Liar Contest Answers and the Winner!
16 11 2007It’s time to announce the winner of the Liar Meme/Contest. If you missed it, here is a breif explanation: I wrote 7 statements about myself, 6 were true, and one was a lie. In order to have a chance to win, you had to correctly pick out the lie. Nine people millions of people entered, but there can only be one winner. I purposefully made it hard, so that hopefully everyone had a more or less of an equal chance, whether we’ve been friends for years, not seen each other for years, or have never met. However, before I announce the winner I am giving you the truth (or fib) behind each of the statements.
Option D:
I know of a family whose last name is Christmas. They named one of their daughters Mary.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much more to tell you about the Christmas family, or Mary because I’ve never actually met them. All I know other than their names, is that they lived in the 1800’s in Wales. I found them while looking through genealogy archives. No one guessed that this was the lie. Which is good, because it’s true.
Option C:
I’ve slept overnight at IKEA.
Despite IKEA’s popularity,there actually aren’t that many of them around. You can only find them in 18 of the 50 states, and usually only near large metropolitan areas. So when one goes in in your area, it’s a BIG deal. They hold a huge celebration, people camp out for several days, they give away lots of free stuff, government officials give speeches, etc. So, when it was announced that an IKEA was going in near Salt Lake City, it was an opportunity a friend and I couldn’t pass up. We had both been SAHMs for about 2 years and it was about time to have an adventure without the kiddos. So the night before the big grand opening, we left our little ones with our loving husbands, packed up some camping gear and headed off to the IKEA parking lot! Yahoo!
It was actually a lot of fun. We made friends with our “tent neighbors” and stayed up sharing goodies, playing games and talking. In the morning, there were olympic gymnasts performing on giant trampolines, music, the governor and various others spoke, there were tv and radio stations everywhere, and the line to get in looked miles long. While waiting in line, we were treated to free Swedish candies and pastries, lots of free promotional stuff (ie. frisbee, compass, mini tool set, etc), and a gift card with a random amount on it. Also, while we were waiting in line, a local radio station journalist snapped our picture and interviewed me. It was an awful interview as the radio journalist thought we were all a bit “off our rockers” for spending the night in a parking lot, and she made that quite clear with her questions. Thankfully, my interview didn’t make the final cut for broadcast, but they posted the photo on their website. I posted it below, too. (I’m in the brown hoodie.)
After all of that, we were finally let in the store. All that I bought was a bathroom mat. It’s not because I didn’t want to buy more, it’s that we were there for the whole adventure, and I could come back and shop anytime. It’s something I’d do again in a heartbeat.
Option B:
I spent a summer working as a counselor at a youth fat camp.
It was 2001, and it was time to look for a job for the summer. A friend suggested we do something different. Very different. When we found job openings to be counselors at a fat camp in the Catskills in New York, we decided to apply. Someone called within a few days and interviewed me over the phone.
“Do you have any experience with kids?” The woman asked in her heavy New York accent.
“Well, I’m the oldest of six kids, I volunteer at an elementary…”
“SIX KIDS!! Ok, that’s plenty of experience!” She interrupted. “Do you have any experience working at a summer camp?”
“Umm, well I was a camp leader at Camp Shalom last year…” I replied. Camp Shalom is a camp for Mormon teen girls, it’s not really a “summer camp” per se, as each group only stays there one week. However, the interviewer interrupted me again.
“Camp Shalom? Very good!” She sounded impressed. I was very confused by this, and it wasn’t until much later that I had any idea why. I found out that the camp I was applying to was overwhelmingly Jewish, (including the woman who was interviewing me). Later that summer, the woman who interviewed me once remarked that she was wary of hiring Utahns, because she was afraid of Mormons trying to convert the campers. Hahaha, I’m thinking that the name “Camp Shalom” might have given her the idea that I worked at a Jewish camp. Besides, I had no plans to hold nightly missionary discussions in our bunk or anything of the sort.
Anyway, we both got the job. I was now officially the counselor in charge of the 11 year old girls AND the tie-dye instructor. Wohoo! Tie-Dye! I promptly went to the library to learn the art of tie-dying, because I really had no idea how to do it.
I could write 50 different blog entries just entailing the experiences I had at the camp, but this post is already getting too long. So in short: I spent most of the summer with rainbow dyed hands from working with tie-dye all day. I ate horrid food almost everyday for three months, it wasn’t bad because it was diet food, it was just gross. I comforted Michael Tyson’s daughter, Mikel, after another girl in our bunk taunted her with:”what are you going to do, bite off my ear?” I let many tween girls cry on my shoulder that summer, because: they missed their parents, they didn’t like it there (I didn’t blame them, it was a poorly maintained and run camp), they were hungry, they wished that boys liked them, etc. It was definitely an interesting summer.
