mildly gross and embarassing info ahead:

my mom said that when I was 2 1/2, I pooped myself. She said 'Did you poop yourself?' apparently I answered, 'yes, but I'm putting it back in.'

Is that what you were looking for?

Here's mine:

When I was 12 or so, I went up to visit my dad one summer. My brother and I nicked some smokes and stashed them away in our backpacks. The plan was, we would keep them there until some evening when my dad hit the hay early (he still goes to bed by 9:30 at night).

We were going to sneak off to the park and smoke and generally feel like cool badass motherfuckers. Unfortunately, when we went to grab the smokes, they were gone.

We waited for the worst, but it never came. No yelling, no lecture. When we were about to leave, my dad handed us an envelope for my mom. It was a letter. Oh shit.

So, we did what any kids on a two and a half hour flight would do--we opened it. Inside, among other things that were boring "I saw so-and-so at the grocery store, they say 'hi' " kind of notes, was the cigarette thing. "[Sasshat] had some pilfered cigarettes in her bag."

When we got home, we took a different envelope and sealed it shut. My brother, the artist, used his amazing skills to write my mom's name in my dad's handwriting on it. We were in the clear for the letter opening. We had to give it to my mom. My dad would ask her if she got it.

We had a couple days to think up a story about the tobacco theft. My mom didn't accuse, just handed us the letter and waited. We pretended to read it. We looked puzzled and shrugged way too many times. "Huh?"

I sputtered out this horrible story about how my best friend Sam had met this boy, and she was dating him, and he gave her a lucky cigarette to keep (remember 'luckies' - you count to the name of the person you like, and flip that cigarette over?).

Somehow I wound this story that left my friend having to get rid of it because her parents would find it, and the only way to get rid of it was for me to take it to Canada with me.

The story made no sense at all. My friend Sam's parents did not care if SHE smoked, they actually bought her Marlboro Reds all the time. And, if she treasured this cigarette, she would keep it in the woods or something, not send it to Canada with me. And what were the odds that some boy in the backwoods of New England would smoke the same (Canadian) brand as my dad?

It was the worst lie I ever told. My cheeks are burning with embarassment even now, recounting this ridiculous story.

Jon, that story is both gross and adorable. But it isn't a lie.

Tell me a lie you told that was just ridiculous and no one could have ever believed it. The kind of lie that takes balls to even tell with a straight face.

this one.

When they used to ask at the airport that question about "Did you pack your bags and have they been in your possession since you packed them?" I always said yes, even though sometimes the answer was no. Ooooooooo.

I told my friend's parents that I slammed my finger in the drawer at home earlier, that it hurt and I wanted to go home. I was about 5, and I just didn't feel like spending the night over there, and mom made me go anyway.

One of the worst was, god, about 30 years ago. My parents were fixing up the house they live in now (my dad never finished it, to my mom's eternal consternation). They had just spent about $500 replastering the bathroom. I was left alone at one point, and trying to be a nice super-responsible kid, as always, I was straightening things up. I decided there was some excess plaster at the receptacles and a few other places, so I got a razor blade and started trimming it off to look nice.

For some reason I don't remember at all, I didn't stop. This little charming chore became something else. Maybe I slipped and screwed up and started feeling bad. I don't know today.

All I know is that over the next half hour, I vandalized that bathroom. I made little nicks that were to look like accidents of the plasterers. I made straight cuts that were "overcuts" at the receptacles. Then as the coup de grace, I signed the thing with a flourish, only

I
used
my
little
brother's
name.

The circumstances alone guaranteed I'd be fingered, let alone the impossibility that my 6-year-old bro had committed anything like this. My dad was apoplectic. He made me open up the Encyclopedia Britannica, find the articles about the Vandals, and write an essay. Um, it didn't really have much to do with what I'd done, but it's one reason I have the user ID that I do today -- a lifelong fascination with Roman history, especially military history!

I think that was the worst lie in the sesne that it was one intended to throw suspicion onto someone innocent. I've pulled others, but most of those merely deflected onto nothing (white lies) or if discovered would only reflect on myself.

I don't lie.