Here’s your chance for some points. Five SBD points for a correct answer.

Circa 1990

A friend and I were at an outdoor beach bar trying to work off a hangover. We’d found that if you went about three o’clock you’d get to see the majority of the hotties standing up, shaking the sand off and showering away the salt before heading home for the day. The outdoor bar, part of a hotel actually, was located directly across from the little shower and in close proximity.

My friend and I were the only patrons that afternoon until a lovely girl in very short shorts walked up to the bar and ordered a drink. Soon a conversation developed and before long I was plying this girl with rum-runners toped with Bacardi 151. And while I was engaging the young lady my friend became rather bored. There was just the one girl and business was business. Since he was driving he couldn’t really leave me there until I had radar lock.

My friend was somewhat depressed by the developing situation and decided he should start doing shots of various types and before long he could barely stand up. But he was a happy drunk.

“Let’s go out to dinner,� he slurred. “I’m buying.�

So the three of us, with me behind the wheel, went to an overpriced seafood place on the water. Here’s where it starts getting fuzzy. We ordered all kinds of expensive shit. My friend continued to hammer drinks while I continued to work the broad, who was very attractive and at that point, pretty drunk as well. I felt a hand on my thigh. Then I felt it moving up under my shorts, at which point I told my friend we’d be right back and went out to the car.

On the way out there I had a moment of clarity and began to wonder what I was getting myself into. I had only known the broad about an hour and she was making it perfectly clear that I was going downtown. Even in my haze I was aware that any girl willing to go legs up after knowing someone for an hour (and in broad daylight) had a pretty high skank factor. I began to question my judgment. She was fairly young, but you never knew where people had been and I had no condoms. To make a long story short, I restricted the activities severely, and the next day I couldn’t find my class ring, but that’s another story.

A short time later we were walking back into the restaurant when I saw the maître d' running towards us.

“Sir, I need to have a word with you.�

I just stood there looking at him.

“There is a problem with your friend. The other diner’s are complaining.�

“I’ll take care of it,� I said. I had a good idea of what the problem would be.

When we got back to the table my friend was sitting there passed out with his face buried in what looked like a plate of grilled mahi-mahi with yellow rice. I could see how this would be a problem. All of our entrée’s had arrived and the broad was already eating and there I stood wondering what the hell I was going to do next. I tried shaking him but he was really out. I eventually stood behind him and used all my strength to pull his face up out of the plate by his hair. I held it there for a moment, covered in rice and whatever sauce was on the fish, and then let go again. It plopped back down into the plate.

There was no rousing him. I looked up and noticed that every customer and employee in the place was staring at us. I made the international hand sign for the check and tried to wake up Sleeping Beauty but had no luck so I wrenched his wallet out and paid the bill with his credit card, leaving a ridiculously high tip. It took a lot of effort to get my friend up and on his feet but I managed to do it, much to the relief of everybody in the place. He still had food all over his face. So I’m trying to get him out the door and the broad, who was not phased by any this, went into the bathroom and I decided the best thing to do would be to fucking flee while she was in there.

So I’m in a rush trying to get away from the peculiar woman and my friend, who by the way had never acted like that before or since, is staggering severely and as I’m guiding him he starts hurling on a car and the scene continued for some time afterwards but you get the idea.

When I'm not working, sleeping or eating I'm doing this (totally work safe BTW). Or at least making plans for the next time I can make it to the Tail of the Dragon.

Hey, so Dave wants me to put up a "sham or share". Here we go:

My Mom, after having one lobe of her liver flooded with what basically amounts to 10w30 and Drano; gets the orders from her doctor to under go twenty five days of radiation therapy. I'll spare you the details, but at least her hair won't fall out. 'Course, she'll spew like an active volcano, her skin will fall off, and her toes will curl up and grow out of her wrists from which point they will try to claw out her eyeballs; but at least the process will clear up her bile ducts. YAY! The best part is that when that's all through, she gets to have the other lobe of her liver drowned in Comet and Clorox. Then we get to find out how the treatments working.

spoiler below:

I’m shocked at the results of this episode.

43% of you got the right answer. The Haircut, New Year’s Eve & John Madden is true.

Look at the clues:

It’s completely disjointed. When I make stuff up it generally has a theme. It starts with the bad haircut. There was a lot of detail about the cosmo license. Too much detail to shrug off.

The rest of it? Well, there was a good bit left out for the sake of brevity that might have made it easier. My friend was tipping the drink waiter even more than I was, so the guy was really scrambling to do anything he could for us. He was literally knocking people around when he was running towards our table a few times.

