The entries are all in, the scores all tabulated, and one thing is for certain: you people don't know me as well as you thought you did. None of the entries were winners, as all (both) of the entrants were duped by at least two falsehoods. Despair not, gentle reader, the truth is revealed below.
1) - I was once stranded in Jamaica due to mass rioting.FALSE - This is an amalgam of two events... my ex-uncle was once stranded in his native Trinidad due to rioting, and there were some fairly serious riots in Jamaica recently due to a planned 18 cent hike in gas taxes. But none of this ever occured to me.
2) - I've delivered flowers to Cookie Rankin.FALSE - Although I've told a couple of people I did, it was actually my father who had this honour.
3) - My mother never graduated from high school.TRUE - This is true on a technicality... my mother left Kingston after finishing grade 12 because of a running feud between my grandmother and a schoolboard official. My grandparents were worried mom would get blacklisted from scholarship consideration (it had already happened to my aunt), so she moved to Montreal and spent a year in CEGEP before going to McGill.
4) - My left foot is mildly deformed.TRUE - I've actually shown a couple of people this. My left foot is partially webbed - two toes never separated. There's a similar effect on my right foot, although it's not nearly as noticeable because the toes are almost fully separated.
5) - I was once the provinical junior men's lawn bowling champion.TRUE - I won the provincial finals by default, but I was indeed the champ in 1997. I went to the nationals in Charlottetown, and got my ass handed to me, going winless. (Of course, I'd always bowled on turf, and wasn't used to grass, but that's just an excuse). The guy and gal from Alberta were really cool... they rented a couple of mopeds and cruised around town. I also had a serious thing for the Saskatchewan girls' champ, but nothing came of it.
6) - I got a speeding ticket within two weeks of getting my driver's license.FALSE - This is a tricky one, as I did get a ticket within two weeks of getting my license; but it was for failure to obey a sign, not for speeding (I've never had a speeding ticket). I also did $4000 worth of damage to a $5000 car in that incident, but thankfully no one was hurt.
7) - Chris Windeyer was the person who first got me to drink.TRUE - This was in Tatamagouche, at an NSNDP Youth Wing convention. My parents had always been totally open about alcohol and didn't mind if I drank - thus, it took the rebellion out of it and I never started to drink until I was 18. For the record, Chris gave me a can of Heineken, and he didn't know I was underage (at least I don't think he did).
8) - I blew out my knee playing football in the seventh grade and I still have the scar.FALSE - I did hurt my knee, but it was in the eighth grade, I did it playing baseball, and you can't see the scar. It was a fairly stupid injury, too... I ran into a fence chasing a foul ball. I was playing first base, and normally your right fielder would tell you if you were too close to the fence, but our regular right fielder was out of the game, as two minutes earlier he'd been hit in the face with a warmup throw. One of those days, I guess.
9) - I'm related to a former leader of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party.TRUE - Former Tory interim leader Terry Donahue is my second cousin, twice-removed. I'm also a relatively distant cousin of the former Archbishop of Halifax.
10) - I was almost mauled to death by a dog as a toddler.FALSE - Like #2, this happened to my father, not me. He did, however, pass on to me a fear of large dogs. Add that to fears of bees and crowds (both of which have documented beginnings I oughta tell you about sometime), and I have some healthy phobias.
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