By Kara Hallam
Staff Writer

I get that no one wants a lecture on all the things us teenagers should and should not be doing, but from a pretty expert liar, if I do say so to myself, lying to your parents or authority should be avoided as much as possible.

There are a lot of reasons I do not lie to my parents anymore. First of all, I always get caught. Not because I am a bad liar, but mostly because it seems the universal order is out to get me.

There was this one time I drove my friend and his brother home from school and because I am 17, the law states that I cannot drive more than one person. Just as I stopped at a red light my mom conveniently got out of her car at Tangerine Hair Salon and saw all three of us in the car.

Another time, my friend and I went to Family Video without asking my parents first and as I was backing out my car, I hit another parked car and had to call my parents for help.

The worst one by far, however, had to be the pool party.

My parents looked at me absolutely horrified after just discovering I had lied about sneaking out to a party. All I could think was, “Well I am a teenager lying to your parents is kind of just a thing we do.”

I had just almost snuck out to a pool party held by my old private school friends telling my parents that I was just going to go see “The Great Gatsby” with friends. Just before the party I had decided I did not want to go and actually did go see that movie.

I did not tell my parents I was planning on going to this party: one because it was hosted by a guy that they did not know and two I had skipped class (in my defense it was on one of those lecture hall days after STAAR) to go get my swim suit from my house.

I thought I was in the clear, I did not lie to my parents about big stuff before then but if I ever forgot to tell them I was going somewhere while I was hanging out with friends, I would just “forget” to mention that part when they asked me what I did at my friends house. Or if drove some home from school and forgot to ask them that would slip my mind too.

However, I was not so in the clear. I came home after the movies, never setting foot in the house where the party was hosted, with my parents and my sister sitting in the den looking practically staged.

“How were the movies?” My mom asked as I was scrolling on my Facebook on my phone. That is when I saw that the host of the party had tagged me and about 30 other people in a Facebook post about being at the party. What a show off.

I tried to hide my surprise, and then described the plot of the movie. This basically turned into two hours unraveling lie after lie about whether or not I went to that party. Did I mention I had left the door unlocked after I had skipped class to get my swim suit?

I had them convinced I had never planned on going to the party but the guy had just randomly tagged me and that I did not know why the door was unlocked. Unfortunately, my 26-year-old sister, now a full adult and no longer a teenager,  knew better.

She offered to pull my car in for me and then returned with the swimsuit I had hid underneath the floor of my rug. I was officially busted.

This was surprisingly not the last of my lies. It took a lot to get the lesson across but we can just leave it at I now have a GPS on my phone that my parents check almost every minute I am out of the house.

Your parents can only trust you so many times as annoying as their paranoia can get long as they keep a roof over your head, you have got to follow their rules.

Lying is stressful. You might be in it for the one time time of your life, but you will not really enjoy it if you are constantly worrying about getting caught.

When I lied I just always thought that is just a thing kids do to their parents. What you want to do is not wrong but they are not cool enough to get it.

You may even be surprised to what your parents might let you do: all you have to do is ask.

The trust with authority is not one you want to break. These are the adults who use their time and money to take care of you. You might think you cannot get caught but there are always ways it can get back to you.