Monday, August 12, 2013

Challenge #3 - The Lying Game

Once again I get to write this post from the hallowed halls of my federal government office. In order to not confuse anyone, the ‘hallowed halls’ I’m speaking of are more or less teeny tiny cubicles in a weirdly temperate, stale-aired office building that was probably built in the late ‘70s. It couldn’t be less hallowed if it tried. I guarantee that any departmental federal government building in this town will be amongst the least venerated structures ever. This of course excludes parliament because it’s a kick ass place with unicorns on the walls.


unicorn

Challenge #3 recap: "You tell me THREE stories about your life. Three things that happened to you. except one will be not true. THEN when you post that I have to guess which one I think the lie is. If I get it right, all is well. If I get it wrong, you can punish me with a punishment."

The impossible thing about Tanya’s challenge is that she knows pretty much everything about me. Any lie that I would write about myself – Doritos are my favourite snack food – would automatically be picked out of the lineup. This is because Tanya and I are besties. If you’ve ever seen Grey’s Anatomy, she is my person. She is totally who I would call if I needed to drag a body across my living room floor and into my backyard for a clandestine midnight burial. She knows mostly all of my stories, most of my insecurities and my dumb habits that I don’t even think about on a daily basis. That’s not to say all Sneetches are the same, readers. Tanya is a pretty introspective person, and I tend to like a soundboard for all of my problems. That is to say, I complain a lot about everything and Tanya is polite and helps me with problems. I feel like a jerk because she rarely complains about anything except maybe ice cream related things and the lack of food in her house. I don’t count those. Sometimes when we hang out, I learn all kinds of crazy new things about her life, even if she thinks she’s boring. She couldn’t be more awesome and interesting and fun. She’s the best, if you don’t already know. Anyways, we hang out a lot and she knows a lot about me and if we were to go on the Pyramid or the Newlywed Game (best friend edition), I think we’d have a large chance of winning. Don’t bet your mortgage against us, is all I’m saying. I don’t know, maybe Tanya thinks differently.

Back to the challenge: I am going to answer this challenge with three basic sentences; two of which are truths, and the other is a lie. I’m going to make them as difficult as possible so that this will actually present a challenge. Tomorrow, Tanya will guess which one is the lie (and feel free to do the same, guys) and I’ll let her know if she’s right on Wednesday’s post. For the benefit of all blog readers, this will be put under a 'Read More'. So just click the button below and here we go:



 

  1. I had a close call by a bus stop. I used to live in a very nice part of town but had to bus from a pretty scummy part of town to get home after classes. One night, as I was waiting on the street corner for my bus with several other students, I hear, “hey pretty lady.” Now I’m not the most confident person when it comes to my own physical ‘beauty,’ but I did happen to look around to find the person who was being stage-whispered to. That is when I was attacked. A man came out of the shadows of an alcove in the building I was standing next to and continuously told me how beautiful I was. Let me tell you: I was not looking particularly beautiful. It’s not like I was coming from a Sephora makeover and a salon blow-out; I came from class. I was wearing glasses and bundled up in a winter coat and looking tired at 10pm. I had just been discussing marketing for three hours. There was no reason for this man to call me beautiful and I told him so politely. “Come stand where it’s warm,” he told me, “I’ll keep you warm over here.” I told him I’m fine and that I’m waiting for the bus with some friends and I’m plenty warm. That’s when I huddle over to a couple of girls from a rival university (I could tell by their lanyards) and they silently move away in order to not be a part of the conflict. I felt abandoned at that moment and looked around helplessly as the man grabbed my forearm and drags me to the alcove, all the while telling me that I’ll be warmer over there. Then suddenly his mantra changed and he wanted to marry me and stay with me forever. When it kind of sounds funny now, being dragged to a shadowy place and gruffly told that I was going to be married put some very scary thoughts into my head and I was panicking. “Well shit,” I thought, “I am totally not down to marry creepy dudes in alcoves.” I –again politely because I’m Canadian – push him off me, told him I have to take my bus, jumped through the open door of the OC that is going the opposite side of town I’m going to, and sped away. That’s when I realized he got on the same bus as me. I eventually got off, walked an extra half hour home and silently freaked out he was following me the whole time.

