"In the book, I tell a story about the day that my father brought home the news that he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I was a senior in high school, a month shy of graduating; he was given two months to live. As you’d imagine, my family was fairly devastated, and my mother asked me to drive to the video store to rent a couple movies to get our minds off the news—comedies, my father suggested; he wanted to laugh. Operating in what I guess was a state of shock, I made a poor choice at the video store. I’d picked up my girlfriend on the way home, and [...]

Sorry for writing you and asking for your autograph under false pretenses.

This was a long time ago. 1981 or 82, I think. My friend Chris Pack and I were ten or eleven years old, and deeply, totally obsessed with baseball. We collected cards, memorized statistics, perfected pantomime of our favorite players' pitching deliveries and batting stances—Dan Quisenberry's submarine sidearm, Cecil Cooper's low-slung crouch, Graig Nettles' rod-straight right leg. In the summer, we'd watch the Yankees on Channel 11 every night (the Mets on Channel 9 if the Yankees had an off day) and play our own games of Wiffle ball in my backyard—all day, everyday. The fence [...]

Oh, just announced: there is going to be a book stemming from our longest-running feature, Dave Bry's Public Apology! Grand Central, the fun group at Hachette, will be publishing. Soon you can feel all the shame, awkwardness and hilarity in one convenient place.

Dear Davida,

Sorry for squeezing your hand so tightly at the Gravediggaz concert.

This would have been fall 1997. I was working at Vibe magazine. You had looked me up and given me a call after reading something I wrote—and I was flattered. We hadn’t spoken in a couple years, I don’t think. Not since we’d graduated college. We hadn’t spoken in any substantial way, really, since you’d broken up with me at the end of junior year. Which was okay. We’d only been together for a few months. A nice, easy-going relationship; never very emotional, never a huge big deal. But I was freshly single again when [...]

Dear woman who lived up on the hill near the lighthouse,

Sorry for stealing the head of that Greek statue from your lawn.

Dear Jen,

I'm sorry for telling you that your allergies were psychosomatic.

Dear Pam and David MacNeill,

Sorry for letting your children watch The Amityville Horror.

If you want to sound hip at parties when people are discussing what is sure to be the book of the season, let us, in association with the folks at the Associated Press, lend you a hand: "Actually, it's pronounced 'bree.'" Everyone will be very impressed.

See now, Bob, if you had just done it like that back in 1991, we would have no problems.

Dear Jews who may have been sitting near me and my friends in Connecticut College’s Harris dining hall fall semester, 1989,

Sorry for making anti-Semitic slurs.

Dear Bon Jovi,

Sorry for throwing empty beer cans on your lawn.

Dear sales rep for a textbook distributor,

Sorry for lying to you on the phone.

Dear Todd and Chris,

Sorry for spilling grain punch all over the box of "Calvin and Hobbes" T-shirts you were hoping to sell.

Dear Mr. McCormack,

I'm sorry for rejoicing over the prospect of your hometown being destroyed.

"Dear Residents of 208 East 7th Street: Sorry for leaving that couch outside our door on the fourth-floor stairwell for two weeks.

We were just moving in to the building, my friend Tim and I, fall of 1995. I graduated from college that spring, and this was the first apartment I ever officially leased. And I didn’t know a lot about neighborly etiquette. Or making a good first impression.

The couch did not completely block the stairwell, or access to the hallway off which our door opened. It was off to the side, tipped up on an armrest, leaning vertically against the wall. Obviously we would have preferred it [...]

Sorry for making that obnoxious joke about the music you were listening to on your iPod.

Dear Mrs. Noonan,

Sorry if it seemed like I was trying to see you naked.

I wasn’t, I swear.

Dear Joel,

Sorry for stinking.

You were seven years old at the time, which was December 19th, 1991. I remember because I had just turned 21. The day before, as a matter of fact. You were in the first grade at a school for emotionally disturbed children in New Jersey, where I worked, as an assistant to your teacher, Suzanne.

Dear nightshift manager at the Sheridan Garage,

Sorry for taking the key out of the engine of my car after you'd jumped the battery.

Dear BMX bike rider,

I'm sorry for shunning you after you got up in front of everyone and cried at the personal growth workshop our parents sent us to in Philadelphia.