Contest

I was talking to Joel today and, somehow, we got on the topic of strange things people have told us.

I mentioned a woman I went to college with who claimed she was allergic to the hair on her head, and said that if I were in such a situation, I would shave my head, yet she did not. She also was not allergic to her eyelashes, which makes me suspect her allergic-ness to her hair (maybe it was something in her hair?)

Joel then told me a story about a girl he went to grade school with who claimed to be allergic to water. She would cough and say something like "Oh, I am allergic to the water droplets in the air. I need to get a drink." Apparently, drinking water is hypo-allergenic, it's only the water which comes in contact with skin and mucus membranes which causes problems. (Someone should really mention this to Gregory Maguire).

I responded with a story about a girl with whom I attended fourth grade. She claimed that because she had some English blood in her (through her father, her mother was 100% Italian American) she occasionally would slip into an English accent against her will and there was nothing she could do about it. Before even comparing her to Madonna, keep in mind that Madonna actually lives in Britain and, perhaps, we can forgive her for starting to sound like the people with whom she surrounds herself (in much the same way that Nicole Kidman's accent has become much more Americanized over the years). My friend, on the other hand, had never left America and the only exposure she had to an English accent was Princess Diana's interviews. It was terribly disturbing to me when she would slip into an accent because she insisted it was something beyond her control and refused to admit she was pretending. I wasn't that many years removed from dressing up and pretending to be people I was not, so it really freaked me out to have someone do it in real life and for it not to be a game. In retrospect, it is clear to me that she had a lot of problems. (As a side note: She was actually the very first of "unsuitable" people I befriended i.e. people who I became friends with who my mother really did not like and made her dislike known to me and while that annoyed me when I was younger, in retrospect I can see that my mother was right about these people as they were overwhelmingly damaged and toxic.) We didn't stay friends long as we were in different classes the following year and then different schools after that. I only saw her once or twice after that (another toxic friend would always mention running into her and proceed to tell me how incredibly gorgeous she turned out to be. Definitely the sort of thing my chubby, awkward, and strange looking adolescent self needed to hear) and I thought she was completely out of my life, but then, we worked together for a few months at Starbucks twelve years ago (yes, she was messed up and while not unattractive, she was one of those girls who peaked at 13 as far as beauty goes). I did not bring up the accent thing as she either wouldn't remember it and would have denied it if she did. I am pretty sure I'll never run into her again, except I sometimes think I see her at the gym, but I can't be sure it is her, so I never say anything.

Q: Hey, doesn't the title of this post say contest? Why are you blathering on about some mean girl from your past?

Point taken. All this talk about crazy talk and people gave me an idea.

Tell me the ridiculous and weird things people in the past have told you about themselves. I am not talking about the improbable, but true things (like, say, being able to clover your tongue or put your leg behind your neck). I want to hear the things which seemed completely impossible to you when you heard it, but which you couldn't refute. Things which the person in question could not prove, but which you could not disprove. Things which sometimes makes you wish for a time machine so you could go back to lend your grown up knowledge, logic and debating skills to the situation so that the lie could be shaken out of the storyteller's tree.

Q: Who does the judging?

Well, I will pick the story which makes me laugh or cry hardest, or which I find charming, or which I feel is so fabulous I have to steal it for a fictional story of my own (don't worry, I will probably just use your story as a jumping off point and I will give you as much or as little credit as you desire).

Q: What does the winner get?

Good question. I haven't decided yet. Maybe the winner will get a book, maybe the winner will get some yarn, maybe the winner will get a black dress. Maybe there will be more than one winner.

Get your stories to me by August 31, 2006 either by including them in the comments section or emailing me.

Comments

PBnJ said…
The most absurd thing someone ever told me about themselves was this:
I knew this guy who claimed to be a dream master. He said he could enter other people's dreams and control them (the dreams). :/ Hmmm....
Anonymous said…
Ha. That's great. I'm sure you remember me telling you about my boyfriend Matt from high school. He told me that he killed Satan in a dream, on accident I think, and now he had to do the job. You know, reigning in lost souls and the like. He kept up this facade while we were dating, saying that he would go into trances, and when he did that, he was in in hell talking to his minions, and that he had taken past girlfriends with him. He refused to take me with him because I was too pure- meaning that I was both a confirmed Catholic and a tree-hugger, as he called me. I think he secrely got off on highlighting the contrast. Evidence of his satan-ness included the time I took him to Mass on Easter;the preist skipped our row when he was sprinkling holy water (that part is true). Evidence that he is full of crap includes the fact that he fronted a band while knowing 2-3 power chords and not being able to sing. I was never able to disprove the Satan thing. Suffice it to say that he is fat now and lives with his mother.
ikkinlala said…
Once a classmate claimed she was a close relative of a well-known hockey player. She told elaborate (and sometimes conflicting) stories about what she did when she spent time with him, but she always refused to say who she was talking about.
boodafli said…
dude. i will probably become the next person you blog about 15 years after the fact. but, in the interest of winning a book (because i can't knit, and i look like a drag queen in dresses) i will unpack the peculiarities of some of my former friends (and, honestly, some people i still hang with, altho i'll change their names.)

so, in middle school, my geeky friends and i thought (as a logical extension of ouija board usage) that we should join together and form a witches coven. we had special witch names (mine was Io..) and we would go to parties of popular kids (which we weren't, really) and do that whole 'light as a feather, stiff as a board thing.' 99% of the time, it didn't work. and we always blamed the hosers at the party for not 'believing' enough. and they'd scoff, deny us koolaid, and send us on our nerdly witchy ways. (but the parents at our school made all of us invite all of the kids in our classes to all of our parties, in the interest of fairness, or something akin to celebrity deathmatch allure.) so this one time, we were at this girl sarah's house. sarah was THE popular girl. she was tiny, with boobs at 12, and the first in our class to get her period. she had a boyfriend in 8th grade. her parents had a liquor cabinet, and she had a key. her house was huge. she had a 'playhouse' in her backyard, which was the same size as my future first apartment. and nicer, actually, in retrospect. anyway. for her 13th birthday, we were, of course, invited to her party. under duress. but we went. and the ouija board came out. and then, one of my friends suggested we try 'light as a feather' again. usually, it was one of us we were trying to levitate, but sarah, being the birthday girl, and having that air of entitlement, climbed gamely onto her dining room table. we all gathered around, and explained the rules. 2 fingers under the body, close your eyes. imagine her levitating. concentrate. chant. light as a feather. stiff as a board. eventually, she will rise up, and we'll be able to take our hands away, and she'll float.
typical teenie bopper stuff.

only.

this time.

it worked.

yep. that skank lifted up off the table about an inch. her best friend screamed, and then sarah hit the table with a thud. it was, without a doubt, the phreakiest thing i have EVER been party to. and i can't explain it. but needless to say, it scared all of us enough that we never tried it again. but it was just the cherry on sarahs smugness sundae. she never let us forget that SHE could levitate, and she wasn't even a witch.

so. there ya go. that's my weirdness.
Anonymous said…
I just want you to know I have an unfair advantage, as I work with acutely psychotic patients everyday.
Val
Anonymous said…
I dated a guy in college who told me the world was HIS creation. And the world was all in his head. It was his dream, as was I. He could make anything happen that he wanted to. I asked him why I wasn't in his bed then, and told him it was awfully conceited of him to think that the entire world and everything in it was his creation and his alone, and that was our very last date. Control that, buddy!

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