Inspect The Bread.

Honest: That will not lie, cheat, or steal; truthful; trustworthy.

I've always considered myself an honest man, at least when it suits my purposes. I admit that I don't hobble myself with a strict interpretation of the definition; actually, I'm dismayed to see that lying and truth seem to play a big part of honesty. I thought honest met you didn't rob banks, which I don't. I'm afraid of guns and not very forceful and realize that I wouldn't last 10 minutes in a jail, so I'm careful to stay out of those places. Plus, my handwriting is pretty bad so the tellers might not be able to read my note demanding money. And then there's the exploding dye packets. Those sound scary, too.

We call this cash register honest. I like to hide behind this concept. Apparently there are all kinds of ways to be dishonest if I'm to believe Webster's. So I guess when I called whatever bad job I had and said I was sick, rather than too hung-over to come in, that is dishonest. I'm still hung up on the fact that lying is in there. I thought that lying was its own separate defect. Whoever is making the Defect List is mixing everything up. There's a lot of Defect cross-breading. I'm not even sure what defect I'm indulging in any more. Am I lying or am I being dishonest? Or am I doing two things at once? Probably. I'm an accomplished Defect Man.

During one of my aborted attempts to graduate from college, I lived in a crappy rooming house with some guys that needed the program as much as I did. One night, ravenous after much dope smoking, I decided to make a sandwich. I had the peanut butter but not the bread. I walked down the hall to the apartment of one John R., long dead I'm sure. I knocked, then nudged open the door. No one there. I snuck into his kitchen and found a loaf of bread in the refrigerator. I snagged a couple of slices, despite my misgivings about his general lack of hygiene, and made a nice sandwich, which I wolfed down ravenously.

Still hungry, I went back for more. John had returned by this time, so I figured the only right thing to do was ask if I could borrow a couple of slices.

"Sure," he said. "It's in the refrigerator, but I think it's moldy."

Uh-oh.

I opened the door, this time turning on the kitchen light, and took out the bread. Sure enough, it was covered with a lovely blue-green speckling of mold. Not here and there, but pretty much all over the place.

One sandwich did the trick after all.