street in Honolulu, window shopping and just passing time. Although we've never been art connoisseurs, we decided to look around in an art shop. We were casually looking at some paintings that cost more than our house, when a clerk approached us and started asking questions. We were both uncomfortable, feeling very much out of our element.

"Do you have any Woods?" she asked us.

"Woods? Well, no, but we do have a small pasture with a few trees on it," I thought.

Fortunately I didn't think out loud. I tried to give the impression that I had some idea what she was talking about. Unable to come up with something clever, I just said, "No, not yet."

"What art do you have?" she asked. Nosy old thing.

"Just a few oils by relatively unknown artists, so far," I said. I saw no point in telling her that I had once taken a painting class, but quit before the sessions were over because the teacher had turned out to be a pervert. I had finished the painting I was working on in the class, plus another I had started before taking the class. I'm hoping that someday they might pass for impressionistic art (although that's not what I was trying for when I painted them) and I might become famous posthumously.

We also have a couple of really good ocean paintings that my husband did early in our marriage. I don't care if they were paint-by-number. He did a great job on them and I'm proud of them.

Then she really got nosy. "What do you folks do?" she asked. My husband and I looked at each other and I said quickly, "He's with the government and I own a business." Well, that was true. He worked for the Post Office and I had a cake decorating business. It didn't matter if I was working out of my kitchen at the time, and my entire inventory totaled $237.59. It was my business.

I didn't think she was buying my story and just wanted out of that place before I got in any deeper.

It's just as well. They say you can take the person out of the country but not the country out of the person. People apparently took one look at us and formed their own opinions.

Shortly after we left that shop we went into another one, and learned that truth. Here came the nosy salesperson again. One of the first questions he asked was, "Where do you people live?"

My husband said, "We live in Oklahoma."

And the man said, "Ahhh! Oklahoma. And are you farmers?"

I don't know what point he was trying to make. We just said, "Not anymore." And we left.