It's fun to laugh at others, isn't it?

My Sunday column ("Man Play Kick-the-Can. Man Fall Down.") described how I broke a bone in my left hand in a game of kick-the-can with my wife and kids -- quite an aggressively unmanly way for a 50-something fellow to maim himself. I asked readers to come up with more macho ways for me to explain how I fell down and went boom.

The resulting correspondence, gratifying in its volume, fell into three categories:

1) Wild, improbable, fictions that make my testosterone level soar higher than Steve McQueen's, or at least Charles Nelson Reilly's.

2) Wild, improbable truths of accidents even more humiliating than my own.

3) The upside that this mishap may work to my benefit. As Mark Stacy of Morgantown said, my wife now must think twice before asking, "Would it kill ya to play with the kids?"

Dave Meyer of Cranberry touched bases 1 and 2. His college girlfriend snapped his right index finger with a kick while demonstrating what she learned in self-defense class.

"She received an 'A' and I a humiliating story and a splint," Mr. Meyer said.

As for my injury, he suggested I rely on that great icon of the North Side, Gus Kalaris, who has been serving ice balls from his cart in West Park "since your dad was a lad." Mr. Meyer's cover story:

"I was helping Gus hitch up the ice-ball wagon to his van the other night. When I was lifting the wagon on to the truck hitch, it torqued a bit and my finger got caught between the van and the tongue of the hitch. I'd just finished running my 10 miles and I guess I was a little winded. I wouldn't have even gone to the hospital if it weren't bothering me when I was doing my pull-ups."

(That much is true, by the way. I can truthfully say I haven't done a pull-up since the accident.)

Patricia Szczepanski of Lawrenceville suggested playing the Penguins card. I could say I'd been summoned to the Mellon Arena by owner Mario Lemieux's "assistant to the assistant to the sports intern."

As she told it, everyone's favorite Russian, Evgeni Malkin, needed me to take care of "extra periods." As her story goes, I was flattered until he began waving papers and shouting, "Periods and commas, too many, don't understand. Fix."

Malkin needed to correct his term paper for an "English as a Second Language for Millionaires" course. Later, a grateful Malkin invited me to a nearby borscht and salad bar. On the walk there, I threw myself in front of Malkin and hurt my hand after mistaking an oncoming Brownie for a Red Wings fan.

Kick-the-can is looking better.

"Man Injures Hand Trying to Kick Wife's Can," was the suggested headline e-mailed from Ed Petrick of Arlington, Va. 'Nuff said.

A number of people skipped right past giving me an alibi and concentrated on their own tales of woe. Or, if I can borrow Homer Simpson's exclamation, tales of "d'oh!"

Lisa Sevcik and her husband, Matthew, were camping in the Upper Peninsula of their native Michigan in the early '90s when a pair of bears stole her husband's pasty.

It's not what you might think. A "pasty" is a meat-filled local delicacy. Matthew had put his foil-wrapped treat in a metal cage intended for the campfire, but the bears absconded with it.

The couple followed the bears' trail into high grass, thick with buzzing mosquitoes and black flies, and found the basket, mangled and empty, dripping with bear saliva. After Matt picked it up, Lisa mentioned a giant mosquito on his forehead. He smacked it, "unfortunately choosing his hand holding the slobbery fish cage."

To save face -- all puns intended -- "his story of how he had fought two bears for a pasty cleverly omitted the fact that a mosquito had caused his injury."

Kim Weber of Brownsville wrote to say her ear was ripped in half when it got caught in the boot of a another rock 'n' roll fan while she was thrashing around in the mosh pit during a Marilyn Manson/Slayer concert in Atlanta. (I hate when that happens.)

Blake Plavchak broke his nose in Brookline at 16 while playing football -- and getting tackled by a neighbor's Playskool play set.

Jim Noroski of McKeesport (who suggested I claim I hurt my hand while sliding like Roberto Clemente to the can) broke his ankle in the 1950s while jumping off a garage roof playing "Release." (You can keep that game's rule book, Jim.)

Johanna Satariano of Brighton Heights broke two fingers showing her children how dangerous it is to shut a car door with your fingers near it.

There were more, but I only have so much room and my left hand hurts from typing. So I'll end with this report from Jim Thomas of West Homestead. He aggravated a basketball injury, putting himself back in a cast, while playing "Mother, May I?" circa 1960.

To Mr. Thomas and all the others injured in the pursuit of playfulness, thank you and, believe me, I feel your pain.