Just Shy of Paradise

Just Shy of Paradise
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

"I'm a liar" tagging

Being friends with Josi Kilpack is starting to be a lot of work, but so far I'm willing to put up with it because she is worth it. Notice I put so far--this is about the umpteenth time she's tagged me for one of these games. I love playing them, but have a hard time tagging someone else. Remember friendship bread? It's really yummy stuff, but before you bake the bread, you take out some of the batter. You do weird things to it to keep it alive, like squish it, add things to it, and say a prayer over it--well I'm not sure about that one. Eventually you'd then pass the culture on to someone else that you're are supposed to "care" about, but truly it got to where I didn't know who to give the culture to that wouldn't hate me forever for doing it. I feel that way about tagging. While I'm flattered someone would think of me, and I love to blather on about myself , I'm not sure everyone loves to play so I have a hard time coming up with friends to tag.

So blogging friends, if you read this, yeah I still want to play, but give me a list or something of folks who want to be tagged.

Back to the game. You're supposed to tell four stories, one of which is a lie, and let readers guess which is the lie. I've decided to alter the game only slightly. I'm going to tell four embarrassing moments in my life. I embarrass myself frequently so this should be easy. Josi made hers into a contest, so I will as well. Since not too many of you read my blog, your chances of winning are pretty great. And since I don't have that many books of mine (they are currently out-of-print, they are precious. Anyway guess which one is the lie and I will draw from those. We'll give it a week, which is about November 7th.

#1 When I was in fourth grade at Sharon Elementary in Orem, I climbed a fence to go after a fly ball when our class was playing softball. I was wearing a paisley patterned dress with a bow and a wide collar. After retrieving the ball, I climbed back, but got hung up on the high fence. I basically hung there for all the world to see my underwear until the dress ripped sufficiently enough to allow me to fall to the ground. I threw the ball in, and the game continued on as if nothing happened.

#2 When I was in Paris at age 21 near Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmatre, I was walking down a street. If you've been there you know the street. There were numerous beyond shady businesses dedicated to the sex trade. I mean what they tell you in church is true, some images do stay with you forever. Anyway I'd gotten separated from my friend Rosanna. I'd stopped to ask some guy for directions. I couldn't speak French and he couldn't speak English, and I found myself being led by force into one of the shops to engage in who knows what. I ended up literally pulling away from him and running. I found my friend a block later who by this time was talking to a member of the French police and trying to explain that her friend had disappeared into one of the places of ill-repute. When I recovered, and she recovered we shared a pastry and laughed so hard my sides ached.

#3 When I was around twenty, I went for a hike to the top of Mount Timpanogas. This is not to be confused with the Timp Cave trail. To the top of the mountain is something like nine miles. Anyway, basically I'd gone up the Timpanookee trail and then slid down the glacial field to the gorgeous Emerald Lake. Back in those days Emerald Lake had a shelter at it with an outhouse in the back. Okay, well I thought the door to the outhouse was the door into the shelter and I followed some guy through the door. I stood right behind the guy and wondered why he was so slow in moving forward. I didn't realize that I was standing directly behind him while he peed until I heard the tinkling noise. I backed out the door and tried to quickly disappear among the hikers. Well he saw me and called me a pervert.

#4 About 15 years ago, we hadn't lived in Paradise for all that long. Anyway in the middle of June, I was on my way home after cleaning up my pottery from Logan's famous Summerfest Art Fest. It was late at night and as I passed a farm in town I saw smoke. I saw someone pulled off the road and they too thought the hay and barn was on fire. I quickly went home and called the fire department and then dragged my husband over to the fire to see if we could help the owners whom we knew. We drove up the lane and then at least six fire trucks came in behind us. Firefighters jumped out ready to fight the fire and also effectively blocked us from leaving. To make a long story short. There was no fire! But we had to sit there while the firefighters figured this out and complained about it. I watched as the other guy (who thought it was on fire) disappeared and didn't have to face the humiliation. Well the next day at church someone came up to me and said, "We'll try and let you know, next time we have a barbeque."

Okay, well I'm tagging Stephanie Humphreys, at Write Bravely.
And Julie Wright. Her link is on my list to the side. This really is a fun one to write. I hope you enjoy.



9 comments:

Stephanie Humphreys said...

Okay, I'm going to guess #3. Good stories.

Unknown said...

Wow! Amazing stories, Carole. I guess the Up in Smoke one at the end is the fake. It's too tame compared with the others. I've read all your books, by the way, and loved them. They are memorable. So if I win I'll think of some deserving person you can send it to :-)

Autumn Ables said...

Ma'm are you a writer or something? From the sound of your short stories- I'd swear you were. Maybe you ahould think of getting something published. ;)

OK-ok...I'm done. These are all good enough to have my going {writer's blood} but I think I will pick # 3 as your lie. Though, yes it was believable and hilarious!

Julie Wright said...

oh wow . . . I have no idea which one is a lie. They all sound believable! I am wavering between 3 and 4. I am going to pick 4. :)

Katie Parker said...

I will guess #2, then. All of 'em are good stories!

Josi said...

I'm banking on the smoke thing being true, and the Paris one because you have no fear of people and would have done both of those. So I'm going to go with #1.

Funny stuff

Julie Coulter Bellon said...

I'm going to guess #3 because that was the most hilarious one. And I learned long ago, when in doubt choose C!

Great blog!

Annette Lyon said...

I'm clueless, but I'll say #3 just cause. Fun stories--looking forward to finding out which isn't true.

C.J. said...

Well it's easy to pick the winner on these because there is only one who got it right--Katie Parker.

Katie--send me your mailing address and I'll ship you a book.