  2. I’ve been lost in Franco-Canadian territory. Pretty much every year since I’ve met my friends we’ve made an annual trip to either Toronto or Montreal. A couple of years ago, we decided to go down to Montreal to go clubbing and shopping for my friend's birthday. The bars are open later in Quebec and in our defense, going out in our own city gets repetitive. We sneak around and all try to squeeze into the small hotel rooms we get for the night. It's always over the top and drama filled, but at least we get some good shopping in. That year, we went down on an especially cold night and were surprised to find out that our three person girls weekend had become a party of five. The two added guests were friends of friends and while it was a lot fun, I don't think anyone was as relaxed as they could've been. We were there to celebrate my friend's birthday, and she kind of felt like she was getting the short end of the stick. We somehow became the secondary group for the trip, and three friends would go shopping in certain places without us and make plans for breakfast and all that. It wasn't always easy to connect with that group of three all weekend and some of the time we got left out. Let's just say my friend is a jealous person when she has expectations that are not met. She thought that we should leave the city early, before the other three, to show them - I don't know to show them she was mad or something. I didn't care, I was sleepy. We checked out of our hotel, grabbed breakfast and started to walk towards the bus terminal to catch the Greyhound home. We had no idea where we were really going as we were jointly relying on my friend's GPS and the directions we received from the cafe owner. I think we walked at least an hour before we realized that we were pretty far into an urban area of Montreal - probably the wrong place for the bus station. Then we come up to a boarded up old station that has plenty of french signs over the doors, telling customers to go around the corner. We walked up to the windows and looked in; it was very similar to the Greyhound station in our city, but extremely dusty. Every door was locked. We start freaking out - the GPS wasn't updated. It totally brought us to the old station. We're probably lost in suburban Quebec. Taxis we're going to cost an arm and a leg to get back and she didn't have the money to pay for one. My friend's feet were hurting from her heels from the night before and she was already really disappointed with the trip. I decided that the only thing to do was call a cab that I would pay for, and we'd figure out how to get to the bus station from there. I turned the corner, thinking there must be old banks of payphones to call cabs when you got off the buses and I stopped, dumbstruck. Right in front of me was the brand new Greyhound station; buses were running in and out, taxis were lined up around the opposite corner, and passengers were coming from the shiny new station. We weren't lost - we were just idiots.

  3. I met Olympic athletes on a very turbulent airplane. It was April 2002 and I was flying home from Edmonton after visiting a friend who had moved out West. September 11th 2001 was fresh on everyone’s minds and I almost didn’t go at all, but I had enough hissy fits to convince my parents that I wouldn’t stop complaining until I boarded the plane. I was a terrible child. It was the very first time that I had been to the prairies, and more importantly, the first time I had flown by myself. I honestly thought it was a piece of cake despite the fact that I had to wear a lanyard saying I was an unaccompanied youth and I had to wait for an attendant to take me on and off the plane. I was 12 – that was obviously old enough to board a plane – and I was annoyed on the flight to Edmonton. Once again, I was a terrible child. The way back to Ontario was a different story. I had a long week with my friend and I missed my family a lot. We had gotten super sugar high the night before and I was experiencing what I retrospectively think of as my first real hangover. I felt like crap. The family I had been staying with had driven up from Calgary the morning of my flight (we were at the zoo the day before) and had just made my flight by running through security. The car ride and lack of real food had made me terribly sick; I had reached a level of preteen grouchiness I would never feel again. By the time we got to Manitoba, we had hit a fairly severe thunderstorm. The flight attendant had stopped by my seat to ensure that I had actually paid attention to the pre-flight emergency procedures lecture, which effectively freaked me out even more than I had been. I started crying pretty softly to myself while the plane lurched and everyone had gotten really hushed. That’s when I got a science lesson from an Olympic athlete.  Apparently, some of the snowboarders from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics were sitting around me on the flight home. They were on their way to the nation’s capital for some publicity stuff and were equally as freaked out as I was. I was seated mid-plane, near the wing, looking out the window and this super mellow guy and his girlfriend talked me through planes in rough weather. While turbulence is undetectable by radar and can be very dangerous, odds are you won’t crash from it. When I started calming down and tried acting like an adult again, I asked what they were up to in Ottawa and where they were from and that’s when I found out about their athletic achievements. It was pretty rad and it’s not something I’m likely to forget.


 


I’d kind of like to have two rounds of this, so I might post another three stories on Wednesday :D And I totally meant to do my punishment on

Friday, and then I wanted to fall keel over from a flu-like sickness, so I didn’t. I’ll try to find a picture for Wednesday!]

Later guys!

Crystal

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