The parents and I had an adventure the other night. 17-year-old Bo was supposed to be home at 1 am, hadn't gotten home or called by 4, and didn't answer his phone either. Long story short, he'd lost his car keys at the beach, and instead of finding a pay phone he spent hours searching for them. Or so he says.

Which brings me to the real thing I want to talk about, which is lying. I had a horrible bone-chilling, stomach-turning thought the next morning, as my mom and I were discussing whether we believed his story. He's a notoriously gifted liar and rationalizer. And I thought, did he learn all this from me?

I am also a gifted liar and I've done a lot of it over the years. I try very hard not to lie about anything now, but it wasn't too long ago that I saw it as a convenient way to get out of stuff. Didn't think of it as a moral thing. And wouldn't it be horrible, now that I recognize lying as a mean and selfish thing to do, and not the mark of a good person, for the same trait to come out in my brother, because of me? I mean, does he think it's okay, think it's the way to live, because I lived like that? I don't mean that he looks up to me, or anything, but he can't have helped seeing all the trouble I got out of, all the fights I avoided, because I was untruthful. I just hope he saw the way the consequences came back twice as bad and bit me in the butt.