For example:

1. I don’t really like the white meat in poultry. I eat it only if there are no other choices and/or if it has been seasoned so thoroughly that I cannot tell it is white meat. (I can always tell, I can just pretend not to care long enough to get it down when it’s heavily seasoned).

** Except for the fact that I have just insulted half of the body of every chicken, turkey, quail and grouse etc. on the planet and while I cannot rule out some sort of revolution headed up by a mutant band of feathered ruffians who would really rather not be eaten at all – nothing in my immediate life gets better or worse by revealing this truth about my meat-eating preferences.

2. Perhaps I haven’t lived long enough but I hope I will never ever hear a sound I hate quite as much as the sound of a vacuum at work.

** Okay, being the sort of person who will apologize to my car for slamming his (yes, his) door and who has had bizarrely long conversations with a teddy bear on occasion, I’m all for the personification of inanimate objects and I honestly don’t mean to hurt the feelings of vacuum cleaners by saying I don’t like how they sound but I don’t. And, maybe if more of us speak out then vacuum cleaners everywhere might be fashioned in such a way by their makers so as to avoid the rumbling, screeching, soul-rattling chaos that is their voice at present. I know, I know, who am I to judge the communication strategies and styles of vacuum cleaners and their kind? But, honestly, does my life change at all by sharing this truth? I still won’t vacuum (I sweep the carpet when I feel it needs it) and I will still feel every muscle in my body tense, my brain rattle, when someone else does vacuum.

3. I love putting mayonnaise on pasta. Mixing it with tomato sauce is good. On its own with a bit of Parmesan is good too. It’s like a divine poor-man’s cream sauce alternative and there are days I dream of it wantonly.

** Now, certainly, their are Italian chefs who have spontaneously started to weep just at the imprint this revelation has made on the fabric of the universe but in the big wide picture they’ll survive and I’ll still get to eat my delectable snack with impunity.

So, now I put it to you: What is a truth you may not often speak that would make very little difference even if you did? And, do we hold on to these things because when we know we have small, insignificant “secrets” to tell we can better conceal the bigger, weightier ones from ourselves and others?

And, yes. You will be graded (wink).