seven fibs and one truth

Rules were meant to be politely acknowledged. And then disregarded and rewritten.

Last week, I was tagged by the inimitable Susie Bright. Generally, I don’t “do” memes—that convention of blogdom wherein a set of something gets passed around like a game of hot potato, and all the bloggers who are pitched the virtual potato must respond posthaste in the prescribed fashion. I don’t really play well with others. I run with scissors. I have an insouciant streak wide as the Mississip and twice as nasty.

But this request emanated from the legendary Susie Bright, and I feel compelled to respond to her call, as if she were the raunchy minister and I singing in her chiffon-robed and kitten-heeled marabou-muled choir. Susie tagged me with a meme that requires the blogger in question to serve up eight hot and fresh tasty tidbits about him or herself. Here are the original rules of the meme:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight  things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and  to read your blog.

I, however, am changing the game. I’m going to give you eight facts, only one of which will be completely true. The others, not so much. You can, should you choose to, guess which one is the genuine article. I’d make it a game, but I can’t think of a proper reward. So here’s the deal, if you want to guess, do, and then add what you’d like me to award you as a prize. I’ll pick the winner at random, and by “random,” I mean the one that’s both correct and has the most interesting/appealing prize in mind.

Here you go, my revised game: 7 Lies and 1 Truth, A Truculent Meme

1. I am allergic to shellfish. Should as much as a morsel of a mollusk cross my lips, I swell from the inside out until my face approaches Pillsbury Doughboy proportions; it’s less pretty than it sounds, and so is the anaphylactic wheezing.

2. At the age of seventeen, while at a parent-free overnight party at my friend Kim’s house I had sexual relations of various kinds with two members of my high school football team (one receiver and one end, if I recall correctly). I fucked only one of them, but I don’t quite recall which.

3. In 1983, during my brief stint as a Jello wrestler, I was arrested outside a bar in Barre, Vermont for solicitation. I was waiting for my ride back to Burlington, lounging outside the bar and smoking a cigarette. Two cops came around the side of the bar, saw me, and asked me for ID. I didn’t  have it—I used to be terrible about carrying around my wallet. They cuffed me, read me my rights, and put me in a cruiser. Two hours later, they released me. I had to take a bus back to Burlington. Fuckers.

4. While diving in the Cayman Islands at a place appropriately called “Hammerhead Hall,” I was so busy looking up at all the sharks circling lazy as kites above me, I literally wasn’t watching my back. I got bumped by the nose—or tail—of a shark. I wasn't hurt, just startled, and I think I might have breathed a half a tank of oxygen in the twenty-eight seconds it took me to realize what had happened and watch the shark swim blithely away.

5. In 1994, before he was famous, while he was still working the door at nightclubs, and while I stripping, I dated Vin Diesel. He was then in the flesh exactly as he is now on screen. He has a fantastic voice and an even more fantastic ego. He kissed me like he held a grudge from the old neighborhood against my epiglottis. We never fucked, and he ended up going out with this other stripper who was short, white and had the biggest, roundest ass.

6. As much as I love to be waxed—and I do—I haven’t been waxed in well over a year. My doughty waxer, Tamara, moved somewhat downtown and I’ve been too lazy to walk the eight blocks to her new grooming digs. I’ve been making do with shaving, but Donny recently informed me that this stop-gap method of depilation just is not cutting it.

7. The last time I was on a motorcycle, I was riding double with my dead ex-boyfriend (he was alive at the time; he was also steering). We were riding up in Vermont, and my boyfriend, who grew up in the city, didn’t know jack about cowshit. We, and a car on the right,  were coming up fast on a T-stop that I could see was slick with cowplop. I yelled in his ear to slow down because cowshit is slippery. He didn’t. We skidded out, flying in separate directions. The bike was fine; Will was fine; I got road rash all up and down my left leg. I was also sufficiently scared to never get on a bike again.

8. In college, I sang in a band called Oral Majority. Mostly, we did covers and a couple of bad originals. Our best song was a cover of The Pretender’s “Private Life Drama,” mostly because I didn’t have to actually sing it per se, as much as talk my way through it. We rehearsed in our bass player’s basement, played a couple of gigs and made about $92 each before we broke up due to artistic differences.

