ChessPieceFace, I am dying here. I am also bookmarking your post.
And reading about Dan the Liar dislodged some memories of my own. Back in 1991, my sister was dating a guy I’ll call Bruce, because that was the name he gave us (I don’t recall his last name). Now, first off, he told us that he’d been in “the original James Gang.” Wikipedia told me just now that there was no Bruce anybody in any incarnation of the James Gang. Back then, though, I had never heard of the internet, and in fact, had to ask if that meant “the original James Gang” or “The Original James Gang.” Wikipedia does not give me ages of the band members, but ISTM now that this guy was a bit young to have been in a band that formed in 1966.
I’ll just tell the rest of it as a retrospective. 2006, my sister and I are in a bar.
Me: “Do you remember Bruce?”
Her: “Bruce, Bruce…OH! THAT asshole!”
Me: “Okay! Well, I wanted to ask you a few things about him.”
Her: “Is this gonna make me upset?”
Me: “No, it’s probably gonna make you laugh…Okay. Well, he called me once, after you guys broke up, and told me a bunch of stuff that I’m just not sure of. First of all, did he not tell us that he was a big-deal jock in high school?”
Her: “Yeah.”
Me: “Okay. So how likely is it that someone goes from being a football hero in high school, to being in a drug-smuggling ring at 18?”
Her: “WHAAAAAT?!”
Me: “That’s what he told me. I forget how we got on the subject, but he told me about being in a room with his drug-smuggling cohorts, in South America or wherever, and someone knocked on the door, and [big dramatic voice] ‘Before we even asked who it was, we all reached for our guns. And that’s when I knew I had to get out.’”
Her. "…
“…Okay, I don’t know about that. But I do know one thing. IF someone is in a 'drug-smuggling ring”, like I’m really sure they call it that to themselves, they don’t GET out just when they want to. You’re in for LIFE, unless you get plastic surgery or something."
Me: “Yeah, I started wondering about that almost as soon as he hung up. But I was totally hooked the whole time he was telling me…In fact, there was one that I believed, simply because it was the kind of thing you DON’T ask about!..His two children that were murdered.”
Her: “Two…children…He told me he never HAD ANY children!”
Me: “:rolleyes: Okay, well, did you tell your next boyfriend to jump him outside a bar? I think I know the answer, but that’s what he said.”
Her: “I didn’t have a ‘next boyfriend’ for a while after him. There were a couple of guys I went out with once or twice, but I didn’t have a serious boyfriend again until we went West…But you know what I bet? I bet he REGULARLY got in fights, just by running his big fat mouth, and that one, he just decided to blame on me!..But you know what I did believe? That he was Pete Rose’s personal assistant for a while.”
Me: “WHAAAAAT?!”
Her: “That’s what he said! And you know what’s really effed up? I was working at one of Marge Schott’s dealerships at the time, remember?..And I met her at a company party, and afterwards, I was actually kicking myself for not telling her that I knew a guy who’d used to work for Pete Rose! Thank god I didn’t – I could have made a complete ass of myself!”
Mom: “Why would you worry about making an ass of yourself in front of Marge Schott?”
Her: “She was my BIG BOSS, Ma. I actually got a lot of points for being one of the few people who would say more than ‘hello’ to her. Anyway, yeah, I believed that about his working for Pete Rose…and then [friend] told me about being at some baseball card convention or something, and Bruce was there, and when he shook hands with Rose, Rose did not. know him. from a hole. in the damn wall.”
Me: “I hope you never lent him any money.”
Her: “I didn’t have any to lend. Although…it sure was funny that my paperweight went missing right about the time we broke up.”
Maybe we’ve met?