Everyone lies.

There are many different flavors of lies: outright falsehoods, lies of omission, denials, exaggerations and fabrications. There are also a multitude of reasons to lie: fear of retribution, power, prevention of disastrous consequences, even boredom. As humans living in a society, we’ve come to accept and understand lies as part of our daily existence. Sometimes, these lies are helpful or even necessary for our shared existence to be manageable.

We lie to our bosses and tell them we’re sick. When my four-year-old wants to play Zingo for the fifth time in a row, “I have to do the dishes” will be received better than “I can only play this game so many times before I take it and hide it from you and tell you we’ve lost it.” We’d rather see a slab of beef with a “MANAGER’S SPECIAL” sticker slapped on it than a more truthful “CHEAP BECAUSE YOU BETTER COOK THIS TONIGHT OR IT’LL MAKE YOU SICK.”

We lie to ourselves all the time. I’ll get the garage organized this weekend. It’s fine I didn’t get that job, I didn’t really want it anyway. One more beer and then I’m headed home. We know they’re lies, but we tell them anyway. We know how to lie to ourselves, and we accept the lies others tell us, because sometimes that’s easier than facing the truth. This is the social contract we have made.

Lately that social contract is beginning to break down. We know the rich and powerful are going to lie to us, we just ask them to put a modicum of effort into those lies. For years, they did, and both sides silently agreed this was, if not “good,” at least fine. We accepted the lies in professional sports more readily, because the consequences of accepting those lies were harmless; Service time manipulation, not signing a free agent, the noise-meter inside stadiums, none of these had any material impact on our daily lives.

This morning, T-Mobile Park announced that in the interest of health and safety during these, say it with me, unprecedented times, outside food would no longer be allowed in the stadium.

This is a blatant lie, without any effort to conceal it, another indication that whatever the message, wherever the venue, incompetence is the one true Mariner constant. Allowing me to bring a sandwich from home is safer than standing in line with others who may or may not be vaccinated, who may or may not be complying with the mask mandate, to be served food from a kitchen where underpaid, overworked game day staff are almost certainly not going to be able perform their jobs properly while observing social distancing guidelines. This is, as are most lies major corporations tell, a money-grabbing excuse. Except they forgot to put effort into making the lie reasonable. They broke the social contract of lies.

This all comes nearly a month after Kevin Mather got the bright idea to be truthful to the Bellevue Rotary Club. What Mather said during that breakfast was troublesome, but what bothered me most was how unsurprising it was. Did any of his revelations actually surprise you? Were we upset because what he was saying surprised us – or because Mather broke the wink wink social contract and, for once, didn’t lie?

Right now, the Mariners, as an organization, are flailing in many areas, falling short at both being honest and at lying competently. They need to figure out how to do something – anything – competently, and soon. Or I, and a number of other fans and going to be leaving the team behind. And that’s no lie.