I'm not The Luckiest

Well. That was fun, wasn't it? Thank you to everyone who played my little guessing game on Friday. I suppose I've kept you waiting long enough. Here's the follow-up to my "Four mini claims to fame and one great big ol' lie" post.

1. My friend Amy designed the Summit beer label.
   True. I actually meant logo, not label, but whatever. Close enough. Amy is a graphic designer for a local advertising agency, and Summit is just one of the many brands she's worked on. She got married last fall, but in her online dating days, this tidbit proved an excellent fun fact to share in early emails and first dates. Oddly, the men I date aren't nearly as impressed or interested when I talk about my job. Go figure.
   
   
2. My friend Carrie once had a poem published in Sassy.
   True. When I learned this about a year ago, I was sure I likely still had the issue in my old bedroom at my parents' house, and I was excited to go look for it the next time I went home. As it turns out, my old Sassy issues must have ended up in the same black hole that my prom pictures did. I have three years of Seventeen (in all their stirrup panted, blue eye shadowed, mall haired glory), but any evidence that I ever subscribed to a more reputable teen mag is entirely missing. Oddly, though, when Carrie mailed me the poem to share with all of you, I honestly thought I remembered reading it years ago. Maybe I do.
   
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   I missed the inauguration
   while I was studying
   war was declared
   I'm not sure why
   I was studying
   during a breathtaking sunset
   I was in my room
   when the wall fell
   I was studying.
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   
   Carrie also shared with me her thought process behind the poem. She says, "I have a weird memory of studying for a biology exam when the Gulf War was declared. Things felt disjointed because I was just a teenager and biology was supposed to be important, not war, and I couldn’t study for the exam. I wrote this poem, which I loved at the time because you could back up and repeat the line you just read along with the next one and string full sentences together."
   
   I remember writing my concerns about the war in my journal instead of studying the week the first Gulf War began, too, but my thoughts never got published in a magazine. Or anywhere, obviously. I am a poster child for mediocrity. Moving on...
   
   
   
3. My friend Tina's brother had a brief role on the WB gem What I Like About You.
   True. I learned this when I stayed at her apartment in Seattle a few months ago. Flipping through her DVDs, I came across a few currently unreleased DVDs from the last season of the show. Obviously she had no idea What I Like About You was a guilty pleasure of mine when it was on the air, because she rushed to defend and explain herself. "Hey, I actually liked that show," I reassured her. "Really?" she replied. And then, "Yeah, I guess it wasn't so bad." Regardless, I do not remember her brother's character, so I'll have to borrow those discs (or wait for them to show up on Netflix) to see him.
   
   
4. I once got to join Ben Folds on the piano at First Avenue (in a lucky "volunteer from the audience" moment).
   False. As soon as I clicked "Publish," I thought I'd made this game entirely too easy and surely all of you would know this was not true. (3Carnations guessing this one right out of the gate only reinforced that suspicion.) So I was glad to see that at least not all of you immediately thought this was obviously and ridiculously untrue. I maintain that it is not entirely absurd an idea... I've been to two Better than Ezra shows where they took a volunteer from the audience to accompany them on guitar, so I say it could just as easily happen with Ben and the piano. I played piano for several years, so technically I'd be qualified to volunteer, but I haven't practiced in years, so I'd surely make much more a fool of myself than the Better than Ezra groupie kid did. I'd probably struggle with the notes just as woefully as Kerri Green in Goonies. Being booed at every wrong note is probably a more favorable fate than having portions of the ledge I'm on fall beneath me with each mistake, but it would be no less nerve wracking, I imagine.
   
   
5. My friend Jenny's grandpa named Rocky Road ice cream.
   True. Her grandpa owned an ice cream company in St. Paul, and apparently one day he decided that Chocolate Marshmallow Nut Swirl was "too damn long," so he decided to call it Rocky Road instead. The name stuck. Or so the story goes. Wikipedia doesn't corroborate the story, but I believe her anyway. Wouldn't you?