A Catholic friend of mine recently informed me about all of the parts of the last rites. It seemed like a long To-Do list for someone on their death bed. One of the necessary actions was confessing everything terrible that you’ve ever done.

“That would take ages!” I cried.

“Well it’s supposed to be bad things you’ve done since your last confession” my friend answered calmly.

The whole idea seemed quite cathartic, having never gone to confession myself; I have a lot of misdeeds to confess. So I’ve decided to do so here. Readers please absolve me of my transgressions.

I once hit my sister over the head with a stuffed toy. This sounds more innocent than it was. This particular stuffy had a plastic core of four D size batteries, effectively making it a preschooler’s version of a billiard ball in a sock.

Glow worm, what mobsters give their children to prepare them for swinging brass knuckles about. (Photo Credit: creamsoda.hubpages.com)

Even now, twenty-five years later, the memory of thwacking my sister when I felt she deserved it, still brings me a tiny sense of satisfaction in only the way that bopping a sibling can. This probably makes me a terrible person. Internet, please forgive me.

During a university lecture, I accidently made an engorged orange into a lethal, citrusy super soaker by forcefully sticking my thumb into the ripe fruit at the exact moment that a classmate turned around in her seat, spraying a stream of juice directly into her eye. After apologizing sincerely, I proceeded to shake the entire row of folding seats for ten minutes with my silent laughter over the incident. I felt badly but it was a really funny mishap. I don’t know whether I can be absolved of this transgression considering that almost a decade later it still makes me giggle for minutes on end.

While driving back from a farm party at two in the morning, I almost left a young man in the middle of nowhere. The distant acquaintance in question had drunk far too much and was wobbling back and forth in my backseat moaning that he was going to puke. I turned to a friend of mine sitting in the front seat and said “If he yaks, I’m leaving him at the side of the road.” The friend quickly whipped around and said “Eddy* man, it’s not cool to puke in the car. You tell us to pull over ok?” because my friend realized that after a quick pit stop to eject the human vomit fountain from my truck, I would have remorselessly driven off into the night. If faced with this situation again, I’d probably make the same decision, so it’s uncertain whether this offense can be forgiven either.

I’ve committed more offenses to be forgiven of course, but these are the only ones that come to mind at this moment.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of people who thankfully did not puke all over the beige upholstery of my backseat.