"Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive."
When you own a couple of bars, you hear just about everything.
One afternoon, three of my regular customers entered one of our neighborhood bars and quickly ordered three beers and some bourbon.
All three of the gentlemen appeared to be disturbed about something. But two of the gentlemen seemed to be particularly upset with the third gentleman... who tried to console his two friends by paying for their round of drinks.
Now, there are two ways I could have found out what was going on with these guys.
I could have ear-hustled... eavesdropped-in on their conversation.
Or I could have done what I did. Just asked them, "What's up?"
The two gentlemen who were upset with the third gentleman, eagerly responded.
Apparently, the third gentleman, Hyden, had received a court order to appear in court for a paternity suit.
Having successfully avoided a DNA test that would have possibly confirmed that he had fathered a child by the woman who was seeking child support from him, Hyden had come up with a clever plan to refute her claims of his paternity.
He had devised a plan to defame the character of the child's mother... to paint her as a whore... promiscuous... and therefore, not certain who fathered her child.
To do this, Hyden had recruited two of his closest friends (the two gentlemen who were seated with him at the bar) to appear in court with him... to testify that they each had had sexual relations with the woman-in-question prior to her pregnancy.
Despite the woman's vehement denials of the two men's claims in court, the judge listened to their complete testimonies.
In closing, Hyden told the court that inasmuch as the woman who had brought this paternity suit against him had had many sexual encounters leading up to her conception of the child-in-question, the father of the child could be
ANYONE. But most importantly... it didn't have to be him.
After a few minutes to consider the matter and to consider the two men's testimonies... the judge issued his ruling.
Having (no doubt) seen through Hyden's attempt to defame the woman and to deceive the court... the judge ruled, "Since these two men have testified under oath that they could conceivably be the father of this child... and since the defendant (Hyden) did not prove (to the satisfaction of this court) that he did not father this child... it is the ruling of this court that
ALL three of you gentlemen are hereby ordered by this court to pay child support for this child... until such time as
ALL three of you produce DNA results (from a court-approved paternity testing facility) that would prove otherwise."
And to add insult to injury... each man was informed that they would have to pay $600.00 each for the court-ordered paternity testing... along with the court costs for the current hearing.
They were devastated.
But why?!
Hyden's plan had worked!
They had successfully defamed the character of the woman seeking child support for her child. But in doing so, they got tangled-up in their own lies and deceit.
What they hadn't realized was that their testimonies did not prove that Hyden was
NOT the father of the child. Their testimonies only proved that they
COULD be the father of the child... too!
And rather than charge Hyden and his two witnesses with perjury... the judge decided to accept their testimony on face value and force each of the two innocent men to clear their own names... for a nice sum of money. An appropriate punishment.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
Boy, did Walter Scott hit the nail on the head when he wrote that line!
And as I looked at the three miserable faces of these men seated at my bar as they drank steadily to find the bottom of their bottles... I couldn't help but chuckle inside.
Here, three ol' spiders sat side-by-side... all tangled-up in their own sticky webs of lies and deceit.
What a bunch of losers!
What a smart judge!
What a lucky child... to go from having no father to having three fathers... at least until two of them can come up with the money to prove that they're not his father!
In the meantime, Hyden and his two buddies have gone from lying to crying... into their beers.
The rhythm of this blue note is:
All the reasons why we lie seem to fade away when we are tried by our own lies.[Modificato da deeo'rumpshaker 25/09/2010 07:27]