Also, we were hammered. And when I know I’m in for the long haul I plant a lot of little seeds that I hope to see mature before I make my drunken exit. I might also mention that “my friend� used to write at the blog Four Honkies and is a formidable competitor when inciting outrageous behavior in public. Once the ball’s been hit over the net, I can’t help myself. I have to return it.

The John Madden thing? I have a pretty good pic of the guy.

Oorgo, I’m disappointed. You should have known better.

One point each:
Phin
Tiffani
Dafyd

I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. There's a lot to this one, but it's an all or nothing. All true or all bullshit. Here we go:

The Haircut, New Year’s Eve & John Madden

Half of y'all sensed that Fishkill was a bit too fishy. It was indeed a sham.

There was a fish fight one summer at the farm and "You can throw perch all day, but nothing flies like a crappy" did generate from it but everything else about the story was the product of my fevered imagination. We used to fish a lot up there but the catch tended to be very small - mostly young perch, smallmouth and crappy. We'd bring our haul back to the farm and bury them in the fields. This was supposed to be some natural fertilizer. As far as I know it just made the fields stink like rotting fish.

Anywho...one day while we were sticking our dead fish in the dirt somebody threw one at somebody else (the identity of the instigating cousin has been lost to the ages). It was as if somebody had stood up on the lunchroom table and screamed "FOOD FIGHT!" Fish flew fast and furious as we pelted each other with deceaced piscines. It didn't last very long since we each had only a few fish, but it was great fun.

A few days later we got bitched out severely by Uncle when he found unburied dead fish scattered all over his lettuce field.

One point to each of these folk. For the rest of the guessers this is one that got away.

Contagion
Rob
Jeff
Victor
Clancy (A year and a half, nothing. Now two in a row!)
Helen
Margi
Boudicca
Diamond Dave

Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

Fishkill

Y'all know what a fishkill is, right? It's when an aquatic ecosystem crashes and the fish die. The cause can be just about anything - pollution, algae bloom, silt, mud from rains, etc.

The Unexpected Visitor was a complete sham. The anecdote came about from that line that I attributed to Mom: "Okay, I will take care of it but when you get home we are going to talk. And by 'we' I mean 'me'. And by 'talk' I mean 'scream at you'." I came up with this line a while ago and wanted to work it into one of my short stories but I just haven't had any time for story writing lately. Anywho...it worked pretty well in fooling a whole bunch of you in this Sham/Share.

Some clues that might have tipped you off were my low opinion of Ravi because he read too much (I've been an avidly gluttonous reader since before I could tie my shoes) and my worry over Mario dying if I abandoned the Donkey Kong game (DK on Atari sucked - there would have been no way a bright lad like me would have been that into it. Additionally, there were "safe" zones where you could park Mario and no barrel would ever hit him.)

7 out of 16 of you got this one correct. One point each to:

Paul
Phin
Tiffani
Tony
Machelle
tommy
Clancy. THE STREAK IS BROKEN!!

Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

The Unexpected Visitor

A little background is needed for this one. My step-dad was a lawyer and trouble-shooter for a gargantuan insurance and banking company that will remain nameless except to say that you used to be encouraged to "get a piece" of it. We moved around a lot as he was sent to different locations to straighten them out. He did a goodly amount of purging and hiring to correct deficiencies in personnel. Okay, background is over.

A few months after we moved to Freehold, NJ (home of The Boss!) I arrived home from school (7th or 8th grade or thereabouts), tossed my book-bag in a corner and turned on my new and beautiful Atari 2600 to immerse myself in its digital wonders. Mom was upstairs cleaning and Little Bro was taking a nap or something. In any case I was completely undisturbed, which was a great rarity.

My First Babysitting Experience was a sham. The anecdote you read was inspired by my actual first babysitting experience but was given the sit-com treatment. The second and third paragraphs are pretty much the straight truth; the rest is complete tall tale. When I saw him chewing on something I asked him what it was. He told me it was a Dorito and dug another one out of the couch for me to share. I fished some more chip bits out and tossed them all into the garbage. I had him drink a glass of milk just in case but there was no panic or worry on my part. He was a bit stubborn about drinking the milk so the line about "If you don't drink this you are going to die!" was verbatim truth. The death I was speaking about was me pummeling him for disobeying the babysitter though, not a fear of poison Doritos.

9 out of 16 of you got this one correct. One point each to:

Holly
Helen
DeAnna
Paul
diamond dave
Denise
Rob
Wendy
Jeff

Clancy maintains his perfect record of never getting a Shamming/Sharing point and unfortunately Boudicca remains totally bereft of points. Don't worry, Bou. The season is yet young.

