Vacationing with your significant other is a big step in a relationship. It isn’t just the shared travel or the expense that can be the most trying. Many times, it’s figuring out a cover story to tell the padres. Don’t got it wrong, we’re grown. However, Latinx folk still have to answer to our parents when we leave the house. So if we want to vacay with the novio, we need an alibi. 

With this in mind, we asked our FIERCE readers what their go-to lies are whenever they need to cover up a vacation with their significant other. You might want to jot these excuses down for the next time you need a justification for a weekend away.

1. The mandatory vacay.

“I told my parents I would be out of town (only an hour away from home) for work and that my job was paying for everything and that it was mandatory we all stay there in the hotel because my dad said I could just drive everyday I needed to go. We ended up vacationing 12 hours away from home 😂 they still haven’t found out lol.” — @baerenis 

2. Technically, she still went to Disney.

“I had a summer job that involved church and I told my mom I was going to stay an extra week because a bunch of us were going to Disneyland. My boyfriend ended up picking me up and we did technically go to Disneyland, but it was just him and me. Lol” — @lilpeaches_12 

3. Total fail but still worth it. 

“Went to Rosarito w/ex to a wedding and told my mom I was going to visit girlfriends in San Francisco. One of my moms friends lives in Rosarito and recognized me at wedding. Total fail. Lady memorized my license plate # y todo 😂😂🇲🇽” —  @vidajuicebar_

4. The abuela alibi. 

“My now husband is from a town 2 hours away from Houston, and the only way my parents would let me stay the weekend over there, was if I stayed and slept with his grandmother. We would actually stay in a hotel room from Friday – Sunday in downtown, 4 miles away from my parents house. This was back in 2003, there’s no way I could get away with that now with smart phones! 😂” — @areal1982

5. Staycation, all she ever wanted.

“Lol I would just tell them I was working a long shift and leave for a stay-cation.” — @jenoemi87

6. When white lies become second nature.

“I lied until I got married at 31 😂 now my instinct is to lie but stop my self because – wait a minute I’m married now! 😂” — @deerayv

7. This lie came with a lot of work.

“My husband and I had been dating for almost a year he wanted to take me to Puerto Vallarta for my birthday I didn’t know how to tell my parents my husband was like how old are you I said were Mexican we don’t sleep over nobody’s house ever we sleep at home. I told my dad my job needed me to travel to mexico since they were branching out to Puerto Vallarta and they needed a fluent Spanish speaker he was so excited they picked me. He said go tell me what hotel your staying at so I can tell your primos from El Rancho to meet you there… 🤦‍♀️ I gave him the wrong hotel name each time he called I would say were in meetings or were looking at property I’ll call the primos when I have time. We met 1 time to show I wasn’t with anybody I shouldn’t have been with… 😂”  — @melliesemily  

8. You need to go to confessional after this one.

“I told my mom I was going on a church retreat and got a text free number to pretend I was one of the people at church verifying I was attending 😩💀 I’m going to hell.” — @aimechinchilla

9. An educational experience.

“So I’ve always been super involved on campus and sometimes for student government we would travel and once we went on a trip to a conference for 2 days but I told my parents it’s was for 5 so the other 3 days estaba de pata larga 😉😂 later on that always became my excuse que tenía una conferencia para la escuela (btw i would tell them they were at other sister schools so you know it’s educational ) en total I probably actually had like 5 conferences my whole college career but to them it was like every other month 🤷🏻‍♀️😂” — @anythingforcelinaaas

10. That’s what friends are for.

“I was 20 and had been dating my bf for a year and he had the house for himself one weekend. I told my parents I was sleeping over at my friend’s house and got my dad to drop me off there (about a 20 minute drive away). My bf was waiting for me around the corner and came and picked me up. My friend even played the game and came and said hi to my dad 😂” — @laviajeraporvida

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRJdv6QJ7Nc

A British teenager is the first believed to have gone blind solely due to a poor diet of junk food. This has to be one of every young person’s worst nightmares. How many of us were raised to believe that it’s in those formative teen years we are able to indulge in all the bad foods we want before our slower metabolism kicks in with age? 

