Hello, strangers! May I have your attention? I was a huge jerk, and I’m so sorry. I will do anything, anything, to show how sorry I am. I will humiliate myself in front of the whole world – that’s you.

Yo, sir! See how I am groveling and eating dirt? You will tell her how sorry I am, won’t you, ma’am? See, dirt. Nom nom, blech, dirt. That’s how sorry I am.

Sorry for what? I was a jerk, and a complete and total asshole. What did I do exactly? A thing. A bad thing, and that’s why I’m so sorry. God, I think there are bugs in this dirt. I KEEP CHEWING.

Sometimes we’re called upon to be true and fair witnesses to we-don’t-know-what. To witness a will is not to know what’s in the will. To witness a wedding is not to know what on earth made these two imagine they can make it work. And sometimes to witness an apology is not to know what it’s an apology for.

This ad appeared in the Kenya Star:

I Francis Onyiso take this opportunity to apologise to my beloved wife Janet Aoko Owino for the pain I have caused her and the family. I ask for forgiveness and promise never to repeat again.

Mr. Osiyo, aka Robert Osiyo, is a former goalie for the Harrambee Stars.

What is he sorry for? He doesn’t say. We can guess. People have. Infidelity, duh, they said.

Might be. Probably.

Why doesn’t he say? Well, why show your dirty laundry? And if you must, why turn it inside out? And if it’s infidelity, it’s hard to explain without seeming to boast. I’m helpless when ladies are begging… A professional ball player gets offers you wouldn’t believe… The whole damn soprano section was flashing me… I have a rough time sleeping on the road, and she said she knew slumber secrets…

Why is this in the paper? His idea? Her idea? The idea of a meddlesome third party? DAMN IT WE DON’T KNOW.

I know of an case where a guy cheated on his fiancee. Flagrantly. She dumped him. He wanted her to take him back. Before she would agree to that, he had to take out an ad in the local paper, saying what he did, apologizing, and promising not to do it again.

He did. She took him back. They’re together still. WHAT JOY for the newspaper-reading public!

(Of course, we don’t know if there were details she said he could omit. “Yes, you have to say about my best friend. Yes, about my cousin. Yes, about your cousin. Yes, about – no, actually, don’t mention the board of the STOP STDs DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS club.”)

But then there’s this guy, in Nashville, Tennessee. On a Friday morning rush hour a man pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate, climbed on his car, and held up two signs.

Lindsey I’m sorry I lied to you

Please forgive me

If Lindsey saw it, she didn’t swerve to run him down, nor did she pull over and rush to his arms. So he called local radio. He would only give his first name. He wouldn’t say what he was apologizing for, but said “I didn’t do this to try to be someone famous or anything like that. I did it for her.”

Her? What about us? WE HAVE NEEDS TOO! He did say “I lied about something, and it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. I should have just let her be mad at me.” ARGH.

He told the station that Lindsey saw the signs. But that he wasn’t forgiven yet.

What does this kind of semi-public apology mean? ‘My apology is so sincere I’m willing to be totally, publicly, humiliated. Well, half-humiliated.’

It’s evasive. On the other hand, maybe the injured party wouldn’t want details broadcast. It’s bad enough to be pantsed at the party, but it might be worse if everyone you know gets cc’d on the apologetic email. Especially if the attachment is a photo.

Okay, maybe there are reasons it’s an incomplete apology. Maybe more gets said behind the scenes. But all we see is something not so great.

In San Francisco, someone put signs up all over a neighborhood. They have a picture of two dogs cuddled up and this text, addressed to Gwen:

You have always been the one. … I love you so much. I’m so sorry. There’s not a moment when I don’t regret my mistake. I think about you every moment of every day. I cry over what I’ve done to you! … I will never stop trying to seek your forgiveness.

Never stop? Uh oh.

And Gwen? If, in the course of getting a restraining order, you plan to tell the court what it was the sign-writer is apologizing for, please let me know so I can be there.

Thanks.