Da rules: I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

My first babysitting experience

I was a young teen and had managed to fool my parents into believing I was a young, responsible man. Boy, did they find out different.

My first stint at babysitting my little brother (he's seven years younger) was to be a two hour stretch while the parents went out to a fancy dinner. While they dressed to the nines I amused Lil Bro and everybody was in good humor by the time they were ready to leave. I managed to completely hide my incredible nervousness at the responsibility being placed in my hands.

About five minutes after they drove off I went to the bathroom. I re-entered the family room to see the couch cushions on the floor and Lil Bro happily chewing on something. I immediately panicked. What was he eating? A bug? A razor blade? Coins? Anything at all could have been stuck underneath those cushions!

I jumped at him and tackled him to the cushions and started yelling at him to spit it out. I realize in hindsight that this was not the optimal method to get food out of a little kid in a calm and effective manner. He started bawling and choking on what was in his mouth. I dug in with my fingers in the patented Rescusi-Ann preliminary lifesaving routine. I'd had CPR training with the Boy Scouts only a short while before so the half remembered techniques were dangerously effective. The mouth clear worked and I didn't even lose a finger.

The great winter car stunt drive and ensuing recovery from idiocy story was true.

Seven players got it wrong, four got it right. It's disheartening that so many of you continue to think I led a moral, upright and respectable young adulthood. The biggest trip-up for the ones who got it wrong was the cop. Several couldn't believe I didn't get a ticket. Hell, I couldn't believe I didn't get a ticket. But I didn't get a ticket.

One point each for Paul, Machelle, vw bug, and diamond dave!

Update: When you're done here head on over to De's place for her first Shamming/Sharing

Remember these? I post an anecdote that may or may not be true. You guess which it is, based on your knowledge of me and my curious ways. Whoever gets it right gets a point when the contest closes. Here we go:

I was in my early twenties, it was winter, I was driving home from a bar in the big red boat. The big red boat was a massively huge dodge station wagon. When it was new I'm sure it was a bright sparkly red but by the time I bought the relic for $200 as a winter beater it was more of a dull burnt umber. It drove much like a boat - the suspension was so soft and it was so heavy that it didn't turn so much as sway around curves. The frame was wracked too, so if it was coming straight at you you'd see the front and the driver's side of the car.

Damn I miss that car.

UPDATE: Results and changing the rules. Yay! See the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

This is a shorty. Sorry again but I'm hella busy at the moment. Let's see if brevity helps or harms.

My bottom left incisor has been injured three times; once in a car accident, once in a fall and once in a food related mishap. Each time, a sliver of the tooth was cracked off of the business end. The tooth is a bit shorter than the one on the right side and has a somewhat faceted appearance, like a gemstone that has had a couple of cuts taken on it.

Current Standings:

One Correct
mitzi
Simon
Tiffani
wendell

Zero Correct
Everybody Else

UPDATE: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

This is the first sham/share for April. March's results are here.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

I rode the bus in high school. To answer the question that just popped into your mind it was, surprisingly enough, a regular sized one. Our bus driver kept order with two tools. The first was the threat that she would kick you off of the bus. She didn't mean that she would go to the office and have them remove you from her transportation obligations. She meant that she would stop the bus wherever the hell it was and kick your sorry ass out of her vehicle. We believed her.

The second way she kept order (and with the efficiency of method one this was pretty much all she needed for a backup) was to have minor violators take the front seat for a few days to a week (depending on the severity of the offense). This was known as the bitch seat and came complete with much riling from busmates and excessive smacks to the head from people leaving the bus.

I was subject to the bitch seat exactly once in my 3 years of being carted about by this woman. The offense was not intentional but she neither believed me nor cared and it earned me a full week of head smacks and verbal finger pokes at my expense. The incident occured while the bus was still parked at school waiting for all of the students to board for the ride home. A friend of mine was showing off a box of matches (yeah, I know - what the hell is that about?) and giving some out to people. I took one and asked what good it was going to do without the box to strike it against. He said you didn't need a box because they were blue-tip matches and you could strike them against just about anything. Hell, you could even strike them against your zipper. "No way" I said. "Way" he said. So I struck it against my zipper to prove the lie and gasped in astonishment when the sucker ignited. As the sulphur took to flame I freaked and tried to extinguish it but in my panic I didn't think of anything intelligent like flinging it out of the window or putting it on the floor and stomping on it. I did the finger pinch manuver (the one you use to extinquish candles). If anybody has ever tried this on a match that is in the process of lighting you will know that the sulphur is way more dedicated to catching fire than your mere flesh is to extinguish it. The result was two burned fingertips and a horrendous stench of burning sulphur. Everybody around me started at me in abject stupefication. The bus driver chose that particular moment to board the bus for the ride home, saw everybody staring at me and smelled burning chemicals. She looked at me. I looked at her. She pointed to the bitch seat. When I got up to the front she didn't even turn to look at me. She just started to drive off and said "One week. Idiot."

