Your lips are sealed? Your tongue is tied? Your quote is not for attribution? What’s YOUR excuse, buddy?

My friend Underbelly-Buce has some fun with the excuses we read in newspapers of record, or of near-record, for people avoiding attribution of things they’ve said.

For example, Buce offers us this:

...who did not want to be named because
he enjoys sticking the shiv in between his goodbuddy's shoulderblades.

This could be the beginning of a wonderful game. How many reasons can you think of for refusing attribution of a quote?

…a librarian who did not want to be named because
she was in bed getting schtupped by the reporter at the time and she didn’t want her husband to know

…a CIA analyst and double agent who did not want to be named because
his acts of espionage could be viewed as a capital crime, even in the United States

…a drug detail saleswoman who did not want to be named because
her boss thought she was out with her suitcase full of samples making sales calls to doctors, not boozing it up in an Eighth Avenue bar just down the block from the New York Times

…another serial killer who did not want to be named because
he was afraid that his neighbors might find him offensive if they knew his hobby his skinning human beings alive

…a "vig" collector who did not want to be named because
several mafia capos might decide to have him whacked

Why would somebody that you know might not want to be named?

Most of my readers are brain dead, but if you’re actually alive and awake out there while you’re reading this (one way or another, 67,500 of you have stumbled into this blog and sniffed around so far) feel free to make contributions of your own. Provided of course that they're printable. Or at least borderline printable.