Not Me!!!

It was not me!! I am telling you, I did not do it. I had nothing to do with it, I wasn't even around it when it happend! I am innocent, not guilty, or whatever else you want to call it. It wasn't me!! I swear!!

Have you ever heard that before? I have, coming out of my own mouth when I was a kid. See I had three younger brothers which meant there was a lot of things that happened that I really had nothing to do with. But this one day I messed up. I broke one of my Mom's things. It was really an accident, the ball should have missed the vase and bounced off the wall back into my glove like it had the forty times before. But this one time it took a funny hop off the end table and seny my Mom's vase crashing to the floor. I made a heroic diving attempt at a catch but alas came up short and the vase broke. It was at this point I had a decision to make, do I take the path of George Washington who never lied but I am sure was spanked by his Daddy for cutting down that cherry tree with his little hatchet. Or do I take the Al Capone defense and blame it on someone else and join the mob?
Well I ran out of the room and prayed that my Mom would not notice the vase that I left in pieces on the floor when she came home. So later that night my misdeed was discovered and all of us boys were lined up and asked who broke the vase. My youngest brother just looked at my Mom and then smiled at us when she said, "I know you did not do it as you were with me." One down, three to go. Well my next to the youngest brother pointed out that he was over at his friends house from before Mom left till after Mom got home. Two down, two left...
So it is down to my brother and me. Mom is displaying the evidence right before us. Telling us how she can't keep any nice things in the house because us boys don't respect her stuff and on and on. So then she asked the question, "who broke my vase?" Well my brother replied "not me", and then I went on the rant I wrote out above.
My Mom was flummoxed so she did the only logical thing, she said we will talk to your father about it. Well that really got me scared because who knew if my Dad might pull out some kind of fingerprinting machine or had the house wired for sound, he was kind of like that. Mom went into the kitchen to dispose of her now broken and useless vase. So my brother then accuses me of breaking the vase and he is not going to get a whoopin' because of it. It was as this point I decided to go all in with Al Capone. Yes, I blackmailed my brother. I told him all the things that he had done that Mom did not know about and if he squealed not only would I roll over on him I would make his life miserable. I may have even threatened to break his legs, but I can't remember if I went that far, I probably did.
So my Dad comes home and asked the simple question. "Who broke the vase?" Again we both denied it, wallowing in the sea of guilt and shame for our misdeeds. So my dad turns to my Mom and says, well there you have it, neither of them broke it and I am sure they would never lie to me". More guilt falls upon my shoulders as my Dad turns to console my poor Mother over the loss of her heirloom.
It was then that I realized I had gotten away with it, I had succeeded in my rouse, I had become Al Capone.
I lived with that guilt and shame every time I saw that end table where my Mother's vase had set.
It was many years later that I finally came clean with my mother. I told her that I was the one that broke her vase. It was as if a hundred pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I appologized and told her how it had happened and she said she knew. A week later she found my ball, with my name on it behind the end table where my Mother's vase set right along side the scuff marks on the wall where I was bouncing it.

So the next time you have the choice to be a George Washington or an Al Capone, take it from me. George might have gotten a whoopin, but at least he lived his life without a guilty conscience.
We need more George Washingtons in this life that take responsibility for their actions...