What she lacked in nurturing instincts she made up for with painful honesty.

UPDATE: March results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

I've mentioned previously how I protected myself from a lot of the harassment that smaller kids typically get heaped on them. Basically, I just went ape when somebody did something (a noogie or charlie horse or whatever) and attracted a whole lot of attention while making the bully feel like a moron. It worked well. What it didn't protect against was people who actually wanted to beat me up. That happened twice - once each in two different schools.

The first time was when I was a hormone addled new teen. On the walk home from school I got jumped and beat on fairly well. My mother raised a holy shit fit but that didn't do anything except embarrass me further. A few weeks later in the middle of the lunchroom with a full gaggle of spectators (and supervising adults who could break up a fight pretty quickly) I unloaded on the kid. A tray to the face followed by me jumping on him over the table and some spectactularly poorly executed punching took him by complete surprise. I said that he had called my mother a whore and that was why I beat on him. We were both suspended for a day. I didn't get into any other fights for two years.

The other time was as a sophomore in high school. I pissed off a jock and got a sucker punch in the gut that left me gasping for breath and with tears coming out of my eyes. Later the same day I took a full bookbag and swung it like I was doing a hammer throw and connected with the back of his head. He was sent loopy and couldn't stand up. I went up to him and asked if we were cool now and he said yes. Nobody ever tried to hurt me physically (with mean intent) for the rest of my high school days.

Current Standings:

Four Correct
jim
MojoMark
Sue

Three Correct
Helen

Two Correct
Brian Jones
Mike the Marine
mitzi
Rob
Simon

One Correct
Jeremy
Lovely Wife
Mutinousdoug
Susie
Tiffani
Tommy

Zero Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

My apologies for the time gap with the sham/shares. I got a little bit tipply last night whilst watching Matrix:Reloaded and Second Hand Lions. Both were good movies. I don't see what everybody was bitching about with Matrix2 there. It's an action movie, y'all. Don't be looking for a Tom Clancy plot in a Keenu vehicle. Anyway, I'm not tipply tonight but I am big time sleepy. I didn't want to put y'all off for another day but I was going to anyway until I thought of a great short anecdote and a great way to sham it. A short check with my pseudo-random number generator to find out which version to record for posterity and here it is for your guessing pleasure.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

In my crazy youth I worked at Wegman's grocery store. Just about all of the people I hung out with (and/or moved in with) also worked there. Thursday's were paydays so every Thursday we'd all go down to a local bar/restaurant to drink pitchers of beer and throw darts. And eat chicken wings - this was Buffalo, after all. This particular establishment was our place of choice because the Weggie's crew had established itself there and they didn't bother to card anybody in the group. I and my underage coworkers appreciated and exploited this trust.

Anyway, my step-mom had been on me for a while about drinking too much and basically challenged me to go a night with the crew without drinking anything. She did it in an obvious and pathetic reverse psychological way (You couldn't go out with those people a single time without drinking!) but I was ornery enough to want to prove her wrong anyway. I might have just needed to prove that to myself as well.

I had my teetotaler evening with my pitcher of Coke sticking out like a lone sentinel in a forest of amber beers. I was the first out when we broke for the evening since I didn't have to pony up for the tab (non-alcoholic beverages were free - designated driver program or some such). As I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed a car pull after me from a parking lot on the other side of the street. Yup, coppers. They followed me for about a quarter mile until I'd turned onto the Boulevard (the first big thoroughfare from the bar). They seemed a bit pissed when I told them I'd had only soda to drink and they quickly realized I wasn't bullshitting.

Fortunately for a couple of my friends it was only the one cruiser working that bar. The ones who might have had a problem with the police were spared due to my red herring.

Current Standings:

Four Correct
jim

Three Correct
MojoMark
Sue

Two Correct
Helen
Mike the Marine
mitzi

One Correct
Brian Jones
Jeremy
Lovely Wife
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani

Zero Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

At one time I was living with 3 girls. No, it was not all panty dances and blow jobs. Sad to say there were no panty dances or blow jobs at all. From my housemates that is - I was doing fine in that department from other sources. Damn, where was I going with this? I'm sure I had a point here...oh, yeah - background info. All three gals were friends from work. I had previously enjoyed one of them on occasion until we figured that we worked a lot better just as friends. When we all decided to get a place together we made a partially joking rule that there wouldn't be any intra-roomie shennanigans unless it was all four of us at the same time.

