"You wouldn't shoot a policeman, steal his helmet, go to the toilet in it and then give it to his widow, would you?"

So begins an elaborate send-up of anti-piracy ads on films (particularly as distributed on DVDs), as depicted in Graham Linehan's much-loved The IT Crowd.

Truly a victimless "crime" if ever there was one, IMO ...

To that question, I answer, no, I might not, but my boss' dog might (minus the shooting bit, of course). The reason for that is that today, I drove a sick dog home from the vet, down the yellow emergency lane on a highway in a major traffic jam, until I got to the appropriate off-ramp. I figured that if any traffic police stopped me, I'd tell them that "I was taking the dog to the vet because I was worried its medication wasn't working and I was worried my car would fail to start again if I switched it off or I'd run out of petrol if I didn't and stayed in my lane". The dog certainly looked sick (which would have helped), but it is generally aloof, condescending and unimpressed with life even when perfectly healthy. That's Russian Wolfhounds for you; they act like they're aristocracy (and this one's spoiled rotten, too). My car is definitely in need of a new battery and major service, but I've been putting that off because money reasons.

It would have been a pretty good lie (even for me; I try to avoid telling lies and am pretty bad at telling them convincingly), since the only falsehood was the direction I was going. (Technically, the pills weren't working because the dog hadn't taken them yet, but the cops didn't need to know that and probably don't have much veterinary experience.) It was the lesser of two evils: Using the emergency lane for something that arguably wasn't an emergency or getting stuck on the highway with a sick dog, which could become one for either myself or the dog (or both). The irony of it is that at one stage, I was stuck between two fuel tankers and a car carrier. If I'd had a gun or two on me and known how to hotwire a car, I could have stolen one and got home that way. (I don't think the keys go to the dealerships with the vehicles; that's just begging for trouble.) Besides, I so rarely see traffic police (last time I saw two or more together was when they were at a Christmas lunch in a restaurant) and they're generally not the sharpest of people, so I was pretty confident I wouldn't have much (if any) trouble with them. I was right about that; not one to be seen until I got off the highway.

All good/successful lies have to contain a large kernel of truth, so that you can tell the true part with confidence and bluff through the rest. Besides, if I do the wrong thing for the right reasons (taking care of a life other than my own, in addition to my own), is that any worse than doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? I don't think so. I challenge any Christian ("being a good person and living a good life" in the hope of getting into a non-existent Heaven in future, while being a massive hypocrite and holier-than-thou sanctimonious shit stain on the underpants of the Universe in the present) to convince me otherwise.

Thumbnail image: Photo of a Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) by Cottonbro Studios on Pexels