Someone’s obviously pissed off at the criticism about the softball questions in the Friday Five, and so busts out these trauma-inducers:

1. When was the last time you cheated?

You’d probably get more interesting answers out of me if you told me the worst instance of my sins, rather than simply the last time. Happily, this means I don’t have to confess too much, but the downside is that you’re not going to get nearly the juice on me that you might want.

That said, the last time I cheated was at mini-golf. I was playing at this course that’s in an even more distant suburb of Toronto than the one I live in, and after an absolutely stunning start I began to fall apart at around the sixth hole. I started shaving strokes off my score to at least stay competitive, and since there wasn’t anything on the line, I didn’t feel especially guilty.

Of course, I was playing against Sham, and she started coming on strong as much as I was fading, so by the end of the game no amount of cheating would have saved me. I don’t know if that absolves me, morally — probably not, come to think of it — but at the very least I did no particular harm.

2. When was the last time you stole?

Well, myself directly? Not in a very, very long time.

Back when I worked at Blockbuster, we had some visionaries who liked to abuse the principle of shrinkage, however. And I’m not referring to “shrinkage” in the Sienfeldian-cock-shrinking-in-a-swimming-pool way, but rather the acceptable-business-losses-due-to-shoplifting way — as a large store that catered to a dense market of local sticky-fingered teenagers, we had a certain percentage of inventory loss that was forecasted and generally expected.

Our manager and a couple of our shift supervisors took that to mean that if grubby punks could steal our stuff, then so could we, and so basically any food in the store would fall victim.

I remember one night as my supervisor strolled over to the chip cart, eyeballed the nachos, and said, “This bag looks broken to me. Does this bag look broken to you?”

I looked at its unbroken perfection. “Yes,” I said.

“That’s what I thought,” he answered, and we feasted on nachos that night. When our feast got a bit dry and pasty, he noticed that a jar of salsa looked to be broken as well, and that was it. The trend had begun.

It wasn’t long afterwards that we did an overnight inventory shift and discovered that fully ninety packs of Reese Peanut Butter Cups had gone missing in the previous month, a figure that was coincidentally perfectly divisible by the number of shifts that I and two friends of mine had worked in the previous thirty days.

In reaction, our manager said, “Jesus fucking Christ! Who took all of these?”

We all stood very still for a minute, looking at each other and repressing a sudden surge of laughter. Then one of us said, “You know, I’m always seeing This Other Co-Worker eating Reeses when he starts his shift — maybe it was him.”

I think that was roughly the breaking point, and we all realized it at the same time. We admitted that it was the three of us, following the general shrinkage policy in a shockingly systematic way, laughing and blushing at the same time. I can’t say for certain that we didn’t take stuff when offered after that, but I do think we no longer siezed the initiative.

3. When was the last time you lied?

If I told you it was on this page that you’re reading right now, would you be offended?

I suppose it’s all in how to define lying, and the difference between that and telling an especially good story. Sham insists that I’m so enamored with telling good stories that I don’t even know when I’m putting jam on them any more, but I object to that strenuously. I am perfectly aware of when I’m embellishing a story, and so are the people that I’m constantly telling them to. It’s a silent agreement between us that allows me to do so, since most of the time I make life more entertaining.

Incidentally, that’s what my old neighbor, Harry, used to call it: Putting a little jam on it. He was about eighty-five years old, and my mother helped him put together his memoirs and about a thousand ancient photos together into a big family history, and when he confessed to her that he was exaggerating a story, he would say, “Well, it might not have been quite all that way. I put a little jam on it, you know.”

In the spirit of sweet, entertaining dishonesty, I too will put a little jam on it.

4. When was the last time you broke or vandalized another’s property?

I’m guessing town property counts here, right?

A shockingly short time ago, after getting uproarously drunk at a friend’s house for a bachelor party, I witnessed one of my group bear-hug a stop sign and tear it from the warm embrace of mother earth.

I don’t think he intended to do it, and I can’t explain to you why he thought to run up to a sign post, hug it as hard as he could, roar and surge upwards like a weightlifter from Qatar, but it happened. I think I was on my cell phone at the time, but you never really know when you’re Bachelor-Party-Drunk, do you? It’s a special kind of inebriation that lets you forget the worst of things.

That said, since I was in the same loose group as this tremendous vandal, I still feel partially responsible for it.

5. When was the last time you hurt a loved one?

Oh, jeez. Yesterday? This morning? Take your pick, really.

On the one hand, having a smart tongue means you can make really zippy comments that are hilarious to yourself; on the other, having a smart tongue means you can make really zippy comments that are singularly un-hilarious to the people you’re making them about.

So yeah, you can imagine that one for yourself. I don’t even need to put any jam on it.