Now, on to the story: The Road Trip. At the time I was dating a girl who made up with exuberance what she might have lacked in brainpower. We ended up on a road trip with one of my roomies and her boyfriend. We drove down to roomie's parents' house in Pittsburg to go see a Steelers/Bengals game. No, I don't remember why I'd bother to go on a road trip to see either of those teams, much less both of them together. Must have been the promise of beer and companionship. The plan was to drive down on Saturday, sleep overnight, see the game on Sunday then drive back to Buffalo.

Roomie's parents were under the mistaken impression that she was a gal of demure behavior so three separate sleeping areas were made up in the den for me, my gal and her guy and she was (of course) going to sleep in her bed. After several hours of drinking Iron City Beer we all decided to hit the hay. My gal and I stuck our couches together and made quite a nice little nest. Roomie and her guy piled a bunch of sleeping bags and blankets on them to disguise themselves as well as possible and we all "went to sleep". Unfortunately for me my girl actually did pass out, leaving me a tad frustrated. From the sounds on the other side of the room that wasn't a problem for my compatriots.

Between my own frustration and the rather arousing noises from my neighbors things were quickly working up to a difficult point for me. I crept to the bathroom to take matters in my own hand (is that the worst pun you've ever encountered or what?). I was in there with the lights out doing my business when the door suddenly opened and the light came on. There was my roomie, nude and flushed. There I was, crank in hand and redfaced. There was just a few moments (hours?) of stunned silence until she smiled and then I smiled and she giggled and I laughed. She said "Don't be embarassed. I just finished myself and came in to clean up a bit." Turns out her guy passed out just as fast as my girl did and the noises I had been hearing were a solo performance.

We were both a little tipsy and both horny as hell and it was quite difficult not to let old habits take over at that point. We ended up in the shower and did a bit of wash me wash you but she left before anybody (meaning me) lost control and I finished things up by myself. It was one of those situations that would have made a great Letter to Penthouse if it had gone just a little differently but she made the right move - neither one of us would have been happy about it the next day if we'd cheated on our partners.

Current Standings:

Three Correct
jim

Two Correct
Mike the Marine
mitzi
MojoMark
Sue

One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani

Zero Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

I wasn't always the sober and responsible person y'all know today. In my foolish youth I was quite a bit...wilder. No, that doesn't quite gather the feeling I'm looking for. I was more...reckless. No, that's not it either. Stupid! That's it! I was remarkably stupid.

For example, one evening out on the icy streets of Buffalo I lost control of my vehicle (it was a Chevette!) and crashed into a guard rail. That's not the stupid part - this sort of thing is an accepted part of living in Buffalo. I crushed my front left quarterpanel and snapped my front left spring in half. I took my tire iron out and pounded the folded metal out of the way, enlisted some friendly neighborhood types to get out of the snowbank and went on my merry way. That's not the stupid part either. You don't spend money to tow a winter beater car when you don't have to and half a front spring is still more than enough anyway. I drove it like that for the rest of the winter.

Very early that spring my step bro and I spent two entire days rebuilding that front end. I got a new panel from a junkyard, he found the spring really cheap somewhere, I got new rotors and calipers on sale (those weren't related to the crash damage) and we went to town. It was a bitch and a half. We didn't quite have the correct tools so we were doing crazy things like using a rope pulley for the wheel pulley (they're both pulley's, right?) and hammers and wedges where hammers and wedges have no business being and some rigged up contraption to compress the spring. This wasn't the stupid part either, though it probably would have qualified if that spring had let go.

The stupid part came about a week after that monumental effort of car fixing. After a night out with the lads I had a drop or fifty too much beverage in me and I spun out on the bridge near our house ("bridge surface may freeze before road" - those signs tell the truth). As the laws of karma demanded, the corner of the car that smashed into the guardrail was of course the same corner we had so recently spent pain, blood and tears fixing.

Current Standings:

Two Correct
jim
Mike the Marine

One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
mitzi
MojoMark
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Sue
Susie
Tiffani

Zero Correct
Everybody else

UPDATE: Results in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote a share or a sham?

I did a certain amount of experimenting with drugs in my youth. Well, okay - a very limited amount of experimenting. I smoked weed a handful of times. Maybe two handfuls. That's not what this anecdote is about though. What I'm getting at is that I dropped acid too. Twice.

The first time was while drinking and smoking weed and either I was too messed up already from the other stuff or it was exceptionally weak stuff and I didn't notice any effect.

