I want to say something to gays and lesbians worldwide. You don't own the closet and you never did.

Before homosexuals ever laid claim to the smallest room in the house (and then decided to break out), typical white-bread eating guys like me were hiding all sorts of sins under rack and hanger. Sure, ours were less glamorous transgressions, like secretly kissing magazine pictures of Cheryl Tiegs, but we have had things to hide, too.

Closets don't get much good press. Steven Wright shares that his grandfather made him stand in the closet, telling him it was "elevator practice." A famous philosopher, noting the probability of keeping one's innocence, once said it was like, "looking in a dark closet for a black cat that isn't there."

Thus, I can see why no one would want to stay in a closet. Creepy, dark, forbidding and stifling, no wonder this is where we put that side of ourselves we don't like.

Today if people want to describe an unpleasant side of themselves they will use the prefix, "closet." For instance, people all the time say, "I am a ..." then fill in the blank with closet-control freak, closet-clean freak, closet-chocoholic, closet-Barry Manilow fan, et al. I know a lot of women who are into big walk-in wardrobes for their clothes, but won't admit it. They, of course, are closet-closet freaks.

Even as families we have always spoken in hushed tones concerning the "skeletons in our closets." Usually it would be a great-great uncle who was hanged for deserting during some war. Or, a family trying to hide their son's career regression from pro wrestler to governor. The secrets that families keep started the whole concept of "in the closet."

The story goes that right after the Revolutionary War, a farmer and his wife and their four adopted Jamaican children were visited by a traveling vacuum salesman. He was so good, he not only sold them a vacuum but he got them to purchase a Ronco Pocket Fisherman and a set of steak knives.

As he was leaving, the couple realized that electricity hadn't even been invented yet, so they snagged him with the pocket rod and reel, pulled him back into the house and stabbed him with the steak knives. Realizing their situation and needing to hide the evidence, they built the first closet. After hiding the vacuum cleaner there, they figured putting his body in would work, too... eventually turning into the first "skeleton in the closet."

This is stupid, you say? Well, I am a closet-pathological liar.

Some days I wish I had something really exciting to "come out" with, but I just don't. My bigger secrets are that I keep a box of Pop Tarts in my car at all times, or soak my nails in Palmolive. Once in Santa Monica, Calif., after being stopped for speeding, I threw an L.A. cop to the ground and took his gun and squad car. Police helicopters chased me all through the city only to nab me when, out of habit, I stopped to see a movie.

But this is nothing to come out of the closet with, since it was on "Fox's Scariest Police Chases, Part IV."

Yep, I'm still a closet-pathological liar. Oops, I just "came out."