Poop Shute

Lying Liars (Not Al Franken's Book) Part II

Meg and I spent most of the day going around to various free museums (that's right, I said free!) and came home late in the evening to find all of our housemates hanging out in the common room.

All except one: Antti.

Of course, all we could talk about was the events of that morning, and Christian's version seemed to be the more plausible of the two. Two key things made us all feel this way: 1 Christian had evidence on his throat, and 2 Antti is the one who fled the house. If Antti was the victim, as he claimed, then why would he flee from a houseful of friends? Why wouldn't he come right to us with it? Like Christian did, for example.

After much discussion I was leaning toward believing Christian. Plus, I was a tad biased towards him anyway. He and I bonded right off and became good friends. BUT, I was still willing to give Antti the benefit of the doubt.

Then he walked in and sat down in the middle of the conversation in absolute awkward silence. Well, HE was in absolute awkward silence, I had been talking about him as I heard the door open and I seemlessly changed topic to the museums without missing a beat. it was my attempt to minimize animosity in any direction, especially my own.

A mutual friend of Christian and Antti (Andrew) came over and mediated a sort of "family meeting" among all of us.

Whatever benefit of any doubt that Antti had went straight out the window after about two seconds of observing him.

Here's a short list of everything I observed in Antti's behavior over the next hour or so:

1. He closed off his body to everyone by crossing his arms AND legs and keeping his head down
2. He was doing the "hard sell." Meaning he was overdoing the emphatic hand and head gestures
3. Rarely ever did he make eye contact with ANYONE in the room.
4. He ceaselessly fidgeted with his keys showing his agitation and nervous energy
5. He constantly touched his face, yet another sign of closing off the body from us
6. When not "hard selling" it he was doing this fake non-chalance that was totally inapropriate and obviously forced.
7. He had this tight tension in his face, especially in the eyes. His eyes looked pinched.

Even without all that to consider I had one other technique up my sleeve. I kept asking the same questions again and again and kept getting different answers. Beyond that he was also constantly attempting to distract from himself and deflect attention onto anybody but him. He even went so far as to make up nasty things that other housemates had done to each other showing that his mind was nowhere near rational thought at that moment.

He was asked to leave, and the landlord gave him a key to another property down the road. Andrew finally wrenched the truth out of him. Christian was right. He cried and apologized to each of us. I was not alone in feeling that "I'm sorry" is too little too late. No matter how honest and heartfelt an apology he gave, it cannot restore my faith in his self control after an episode like that.

Speaking of "episode" After Antti left I neatly broke the tension by pointing out that so far our little group would make the best reality show EVER. True story.