I received a confrontational phone call from Scott. He is my youngest manchild. I have four grown children. They will always be my kids, and I refer to them as such, but after a certain point, it seems weird to affix a label to them that evokes pictures of them in their youth. So for clarity’s sake, it might be helpful for you to know that he is the only one of my offspring who has yet to hit forty.

I’m not sure if the call was prompted by Artemis II going to the moon last April or if it came organically out of the fact that he and his wife are devoted dog owners, but the conversation went something like this:

Scott – Hey, Mom, wasn’t our dog PJ supposedly named after the first dog in space?

Me with hesitation – Uhhhhh, well yeah. We named him Pushinka and called him PJ.

Scott – So you know that’s not true. Pushinka wasn’t the first dog in space.

Me – Yes, I know. Later I found out that the original Pushinka was merely the pup of one of the early Russian dogs who orbited earth safely. He’d never been to space himself. He must have been teased by all the other Russian dogs – the butt-sniff of jokes, so to speak.

Scott – So you lied to us all these years. (I think I heard his head shaking back and forth in disapproval.)

Me – Technically yes, but that was before google. I was relying on my memory, plus I liked the name. To quote George Costanza, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” I believed it.

I know I have shaken my manchild’s belief in me and justified it with a Seinfeld quote, but that’s parenting.

In honor of Father’s Day, let me throw my husband under the bus of lies along with me.

When we were raising our kids, we would often go to the baseball card store or Walmart and buy baseball cards. They would rip open the packs hoping to find one of the big named players of the times or a Baltimore Oriole – that was our family’s team going back a few generations.

One day one of our kids pulled a B J Surhoff card out of the pack and asked their dad what B J stood for. “Brian James,” Bob answered without a second thought, and we all went on our merry way.

Years later one of our sons confronted his dad declaring that B J did not stand for Brian James, but it stood for William James (Billy James, hence B J).

“But you said it with such confidence,” he stated. “Did you just make it up out of thin air?”

“Yep,” Bob answered. “If you say it with enough confidence, people will believe you.”

Well, kids, let that be a lesson to you. I’m not sure what that lesson is, but to this day we often call, “B J Surhoff” on Bob when he declares something a little too emphatically.

For the next lie, I have to tell you that I don’t remember this, but our oldest son swears it’s true. Early in life when he asked me what the BP in BP Gas Stations stood for, apparently, I told him Beatrix Potter. He believed that for years. Like I said, I don’t remember this, but it sounds like me.

I did construct a rather bold-faced lie that was a family story. I told the kids that their dad was really Superman. Bob could do or fix anything, and he was an excellent father and provider. He was and still is a jack of all trades and a master of many. I argued with the kids that they had never seen their dad and Superman in the same place. That was my main proof. Bob was always up before the crack of dawn to go to work, or possibly to take down a super villain. How were they to know!

Bob has received Superman coffee mugs, Superman t-shirts, and even Superman boxers to further back up our claim. I’m sticking with my story, and even if it is a lie – and I’m not saying it is – it’s a good one.

Happy Father’s Day to Bob and my sons and son-in-law and all you fathers out there. May all your lies be fun and silly ones that entertain your families for years to come.