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The question

A few years ago, a friend of mine gave me a cat when she moved to Los Angeles. Let's call the cat Fluffy. I took him in and had Fluffy for all of three months before he disappeared – he'd gotten out one weekend and, as it turns out, was still too young to be running around the streets. He got run over. My bad.

I've never been able to bring myself to tell this to my friend, so whenever she asks me “How's Fluffy?” I say, “Great.” I even made up some fake anecdotes about the cat, how he likes to curl up in my easy chair, stuff like that.

But now my friend's coming back to town, and she wants to see Fluffy I feel like I have to come clean, but I know it'll break her heart. How can I break this to her without letting her know I've been lying about Fluffy's life all these years?

The answer You know, I get a lot of mail, which is great. Some praise my advice, some pooh-pooh. But either way, I love it all.

What pushes quite a few people's buttons, I've noticed, is that I don't always advise doing the noble/lofty/high-minded thing. That's deliberate, and I realize it'll take a little getting used to. I try to give real-world advice, the type of thing you'd say to a friend in a jam. And, in the real world, sometimes the Path of Righteousness and the Path of Smartness diverge.

The plain truth of the matter is that sometimes we have to fly really low, under the radar, and perform acts that are a little bit naughty (if not downright wrong). This, I would suggest, is one of those times.

I know many may say: “You should make a clean breast of it, confess,” and so on, but my instincts say no. People can be a little tetchy on the topic of their pets. A little irrational. And if your friend wants to “visit” an old cat after several years, I have a feeling she's in that camp. I could see her losing it on you, and you losing her as a friend.

Now, you could say you gave the cat away to someone else when you went away one time. But that's risky: Your friend may still want to see her old pet, may want the contact information of the new owner, and then where will you be?

No, your best bet, I think – though it may sound like a joke – is to scour the Humane Society, attempt to procure a cat of roughly the same age and colouring as Fluffy – a doppel-Fluffy – and continue to lie like a rug.

Then, when your friend comes over, say with maximum conviction and a big smile: “There he is Your old buddy”

Honestly, I like your chances of pulling this off. You said in your question it's been a while since she's seen him, right? And it sounds like Fluffy was more or less a kitten when you first got him (too young to go out), so he would have changed quite a bit. And, once you get past the size and markings, cats are all pretty much interchangeable, aren't they? I mean, it's not like it's a dog.

If you pull it off, it's win-win: no stress on the friendship, no pain or anger – and you've saved another Fluffy-like cat from a possible lethal injection, thus atoning for your carelessness with the original.

And you'll take better care of this one, right, having learned from your previous mistakes?

If not, if your friend recoils at the sight of the cat, if she steps through your door, screams and says “That's not Fluffy” well, you tried. Maybe she'll come to laugh about it in time. Comedy is tragedy plus time. Maybe she'll even come to appreciate the effort you put into preserving her feelings.

If not, if the whole thing blows up in your face and lands you in a giant vat of hot water, if it all ends in tears and you blame me, well, I can always be reached through The Globe and Mail's legal team.

David Eddie is an author and screenwriter. He has published two books, Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.

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