An innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more characteristic term.

Today I was bustling around, feeling happy. Jane was being particularly cheerful and serene, thanks to a combination of the liberal application of cheese and the end of her latest bout of teething. The sun was shining, I'd gotten some chores done, school's out for the summer, tra la la di la la. 

Jane and I were toddling around together at the edge of our tiny yard when a teenaged girl walked up and said, "Excuse me, can I use your bathroom?"

"Sorry," I said. And then, instead of saying something true, like "my hands are full with the baby," or "my husband is on a business call inside," I said, "It's not my house."

WHY? What imp of the perverse possessed me? 

"Oh," she said, "I thought you lived around here," as I thought, WHAT THE FUCK and WHY DID YOU SAY THAT and WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, smiling feebly, until she went away. Now I imagine she will probably spend the next year seeing me around town and thinking, "There goes that horrible woman who lied to me instead of just letting me pee."

Outstanding success. Maybe you could tell me something incomprehensible and/or stupid you did recently, to make me feel better.

(But probably not, because that kind of naked request for comments rarely works, does it? And all the less so when you add it to the end of your post a day after you posted it in the first place.)

Comments

[anapestic]

Well, you're a renter, so your answer is technically true, though perhaps neither as direct as one of your alternatives nor as entertaining as "It's not my dog."

[redfox]

I wish my imp of the perverse worked more on the "It's not my dog" model.

[Elsa]

Okay, I will tell you something stupid that I did almost a year ago and that I still think of regularly, unbidden and with a sudden hot thump of mild shame.

There was a wonderful used bookstore a few blocks from my home, and predictably I stopped in there at least once a week for the past few years. (For whatever reason, the owner never grew to recognize me, and often viewed me with the kind of suspicious that only the elderly and bookish can radiate.) Then the owner decided to retire, so she announced that the shop was closing.

A month or so before the closing, on similarly satisfying day to the one you describe, I finished a busy round of errands and tasks by stopping into the bookstore, where of course the owner looked at me askance.

I said to her, "I'll be so sorry to see the store close. The whole neighborhood will miss you."

For the first time ever, she smiled at me. She said modestly, "Well, that's a shame."

... and I said, "I'm sure we'll muddle along."

I am an idiot.

[kmkat]

Don't feel badly. She probably was a kleptomaniac/axe murderer, and your imp enabled you to escape a fate worse than death.

[Suze]

I'm with kmkat... you didn't know her and she didn't know you, and it was strange.

[Mum]

The last time I let a stranger into my (shared) home to "use the bathroom", she stole my roommate's ring and my last $20. I was 19, and haven't done so since. Probably she was fine, but maybe not.

[redfox]

Elsa: THANK YOU. I love you. Sudden hot thumps of mild shame are the story of my life.

Kmkat, Suze, and Mum: You all make a fine point, but surely I could have avoided letting her in without telling a wholly gratuitous lie. Although, now that I think about it, if she did have something nefarious in mind, that would make it exceedingly unlikely that she spent or will spend any time thinking about what a big liar I am!