One summer when my brother Steve was about 12 years old, he began sneaking out his bedroom window at night to hang out with his buddies on the street corner. I don't know what they did out there, but whatever it was made risking the wrath of my father worth it. His midnight forays came to an abrupt end the night my father awoke to discover my brother's empty bed. At that very moment, who should come climbing through the bedroom window but the missing boy himself? Seeing my dad standing there, Steve did some quick thinking and blurted out "I was kidnapped!" Off the top of his head, Steve managed to come up with details of the abductor and a harrowing tale of a night spent fearing for his life. Luckily, he had managed to escape and now would just like to go back to bed, please.

My father was not a stupid man and did not buy his story. And neither did police when an 11-year-old boy in Idaho made a similar claim. But unlike my brother's incident, this child's lie made the news. He claimed that a man grabbed him while he walked down a highway, threw him into a car and took off. Fortunately, he was able to escape when the car stopped at a red light. But that red light happened to be in front of a gas station equipped with a security camera aimed in that direction. The boy's detailed description of the car and abductor had already roused suspicions in the minds of police, but the fact that the security camera showed nothing convinced them that the boy was making the whole thing up.

By the next day, the boy fessed up and admitted that he had actually missed the school bus and was afraid that his parents would be angry. Police did not file charges against the boy, but in my own experience, nothing could be worse than the wrath of dad.