Above: Some of the kids at the camp. They’re dressed in blue for a camp competition called Color Wars. Don’t they look thrilled?
Sorry, Kathleen & Paige, it’s true, I worked for a summer at a youth fat camp.
Option G:
I had tenative plans to be at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, but luckily, my accomodations fell through.
After the camp ended, the camp director said he would pay an extra sum to anyone who would stay an extra two weeks to clean and repair the camp for next year. My friend and I volunteered because we were really hoping for some extra cash so we could explore and enjoy Manhattan for a few weeks before we left. If we stayed to help clean the camp, this would have put our flight home on September 12, 2001. We planned all of the things we wanted to see and do, which included our plan of going to the World Trade Center the day before we left to watch the sunrise. However, the camp director decided against having extra help so we left the camp right after it ended. We planned to stay with two other friends for the extra amount of time, but both of those plans fell through eventually as well. Without the extra cash, or a free place to stay, we were only able to stay in Mahattan for a week after the camp ended and we flew back to Salt Lake City at the end of August.
Luckily no one guessed this one, because it’s true.
Option E:
My television debut was on the Ricki Lake Show.
This happened during the week we spent in Manhattan. We were crossing the street on Broadway when we heard someone yelling our names. We looked around wondering how in the world anyone in New York City would know us. It turned out it was a group of some of the other counselors from the camp and they were in an SUV stopped at the red light right right behind us. We jumped into their car before the light turned green.
They explained to us that one of them happened to be a friend of one of the producers of the Ricki Lake Show. They had tickets to that day’s show and invited us to come along. Hahaha, so of course we went with them.
When we got to the studio, we were ushered past everyone else who had to wait in line, because the producer was expecting us. We got a backstage tour, t-shirts and front row seats. The topic for that day’s show was: “The International Manhunt for the World’s Sexiest Man”. Hahaha, awesome! For the next hour, we watched men from all over the world rip off their shirts, flex and say sensuous things in their native tongues to woo the all female audience. In the end, the guy from Mexico took home the “title”.
Because we were in the front row, dead center, I was on the camera a lot. So, sorry Summer, it’s true, my TV debut was on the Ricki Lake Show.
Option F:
My mother won a beauty pageant. It was at a nudist camp.
In Tom’s guess, he said he picked this one as the lie because my Mom struck him as a “Molly type”. (Molly is Utah slang for a Mormon goody-goody). While Tom is right that my Mom can be that way, what he may not know is that my Mom wasn’t always Mormon.
One summer during her childhood, her parents wanted to take the family camping. It was the 1960’s, though, so they didn’t want just any campground, no, they were going to a nudist camp!! Horray for peace, family love and nudity!
My mother recalls them pulling up to the camp and being very, very confused after being greeted by a completely naked man. She says that they spent the next couple weeks in nothing but hiking boots, doing various activities with the rest of the nude group. One of those activities was a beauty pageant, and my Mom won the title in her age category. My grandma recalls her reaction as: “I won? But what will I wear? I didn’t even bring a dress!”
My Mom was only 6 at the time, so she doesn’t remember much else about the camp. However, she does remember that if anyone sat on the “loo” for too long, it was obvious to everyone else because of the toilet seat ring imprinted on their bare butts. Hahaha, it’s probably good that she doesn’t remember much else, eh?
Sorry, Cristy, Tom & Marie. It may be ludicrous, but it’s true. My Mom won a beauty pageant at a nudist camp.
Option A:
The mayor of my town has one of my paintings in his office. It’s of a pair of cowboy boots and a cat.
The painting above doesn’t exist except as a jpg file (or maybe in my nightmares). This one was the lie. I’ve never met the local mayor. While I do like to paint (this is what was supposed to throw you off), I’ve never painted cowboy boots and a cat. So congratulations McKenna and Brenda, you guessed right.
Originally, I was going to have Curious George pick the winner’s name out of a hat, but he’s asleep, so I’m gonna try out the randomizer service that McKenna used for her contest. (I could probably just do eenie meenie miney moe, but whatever.)
And the winner is.. McKenna! (Ha ha ha, that randomizer really does pass along good karma!) Congratulations, McKenna! Send me an email with your mailing address and I’ll send you your fabulous assortment of international candy! Yay!
Thanks, everyone, for playing this game! It was fun, so I’ll definitely being doing more contests or giveaways in the future, so “stay tuned”!
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