There you go. Seven of them are false; one is true. Figure out which, propose a prize, and maybe you’ll get it. Or not. Just a word of caution: I am honest, but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes make it  a better story. Color my writing sometimes chimera-shaded with truthiness. Choose with that in mind.

I’m not going to tag anyone, but I would be delighted if any one of my friends Terry, Jamye, Alana, Karl Elvis, EM, or Rupert wanted to play some version of the game.

Comments

[Susie Bright]

Well, you are very kind to respond to my evil tagging. I also did this game because the blogger who tagged me, Pharyngula, is someone I admire, and I was too flattered to ignore him.

I like your new rules. I'm going to pick the Jello Bust as the true story. I don't know why, it just called out to me. And for my prize, I simply want your forgiveness for sending you the equivalent of blog chain mail.

Your version reminds me of the Geisha game, immoralized in "memoirs of a geisha." my daughter used to like to play that when she was little, it's a great bedtime story date!

[Pluff]

Number 5. Wish I could think of a good prize.

[chelsea girl]

Susie, you are forgiven even before asking.

So one vote each for numbers 3 and 5. Anyone else?

kissykiss,
chelsea g

[Kristin]

I know it: You're allergic to shellfish.

When I win I'll give you the link and you'll get to see the pictures of how I was molested by lobsters. All in the interest of testing your propensity to anaphylactic shock.

Does it get any better if I say I'm aracnophobic? Do you think I'm crazy enough to make it in Gotham?
:-)
Kristin

[seany]

I'm with Susie. I think #3 is the true story.

[rachel]

I vote for 7. 3 has the most convincing details, and therefore seems true-est, but I like the brief crescendo best in 7. and so i vote.

[misha]

I'm going to have to go with #5 about Vin Diesel, he seems like an ass man.

[chelsea girl]

So far, all odds: 1, 3, 5 and 7. Anyone for evens?

kissykiss,
chelsea g

[Alana]

Hey CG. Number 5, darlin! You dated Vin D, before he was Vin D. At least I recall this from your archives. :-)

And yes, thanks for the invite. I'll play!

A

[Doug M.]

New commenter Doug here. I think #4 is it.

That exact same thing has happened to me. Doesn't mean it happened to you too, of course, but... convincing.

If I'm right: Help my best friend C. get hooked up. "Help" may just consist of writing him an e-mail... you decide. But he's whip-smart, he's funny, he's buff, and he's just really crappy at the whole courtship thing. Shy.

Fingers crossed. And great blog, BTW.

Doug M.

[chelsea girl]

Oooh, our first even. I'm an even kind of girl myself. It is a plausible story, isn't it?

cheers,
chelsea

[Curvaceous Dee]

I'm thinking number 7 for the win - it's just too awful not to be true!

As a prize? Being interviewed by you.

xx Dee

[picturegrl]

I vote for #5 as well. For my prize, I think I'd like another boot fantasy and a hot as hell self-portrait to um, boot. :-)

[sweat shop sissy]

What a great contest!
I'd have to say #5 is also my choice. For my prize...I would have said being interviewed by you, but that's already been done. Sooo...Something of yours signed "To Sweat Shop Sissy
kissykiss Chelsea G'. It could be a promotional poster, a copy of your first novel, your 3rd most favourite panties... I guess that last one wouldn't work since they're probably not big enough to write a message on. Still, I'm sure you get the idea.
Cheers,
sss

[minstrel boy]

when this meme was circulating in another form, where there was only one lie, most people tended to put the lie into the number 3 slot. when i did it, so did i. it was something that i noticed while going over the way other folks constructed their truth/lie paradigm. something about 3 seems to convey something. . .

gotta go with 3.

[chelsea girl]

So what do we have now? A couple votes for #3 (solicitation arrest), several for #5 (Vin Diesel), a few for #7 (motorcycle story) and one each for #1 (shellfish) and #4 (sharks).

Interesting.

kissykiss,
chelsea g

[Nicole]

Hmmm...I think I am going to have to go with number three. As for a prize, well, I think your writing is gift enough.

[rachel]

Your recap just made me think it's 2. But I'm not officially changing my vote.

