excuses

Perhaps because I am neither convinced nor successfully cajoled by my own excuses, I am less forgiving than I might be about the excuses others may offer.

But if that is true, how could it help but be anything other than another excuse?

The only excuse I ever gave that came close to the bulls-eye was when my mother caught me pulling wings off a fly. Her tone let me know I was in trouble and due for a verbal drubbing. In the course of the adventure she told me about years later, as the tears began to course down my cheeks, she asked me simply, "Why did you do that?" And, equally simply, but in anguish, I replied, "I did it on purpose."