You know that bad thing that happened? It wasn’t me

I’m thinking of doing something terrible. I haven’t yet, but I am thinking about it.

I’m not certain what that terrible thing will be, but whatever it is, I want to make sure it’s a doozy. If I were younger and prettier, I might have a torrid love affair with a girl who works as a high-powered attorney by day and an exotic dancer by night. They can’t be too hard to find; I see ‘em on TV all the time.

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor would no doubt disapprove, but thanks to a new online service—which we’ll get to in a minute—she would never have to know about it.

Same holds true if I decide to pilfer money from the company; they’d never be able to prove it was me doing the pilfering. Forget for a moment that I can barely figure out how to cash my own paycheck, let alone embezzle millions. The point is, if I could figure out how to do it, I’d get away with it.

Better still, I could track down my ninth grade gym teacher and beat the crap out of him. He’s got to be a little old man by now; how hard could it be? And heaven knows he’s got it coming. Paddle me for wearing wrinkled gym shorts, will ya? It’s payback time, Mr. Veet!

Again, I’d never get caught. Why? Because I’d have a perfect alibi, that’s why.

That alibi might be that I was in the Alps skiing with George Bush, or fishing in the North Atlantic off the bow of Donald Trump’s favorite yacht. Or maybe I was abducted by space aliens and forced to watch reruns of “Sanford and Son” while little grey men monitored my alpha waves.

It could be anything, thanks to Alibis-R-Us*, an online service that—for a price—will cover for you when you misbehave. And they will do it a lot better than your best friend Larry.

Unlike Larry, Alibis-R-Us won’t spill their guts the first time your wife gives them “the look.” If you say you were working late at the office, that’s what Alibis-R-Us will say. Not only that, they’ll call your home pretending to be a coworker and tell your wife you accidentally left some important papers in the Xerox room before you left the office—at 8:45 p.m.

They will dial you up early Friday morning and inform you (on speakerphone, if you know what you’re doing) that “the boss” needs you to make an emergency business trip to Cleveland this weekend.

They will then send e-mails—from Cleveland—to your wife, telling her how much you love her and how sad you are that you missed your mother-in-law’s visit this weekend. You, meanwhile, will be drinking margaritas on a beach in Barbados with a blonde flight attendant named Tiffany.

Alibis-R-Us also will provide you with “virtual employment,” fake tickets to concerts you never saw … they’ll even buy stuff for you that you’re embarrassed to purchase yourself. (Like the “American Idol” boxed set.)

I’m not advocating bad behavior. Really. But it’s hard to pass up this awesome online resource.

The problem for me is: I’m not evil, despite what you may hear from The Lovely Mrs. Taylor. I was raised Catholic, and when I do bad things, the guilt I feel takes all the fun out of it for me.

Maybe I could start small. I could jaywalk or drive around the block a couple times without buckling my seatbelt. If caught, I could get my Alibis-R-Us rep (posing as a psychiatrist) to say I’ve been diagnosed as delusional and am prone to erratic behavior.

I think could live with that. I mean, it wouldn’t be so far from the truth.

* Not the service’s real name, but it is a real service.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or to yell at him for putting bad ideas into the heads of otherwise good people, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.