Two different times I have discovered that small fibs can catch up to you years later.
Pictures set the stage:


The first tale happened years ago, when I was parts manager at Richmond Power Eqpt. and I had just come back from a business driving trip to the western part of Virginia. I was in my office showing some pictures of that to some people and a wise guy Tom W. came in uninvited and was sort of horning in on the conversation. He was always one of those guys who you respected, because he was a perfectionist and knew it, but was always imposing on others. Some had other three and four letter names for him. Always wanted to zing him some way.

Anyhow, I don't have the actual picture, but it looked very much like the barn pic above, taken in the same era and area, but it was of an old log house with a wisp of smoke from the chimney, a path and chickens and all that. I had seen this from the car and snapped, loving the country charm. I told Tom, much to the chuckles of everybody else, that this was where I lived, out in the country not far from Richmond, and that old lady in the shawl just visible in front, was my aged Mother, who lived with us. Tom left the room, but I thought he got the joke.

Fast forward about four years . . . one day for some reason or other, somebody mentioned in Tom's presence that all the houses in my subdivision looked similar, and Tom said he thought I lived in a log cabin. I laughed, then realized he had bought that fib and believed it all that time. I had zinged him without even knowing I had. Maybe you had to have been there.

Update: An anonymous comment floated in from someone claiming to be Tom, (which I doubt) but I feel compelled to amend my story only by adding that later on, Tom (or I) mellowed a bit, and he turned out to be a much nicer guy than I had thought, but still a perfectionist.

Jenner Sky

Second joke-fib: This one is on Martha, which I told her probably back at Allegheny, I know it was before we were married, anyway. I looked up at the sky one afternoon and saw a pattern of ribbed clouds that some call a mackerel sky, sort of like the clip above, and since I have always tried the puns at any excuse, I told her that my family used to call it a "Jenner Sky". I was quite sure that she got the joke that it sounds like "generous guy" because I repeated it and laughed with her. I thought.

Well, years and years later, probably 20, we were out somewhere and she asked me if that looked like a Jenner Sky up there. I laughed, and after we both figured out that she had been fooled so many years, we laughed for about two days straight. Maybe you had to have been there.