I just remembered the first time I ever lied.I was in kindergarden, four maybe five years old. The teacher had us run around in a large circle or something like that. We were having some sort of gym class. And a boy pushed me rather roughly and I called back to him "stupid!" or "idiot!" or something similar. Not a very bad word anyway, now in a hindsight :)
After the gym class, the teacher called me and the boy to her and told me: "Theo said you called him stupid. Is it true?". And... you've guessed it. I went red to the tip of my ears, I think. But I said "No", loud and clear. The teacher looked at me menacingly and said "I will find out the truth eventually". And I believed she would. I believed until the end of the day she would, by some supernatural-like power that adults maybe have, find indeed out the truth and I would be punished. For something I had done and denied, though I still considered it justified. I mean, the guy was - or at least had behaved like - an idiot.
I had this sicky lump in my stomach the entire day. Not so much a bad conscience, as fear. I had lied, my first lie ever, to save myself from precisely that punishment that I feared would fall upon me eventually. Which it obviously didn't and that was a good thing, I guess, for it shook off some of that aura of supernatural power that I assumed adults must have. They really don't know everything, don't find out everything or even if they do, they couldn't really care less.
I don't even know precisely where that fear was stemming from. I had never really been properly punished, yet that spectre of punishment somehow hung over my head very menacingly. Stories I had heard, I guess. Yet, look what they made me do, sooner rather than later. And... heck, I'd still do it. I'd still rather lie than get in any kind of trouble, even be it a sad look, a raised eyebrow or a moderate lecture. Though nowadays I prefer omittance.