Apr 16, 2017 3 min read

First, there is no truth to the rumor that I was carried bodily from my home office last week to make room for four editors returning to Pittsburgh to take a remedial course on the use of the apostrophe for plural possessive’s.

Yes, I was asked to leave, but only because my initial column had too many words. But I refused, having paid top dollar for an ergonomic office chair. Yes, I left my seat. I was definitely not “removed.” Instead – using the same clever ruse that once drew Ernest Hemingway from his ringside seat at a boxing match – editors laid a trail of semi-empty Jim Beam Fire Bourbon bottles leading to a nearby shed. Curious by nature, I followed. They locked the door. I escaped only after another columnist followed the trail and, hoping to find inspiration inside, kicked down the shed’s back wall. But the editors’ heinous plan failed: While in the shed, I used my cellphone to write these words. President Trump’s tiny fingers would have come in handy, I can tell you.

Second, there is some truth to the rumor that, at age 10, I stole a red rubber ball from a G.C. Murphy store. Likely you never would have heard about this, but the same editors who locked me in the shed interviewed my grade-school “friend,” Chuckie, the only other person who knew of my shame. Then they shamelessly used my childhood indiscretion to justify their Jim Beam scheme – one so devious that even Hitler never used it. So I’m coming clean.

I was a mere boy – although I will admit that the thrill of the chase was upon me as it momentarily dribbled away when I tried to stuff it into the pocket of my Sears Best Husky jeans. I derived no pleasure whatsoever from the ball; the first time I threw it, it rolled into a sewer. I took this to be a sign of a higher power’s displeasure. Decades later, a highly paid therapist took 149 billable hours to help me see that this was not the case. Painfully, I at last remembered that the ball escaped because I threw like a girl. That revelation should have been punishment enough. Yet I am plagued nightly by vivid dreams in which the ball’s family members roll aimlessly from playground to playground, asking if anyone has seen “Dad.”

Now that you know the truth, I hope you will still think of me as your friendly neighborhood columnist, not as a purveyor of “alternate facts,” “fake news” or – to use the polite term – a lying rat.

I’ve been honest with you.

Let’s hope it gives me a morning bounce.