[Caliban]

Deduction tells me that if you were swimming near the Cayman Islands you'd be with sting rays, not sharks. So, that's out.

The Vin Diesel thing sounds like a story you've told before, so I'm going with that one.

OH, and the prize I want: I want to know who the famous commedienne you slept with was. I remember reading that post long ago and wondering who you were protecting. All I could keep thinking was: Lily Tomlin, Lily Tomlin. . . .

[steve]

I'm going with number 8 because your sex life complications are indeed our fascinations (Shit that is so wet). And when I win, I want you to write a fantasy about you and Chrissie. Yowza.

Steve

[rupert]

CG,

hard. each one is kind of true but one is very true? well I'm thinking the linked one are there to throw us. used to authenticate those entries enough for each one to possibly be the truth. so it might be between 8,3 and 1. number 3 might be another (read) Herring as it may stand out as too ridiculous to be true but then because of that it actually is true but is actually false for that very reason I have just stated. number 1 seems like too much a sensible truth that would be almost too reasonable and therefore a 'dead give-away'.

I'm voting in 8 then although wondering if the band name was taken from the Monty Python sketch, was Chelsea a fan? I'm trying to envisage Chelsea voicing to the lyrics "Your sentimental gestures only bore me to death. You've made a desperate appeal now save your breath. Attachment to obligation through guilt and regret shit that's so wet, And your sex life complications are not my fascinations".

All up $92 dollars might be good going for a college band, why $92 possibly the truth lies in that little detail or maybe the lie in that little truth and I'm wrong.

So 8 it is.

Rups

[chelsea girl]

Who doesn't love it when her readers quote Chryssie? Vin Diesel is still in the lead, but the Oral Majority is catching up. Oysters uneaten and Football players balled lag with one choice each, and no one goes for waxing. The middle of the pack swims with sharks, rides with cops and crashes in cowplop.

Okeydokey. I'll let you all know at the end of the week.

kissykiss,
chelsea

[dewey]

CG,

If I recall correctly you mentioned having had mussles after the Penthouse party, and you didn't swell then....well, your feet were probably a little swollen, but all else faired well. Number 1 is out.

Does anyone really love waxing? Well, then again, I suppose it depends how you define waxing...but in this case it is clear. 6 is out.

I'm leaning towards number 3. The reason why? Because Barre, VT, has got to be a reasonable small town, and being from a small town myself, I know the cops are just bored to death. So picking up a pretty lady in the night gives them both something to do and something to look at for a while. Very plausible. And they were true to what you called them - fuckers - they had their fun with you and then dumped you, like a sack of potatoes or an old boyfriend - at the bus station. Isn't it a shame that that was their idea of fun?

My prize? Well, you and words are really a prize enough, but since I'm going to be visiting the folks in NJ in September, you owe me a drink. Nothing more. If I don't get it, well the thought of having a drink with you is enough.

Cheers
dewey

[Shanna Germain]

i'm going with Vin, just because I really, really want it to have happened...

he's just too yummy!

:) s.

[S.P.]

I'll cast a lone vote for #6, just because it, too is quite plausible... My prize would be the ability to negotiate the prize after I win (grin)...

[chelsea girl]

SP,

Are you suggesting that it is plausible that I didn't fuck/blow two teammembers within a twelve-hour span?

Alas! And here I thought I'd heartily demonstrated both my sexual appetite and lack of judgment.

cheers,
chelsea g

[O]

I do generally dislike memes but I love what you did with this one; no surprise there. It's like your own dance of the seven veils!

Love
O

[karl Elvis]

They're all true. You're just fuckin' with us.

[karl Elvis]

Oh, and I gave in and did one of these. I hate these, but I can't say no to you, my sweet.

[S.P.]

CG -- I have the ultimate confidence in your sexual appetite, never fear... (And as for lack of judgement, well, hindsight is always 20:15...)
Oh, no, I have no doubt that some version of "teammates" occurred, especially at a "parent-free" party -- been there, done THAT! The trick is to pick out the un- or partial-truth within your seven fibs... If #3 is a fib, perhaps it's just that you actually DO remember which one you fucked, eh? Subtlety becomes you, m'dear...