The second time was stupid. It was a Sunday. My previous experience made me discount the effects of acid. I had a hugemassivefantasticterrifyingunbelievable trip. It lasted through Monday. I was in Operating Tech School. I was performing surgeries on Monday. Scheduled ceasarian sections. I saw ants crawling out of a uterus and almost cut my own thumb off.

I never dropped acid again. Ever.

Current Standings:

One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon
Tiffani

Zero Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Is this anecdote something I'm sharing with you or something I'm shamming you with?

Before we leave Chicago I'll share with you two other specific (and much shorter *cough* *Simon* *cough*) memories I have of my time there.

The first deals with a Snickers bar. Two brothers, one Snickers bar. The equitable way to split it? One would cut it in half and the other would pick which piece he wanted. My big brother was the knife man and he cut it as close to the center as he could possibly estimate (since he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if one piece was markedly larger than the other I would snake it in a heartbeat). To the naked eye these two halves of a candy bar were indeed perfect halves. Many children would have simply taken a random piece and been perfectly happy with it. Not me. I stared at that split Snickers for what seemed like hours as big bro got steadily more irritated. The one on the left is a smidge bigger...no, maybe it's the one on the right that's bigger...hmmm...left, definitely left...but that's probably just what he wants me to think...is that cut at an angle...hmmm... Eventually he lost patience and yelled for Mom so I grabbed one of the halves randomly. I'm sure that if I had just a little more time I would have figured out which one was a tiny bit bigger.

The second memory is about a massive field that was near our apartment complex. I walked across this thing just about every day going to friends' houses (back then little kids could walk around their neighborhoods) and would pretend it was different things. Sometimes it was the tundra and I was a reindeer racing across. One time it was the ocean and I was a shark swimming. Other times it might be the plains of the west and I'd be the Lone Ranger riding my horse across them. Well there was one time when I was coming home and it had rained that day. The field was squishy wet but not soaked. I pretended that it was a lake and I was Jesus walking on the water (side note: we were practicing Catholics at this time). I was having a grand old time until I got half-way across and I stepped into a groundhog hole or other such depression and was instantly chilled up the leg by the water. I freaked. I just knew that it was God punishing me for my blasphemy and now he had made the field like water so I was going to sink into it. I scrambled up to my feet and ran across that field at top speed screaming my head off the entire way. I was incredibly relieved when I made it to concrete and slowed down to catch my breath. Then I realized that God could do the same thing to the concrete so I ran again until reaching the safety of the apartment. At least I wasn't screaming for that final sprint.

Current Shamming/Sharing standings:

One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon

Zero Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results are in the extended entry.

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

This is the fifth offering overall and the first for March. To see how February ended up see the extended entry of Shamming/Sharing (#4).

Is this anecdote a sham or a share?

Memories are odd things. Sometimes you have perfect recollection of important things in your life, and other times you can't remember these critical times worth a damn. The same thing happens with seemingly innocuous items. Why do I remember that my little brother peed on my step-sister's carpet when we went up to Chicago for her wedding? Why do I remember that years before that we all lived in Chicago but I remember so little of that time?

One of the few things I remember was a chopper pedal bike. You know what a pedal car is, right? It's got those idiotic pedals that you keep pushing forward 2 inches, instead of pedals on a rotor (like on a bike). This was a metal tricycle that used pedal car style propulsion and had a chopper style front wheel - looooong front fork and little wheel. It sucked because it was a pedal car and was useless on any kind of incline (couldn't pedal uphill and going downhill you just went with the flow - putting your feet on the pedals was a recipe for a mauling) and you couldn't race against anybody else or even keep up with anybody else. A BigWheel toasted my chopper. Any kind of normal tricycle toasted it. I was the slowest thing in the apartment complex.

But it was also freaking cool. It was a chopper! What could be cooler than having a chopper when you're a little kid (especially in the mid 70's). Nobody had anything like my bike. Not even close. When I was on that thing (disdaining racing and the keeping up with others, of course) I was the King. I loved that chopper.

One day I went to ride it and it wasn't there. I don't remember the particulars of how it was stolen. I probably left it out but for the sake of my young pride we'll say that somebody else forgot to lock the storage area. Whatever the method, my chopper was gone. I was devastated. I wouldn't be special anymore. My unique bike, my ultra-cool chopper that nobody except me in my entire known world had was gone. No, not just gone, it was being abused by somebody else!

