Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to make a good disguise?

I need one, quick, and I can’t find any good books on the topic.

Maybe I should just ask an expert. How about John McCain? He might know a thing or two about disguises. It seems like he has vanished off the face of the earth since the wrassling match for the presidential nomination on the Democratic side has been going on and on.

I take that back. He made news the other day when his wife, Cindy, refused to fork over her income tax returns — even if she becomes first lady.

That’s what doomed John Kerry back in 2004, by the way. His wife refused to hand over her financial records, too, and people were mighty disappointed they would never get any answers on how much the Heinz Company had squandered on that purple ketchup idea.

I need a good disguise because I need to hit a few plant sales this weekend.

A longtime friend and landscaping expert is coming for a visit in a few weeks, and I have been lying to him for months about how this year I was ready for the spring planting season. A first for me, of course.

I told a whole bunch of lies about how I finally got my act together and looked through seed catalogs over the winter instead of using them like I usually do, to weigh down a blue tarp on a shelf in the garage. I said I actually started some seeds indoors, early, like all the smart gardeners do, and bragged about how my on-top-of-it early work has paid off with tomato plants that are knee high now; a super strain of high performers that are so vigorous that when the deer try to bite them, the plants bite back.

Of course, I never did anything to get ready for the gardening season. The seeds I picked up at the store three months ago are still sitting in the plastic bag from the farmer’s supply store in the basement.

And the Little Missuss got so tired of looking at the bags of potting soil I left in the driveway back in February that she dragged them off to parts unknown, which is probably the garden shed. Wouldn’t know, haven’t popped in there lately.

But with my impending visit from my gardening guru from the mainland, I’ve got to get hustling and get some plants in the ground right away or face a long weekend of snickers, silent and sad stares, and “I told you so’s.”

I need a disguise before I can hit the local plant sales, though, because I am still on the noxious weed list with local gardeners, given my stunning performance during last year’s garden tour.

Apparently, garden tour officials are still fuming at me because some people demanded partial refunds due to the mental suffering, pain and anguish they experienced while walking past my property on their way to gardens that were actually on the tour.

Many of them remember my face because I tried to make a few bucks by selling blindfolds when the tour buses pulled up on my street.

If they wouldn’t have chased me off, I bet they would be singing a different tune on those refunds they had to shell out.

Next issue: Something’s amiss.