Before we did that bizarre experiment in tenth grade, where you put a penny in Coca-Cola and it dissolves due to the acids, I singularly lived off of soda. I did not drink water. My Dominican abuela would put a teaspoon of sugar in my brother and I’s Sunny Delight orange juice. I am not saying this is right (it’s definitely not the best way to live), I am just saying it is not uncommon for young people to make the worst possible food choices when left to their own devices. And of course, junk and fast food companies aren’t so innocent. 

The combination of aggressive marketing along with food scientists who make artificial flavors taste better than real food and more addictive, has had damaging effects on public health. So while it might be your first instinct to roast this boy, let’s consider all the social factors that made his blindness possible in the first place.

How can junk food make you go blind? 

Scientists from the University of Bristol examined the case of a young boy who slowly lost his hearing and vision over the course of four years. The boy who was a picky eater since elementary school, only ate Pringles potato chips, white bread, processed ham and sausage, and avoided many nutritious foods.

He first saw a doctor at 14, complaining of tiredness. He was not on medication and had a normal BMI. Tests revealed he had low vitamin B12 levels and anemia. After treating him with B12 injections, a year later, he showed signs of hearing loss and vision. Doctors were baffled. By the time he was 17, he became legally blind. Doctors detected low vitamin B12, low copper, selenium, vitamin D and bone level density, along with high levels of zinc.

Essentially, he was malnourished. 

Developing countries face similar health hurdles.

Researchers from the Bristol Medical School and Bristol Eye Hospital determined he had nutritional optic neuropathy. For the patient, the blindness was permanent, although it is reversible if detected early. Typically, a case like this in the developed world would be the result of bowel problems or medication that obstructs the absorption of nutrients. 

However, poor diet was the cause for the 17-year-old. Nutritional optic neuropathy is typically found in patients from developing nations with poverty, famine, drought, and war. 

A cautionary tale. 

“Our vision has such an impact on quality of life, education, employment, social interactions, and mental health,” said study lead author Denize Atan, an ophthalmologist at Bristol Medical School and Bristol Eye Hospital. “This case highlights the impact of diet on visual and physical health, and the fact that calorie intake and BMI are not reliable indicators of nutritional status.”

Researchers believe this is an extreme case but caution against a junk food diet. This doesn’t mean you can’t eat the Popeye’s Fried Chicken sandwich, it just means it can’t be the only thing you eat over the course of a decade.

“Although it is an extreme example, it highlights the importance of having a wide and varied diet to ensure that you get the profile of nutrients and micronutrients that are needed for healthy development,” Gary Frost, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at Imperial College London, told CNN.

Because this teenager is anonymous lots of questions remain. Why didn’t the parents intervene sooner? Will they be held accountable? Why weren’t doctors able to address the seriousness of the child’s diet sooner? 

We should hold food companies more accountable.  

Food scientists intentionally make foods unnaturally delicious and addictive because their goal isn’t to make people healthy, it’s to sell more food products.

“Humans have an inherited preference for energy-rich foods — like fats and sugars — and thus natural selection has predisposed us to foods high in sugar and fat,” Jennifer Kaplan, a teacher at the Culinary Institute of America, told Salon. “Food scientists know this and create ingredients that are far higher in fat and sugar than occur in nature. The most common such sugar is high-fructose corn syrup and is therefore intrinsically addictive.” 

A study in 2013, showed that high fructose corn syrup, the artificial sweetener used in most prepackaged foods, is as addictive as heroin and cocaine because of the way it releases dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone that tells your brain it is being rewarded.

When society ain’t looking out for you and the adults in your life ain’t looking out for you, well it is hard to stand a chance. Let’s hope this patient’s cautionary tale helps someone make more thoughtful food choices.