This weekend we were invited to be the mystery guests at something called the Ashland Secret Society Dinner. Basically for the last 18 years a group of friends has been having a monthly dinner, to which a mystery couple is invited. Does it say something that it’s taken 18 years for them to get to us? 

Anyway, the host decides how to introduce the guests and for us he asked that we write down some odd things in the manner or two-truths-and-a-lie. But as a twist, he wanted them all to be true. Then hidden on a balcony above the living room where the group was gathered, Scott and I had to read our lists:

Christy 

For my 40th birthday week I went to a monastery for silent seclusion.

I have Bill Gates’ comb in my desk drawer.

One Halloween I spent the night in a 500-year old Scottish castle. 

After breakfast of toast and tequila, I jumped of the I-5 Bridge into Lake Shasta (for those who have never seen this, it’s like jumping off a skyscraper)

Scott

By not going to seminary, I have broken a 300-year ancestral streak of Lutheran Pastors.

My mother and stepfather, a nurse and a doctor, ignored the fact that I had a broken leg for a week. 

I have walked deep into the cave where Zeus is said to have been reared.

I once thought I was going on a standard advertising Booze Cruise on Lake Washington in Seattle and found myself with Steve Forbes on the Forbes Yacht in all-too-casual clothing.

Once the group had voted on what was true we were allowed to come down, show ourselves and reveal that all the statements were true. Word to the wise: don’t fall for this trap. Once you list anything remotely odd that you’ve done everyone expects you to be supremely interesting and engaging. Fortunately, Scott shines at this kind of thing (while I wash down beta blockers and pretend to be comfortable as the center of attention). There’s a reason I’m a writer—and it mostly involves being alone in a room…