fake kappa

Fifteen years ago, my son started kindergarten and I was still acclimating to living as a full time mom in the suburbs.  While he was in preschool, I made two really good friends, Kirsten and Daphne. My son and their kids started kindergarten at different public schools in our town.  Kirsten and Daphne made a new friend at their school and they were excited to introduce her to me. She was fun and “normal” and, even better, she was a “Kappa” (my sorority at the large public university I attended) and we were both students there at the same time.

“Great,” I told Kirsten and Daphne. “I’m excited to meet her.  But, I have to tell you, she wasn’t in my sorority.” And, thus the saga of the “fake Kappa” began.

Kirsten and Daphne were also Kappas but at a different school and, as prior members of a Greek system, they were well versed in sorority names.  If you were in a fraternity or sorority, the name of your house sticks with you. It’s very clear to me and everyone else in the Greek system at my school that, as a “Kappa,” I was in Kappa Kappa Gamma.  Even though Kappa Delta was right across the street from us and almost 30 years have gone by since I pledged, I would not be confused about which house I was in. My step-father is 74 years old and he very clearly remembers being a ZBT at Miami University.  Trust me, this information doesn’t suddenly escape you.

I figured that I could clear up the confusion with “fake Kappa” pretty easily with one or two quick emails.  I asked Kirsten and Daphne to introduce us on email and assured them that I would be polite and friendly.

“Hey [fake Kappa],” I wrote, “It’s so funny that we were in the same house and now are both in the same town.  I was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, pledge class ’88. What year did you pledge?” I wrote some other stuff too, but that was just fluff to get to the real issue at hand.

“I pledged in ’89,” [fake Kappa] replied. “But I wasn’t around much because I was in a car accident and missed a quarter of school.”

Interesting. I would definitely remember if there was a pledge that was in a car accident.  I had been very invested in being in my sorority especially because ‘89 was my first year rushing prospective pledges. I took the job seriously while wearing the required costumes, singing the sorority-themed songs, performing the dances and conscientiously voting each evening on every single rushee. 

I had to ask more questions of “fake Kappa” because I wanted to set the record straight and make sure that she understood that I knew she was lying. And, honestly, I was entirely dumbstruck by the fact that someone who was married with kids would bother lying about what sorority she was in a lifetime ago.  There is no adult “street cred” for having been in a “good” house. 

To get into a sorority, we went through seven days of rush which included one day of twelve “parties”, a formal “Preference Night” and “Bid Day.”  Then, we spent four years going to meetings, exchanges, formals, big sister week, work week, rush and little sister rush while wearing Kappa keys on our necklaces and puffy painting everything in sight with “KKG.”  We all know what sorority we were in and we know that if we tell someone we were a Kappa that does not mean we were a Kappa Delta. I know that sounds bitchy and shallow, but that is the truth.

I decided that a little research was in order because I wanted to respond to “fake Kappa” with a few solid facts. I put out an email to about eight women who were Kappas with me. I specifically chose people who I thought would appreciate the humor in this investigation and take a few minutes to help me uncover the needed evidence. Luckily, my friend Liz took this effort to heart and ventured into her basement storage to find her “Glory Days,” our school’s official Greek yearbook (yes, the Greek system at our school published a yearbook as well as a semi-regular newspaper.)

Liz was happy to report that she located the yearbooks and had broken the case wide open.  Our “fake Kappa” was not, as we suspected, in any of our Kappa Kappa Gamma composites. But, her picture did appear in one yearbook and she was listed as a Kappa Delta.  Boom! I had the goods and was contemplating how to approach “fake Kappa” with the cold hard facts. She absolutely knew that she had mis-spoken (at the very least) about her sorority and I cannot imagine that it was unintentional. 

I should mention that my husband was following along with these developments and felt that I was the problem in this scenario.  He defended “fake Kappa” and said that she probably confused the nickname of her house or didn’t realize that the abbreviation of just “kappa” did not include Kappa Delta.  I pointed out that he has not forgotten what house he was in and that she was the one who was lying. We still have some unresolved baggage over the “fake Kappa” incident and one other situation that happened around the same time where another adult bold-faced lied to me about his tennis rating.  But, that’s probably not relevant to the completion of this story.

I composed a delicate email reply to fake Kappa and explained that I felt the need to pull out the Greek Yearbooks because it was bothering me that we didn’t remember each other.  And, guess what I found in the yearbooks? Yes, my new friend, you were not in my house after all. And, now I know it and you know that I know it. I expected a concession at the very least and potentially even a full apology.  Oh, but that’s not what I got.

Fake Kappa replied with something entirely unexpected and took no ownership for the lie. She somehow stepped around my research, my well-worded accusation and my calling her out.  She simply said, “Oh, that’s so funny.” I was blown away by the elegant avoidance. I’m still in awe of what she did – both the lying and the denial of the lying. How do you get caught in a lie and just not address it? Why am I still amazed that adults don’t always tell the truth?

Fifteen years later, people still ask me for updates on the “fake Kappa.” My update is that we never spoke about it again. We met in person, had kids on the same swim team and saw each other at the Little League fields. For several years, I even invited her to our annual Halloween party and she attended at least once. Her son, my son and all of the other kindergarteners who sparked this whole conversation are now juniors in college.  The story still gets laughs and I still wonder about adults who lie about stupid stuff.