This was the first total meltdown in my memory. In fact, except for deaths it's the only one I can think of at all at the moment. My older brother took pity on me and went everywhere looking for it. He eventually found it in a dumpster. Whoever had stolen it had smashed it up pretty good. I remember him taking me outside to see it and saying that maybe we could fix it. I remember that I stopped crying and just felt nothing at all. The frame was totally mangled. It was busted. Gone. Useless. Over.

We tossed it in our dumpster and went back in the house. Mom tried to cheer me up and even older bro was uncharacteristically attentive but I stayed in a funk for days. Eventually I got out of my depression and went back to being a little kid but even to this day I can remember that chopper and the feelings of hopelessness and despair I had when i saw it all busted up.

Update: Results in the extended entry

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Our fourth offering. Is this anecdote the truth or am I pulling your leg (or other body part of your choice)?

What could be more fun than a circus? To me in my youth, just about anything. I didn't see my first circus until I was two weeks shy of 12. The only reason I remember that so precisely is because during most of the circus that's what I was thinking about to prevent yawning, plus right after the circus we went to Toys "backwards R" Us to look for presents for me (of course that's not what Mom said but you aren't fooling a 12 year old 2 weeks before his birthday - if we're in Toys "backwards R" Us it's 'cause you want to know what to buy for me) and this was the year that I got a guitar and a machete* so it sticks out in my young memory.

Anyway, the circus wasn't a bad one by any stretch. I don't think it was Ringling Bros but it was another of the bigger ones. Huge midtop, lots of concessions, games, carnies all over the place, clowns, pony rides and such. We pretty much breezed past all of the outside attractions and into the big tent. The only specific memory I have from the rush into the show was a midget riding a gigantic red dog and my little brother (he would have been 4 then) yelling out "Clifford! Clifford!" No, I'm not saying the dog was the size of Clifford. He was a mastiff or great dane or something - just really, really big. And dyed red.

So we rushed into the big tent and got seats and we were all tense with excitement. You see, Mom had been building this up for us for months. Telling us about the lion tamers and the acrobats and the clowns in tiny cars and the Lipinzaner stallions (no idea if I spelled that anything close to correctly) and singing this circus/parade song every five minutes. How did that song go? Something like "seventy six trombones in the big parade / a hundredy five coronets came behind". And when the performance actually started we were on the very edge of our seats, just breathless with anticipation.

And it sucked. Big time. I couldn't understand a single thing that the ringmaster was saying. The gymnasts were just doing stuff I'd seen all the time on TV (and was bored of watching there). There was a highwire but the guy just casually walked across the wire. With a net underneath him. The clowns were okay but that just looked like so much chaos since we couldn't understand a thing the MC was saying. The lion tamer beat the hell out of some lions and made them do tricks. He pissed me off. I wanted the lions to just gang up on him and take him down. The stallions looked filthy and sad to me. Where were the bright white regal beasts I was expecting?

One disappointment after another was piled on my youthful shoulders until I gave up trying to be entertained and just started thinking about my upcoming birthday. Just two weeks, two weeks, two weeks to muh birfday! I sang that song in my head for what seemed like hours but was probably more like 30 minutes. But at least it helped me to remember the date that I first saw a circus.

I like circuses now. I guess my disappointing first experience was due partially to the hysterical hype level my mom gave it, partially because I really didnt' have a concept of just how freaking difficult a lot of the things I was seeing actually were and partially because I was functioning with half a brain as the other half was totally preoccupied with my upcoming birthday.

* No, my parents wouldn't give a real machete to a 12 year old. Well, okay, it was a real machete but it was a steel blank blade (no edge). The cool thing about the machete was the scabbard. Hand tooled leather. My dad had picked it up in Panama earlier in the year. It was hanging up on my various bedroom walls until I was in my late 20's.

Current Shamming/Sharing roster:

2 Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
Sue
Tiffani

1 Correct
MojoMark
Rob
Simon

0 Correct
Everybody else

UPDATE: Results in extended entry

Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.

Our third offering. Is this anecdote the truth or am I pulling your leg?

My dad and I have a lot in common. I got my work ethic from him. I got my anal retentive personality from him. Even my job shadows what he did for a career.

Until a few years ago my dad did quality assurance for the Air Force. When he started it was called Quality Control then it was Quality Assurance and for the last upteen years it was called Non Destructive Investigation. Whatever they called it, it's what we civilians now call QA.

He did stress tests and other analysis on live birds. That's aircraft in service, y'all, not actual feathered beasties. He had much cooler toys than I do. I have a PC and some nifty software. He had irradiation machines, X-Rays big enough to scan the wings of a C-130 Hercules transport and more tools than you can shake a fist at. He was forcibly retired (high year tenure) a few years ago.

