I lied about having kids.

I'll remove my anonymous cloak for this one. (Hello to all the newcomers to this little anonymous-based community I've cobbled together!)

This was a few years ago. I was waiting for my food at the counter of this fast food establishment.

The girl behind the counter was making small talk with one of her coworkers and one of the customers. "Do you have kids?" she asked the man.

The man nodded.

The girl then made this proclamation: "All the cute guys have kids!"

Indeed, the customer was empirically an attractive man.

She turned to another customer -- who also happened to be a decent-looking man. "Do YOU have kids?"

The 2nd good-looking man laughed and nodded.

"SEE??" she cawed at her coworker, at her continually proven hypothesis.

Then she turned toward me and seemed to consider me for what seemed like a small eternity. Then she asked, perhaps with a little more uncertainty than the first two times:

"Do you have kids...?"

For the record, I don't have kids.

I don't now and I didn't then.

But if I admitted that I didn't have kids to this girl, under the oppressive weight of her proposition -- would I, then, be saying that I was NOT a "cute guy"?!

At the terrifying prospect of not being considered a cute guy by some random girl who I'd probably never see again, I smiled and nodded at the counter girl... suggesting that I had kids.

The girl exclaimed with greater conviction than ever: "SEE?? ALL THE CUTE GUYS HAVE KIDS!!!"

Then I took my crappy bag of fast food and skulked away from the lie that I'd left behind. My fragile ego soothed slightly at the idea of being characterized as "cute".