He's not sitting idle though. He kept his side job for the FBI. He isn't a spy or anything. He does the upkeep and maintenance on the surveillance aircraft used by the Buffalo FBI. And I used to help him.

That's right, I worked on airplanes for the FBI. Well, to be precise I worked on FBI airplanes for their contractor and that contractor just happened to be my dad. For many years I would go up to the Niagara Falls Air Force Base with him on the weekends and do odd jobs while he did the important stuff. I washed square acres worth of plane wings over the years (seemed like it anyway). Towards the end of my time in Buffalo I was doing some cool stuff too. Engine checks, firing magnetos, instrument checks, testing the smoke screen generator...lots of cool stuff. Once I even got to fly one of the planes.

It was after the completion of a 100 hours maintenance cycle and the agent (not sure if I'm supposed to say his name so I'll just call him Agent Bob) was there to go over a couple of things that he thought were quirky. We all ended up taking a short flight so he could show Dad what the quirks were. When we were up to altitude Agent Bob gave me the controls. That was very cool. And scary. I don't have a whole lot of specifics in my memory because the majority of my one and only piloting experience was spent staring at the attitude indicator and repeating a mantra of "Holyshitholyshitholyshit" to myself. It might have been better if I'd spent some time with Flight Simulator before then but it was still pretty cool.

Current Shamming/Sharing roster:

1 Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
MojoMark
Sue
Tiffani

0 Correct
Everybody else

Update: Results in the extended entry.

See the intro for particulars.

Our second entry. Is this anecdote a lie or is it the truth?

One time...at band camp... (Heh. Just kidding.)

I was the class comic in school. Not the class clown - I didn't go for making a fool of myself back then. But I was always there with a quip or cutting remark, a joke or anecdote, a one liner or tidbit appropriate to the situation, etc. I was a cut up.

Anyway, I was not quite smart enough to restrict my cuts and comments to just other students and I would frequently be a class distraction as I tossed bon mots around (usually when I was bored with the subject and/or didn't like the class). One time in 11th grade History class (Mr.Balsavage was the teacher) I was being particularly irritating crafty and Mr.B (who was a teacher I liked so I don't know why I was being such a jerk) walked over to me, bent down so we were face to face and said "You are the type of person who shoots from the hip and then leaves." I knew immediately that I had stepped pole vaulted over the line. That marked the end of my cutting apart teachers and put quite a damper on my mouth overall. Even to this day I'm far more selective of my targets and will generally put my self up for a joke before I take somebody else down with one.

Current Shamming/Sharing roster:

Sue: 1 correct
Everybody else: nada

Just a note about how I'm writing these. I am thinking up some element of Jimstory and then running a random generator (Excel is my favorite multi-purpose number playground) that tells me if I should write it up as a sham or a share. That way I won't get trapped into that humanistic need to balance out the number of true ones with the number of false ones or have to do a true one after a couple false ones & vice versa.

Big Update / Rules Change: 20 April '04 - Instead of accumulating a scorecard throughout the month (which was nifty but ended up being work) a point will be given to each correct participant when the individual sham/share is closed. They'll also be coming out whenever I think of something apropriate instead of the semi-schedule of one or two a week. It was getting tedius for me and hopefully this will be enough to make it fun again. Other than these changes the rules noted below are still valid.

Update: Results to Shamming/Sharing #1 are in the extended entry.

I had this idea for something that might be cool - I got it from the Sex, Lies and Cheddar X post. Once or twice a week I'm going to post something about me. It might be true or it might be a lie. You guess if I'm shamming or sharing. When the next one is posted I'll give the answer to the previous one (so there will always be at least a couple of days for people to jump in on it). At the end of the month I'll tally up who's got the most correct responses and the best one(s) will get some points. I'm thinking maybe 5 for the top dog, 4 for the second, etc down to 1 point for the fifth finisher. It'll depend on how many people play along. Oh, and Lovely Wife, Dopple-G, others who know me in real life: If you know for a fact that the anecdote is true or false please don't guess. If you don't know, feel free to play along.

Sound interesting? Here's your first one to judge:

I have a scar above my left eye that goes through my eyebrow. I got this in a snowball fight in Buffalo, NY when I was but a lad. My opponent in the snowball fight used a chunk of ice and put a bit of snow around it and this missed blinding me by about a half of an inch. Because my face was frozen I didn't realize I was bleeding profusely at first and I chased him down and beat him thoroughly. I stopped when I saw all of the blood and thought I'd really hurt him. I went home and my Mom went into hysterics when she saw me literally covered in blood. He was bigger than me too, by the way.

Am I shamming or sharing? Lemme know.