Comments (73)

1. I used to work with a woman to whom I related a funny story that happened to me while I was in high school. A couple of weeks later, she told me the exact same story, only she claimed that it happened to someone SHE went to high school with. We didn’t go to high school in the same state, or even in the same decade.

   posted by Anthony on 11-6-2009 at 12:36 pm

2. A friend of mine lived next door to a pathological liar when he was attending the University of North Texas in Denton, Tx. Whatever story you told or whatever accomplishment you had, he had one better-always.

   One day, I was discussing a movie I had just seen, “8 Seconds”, about rodeo cowboy Lane Frost. One of the many things Lane was know for were his “battles” with the bull Red Rock. No other cowboy had managed to stay on Red Rock for 8 seconds, so a series was set up. In the end, Lane Frost stayed on 4 out of 7 times, thus winning the series.

   This neighbor of my friend then began to tell the tale of how his father was a bull rider too and had ridden Red Rock as well. When I asked why no one else in the world knew about this, he said that it was a conspiracy to protect the legend of Lane Frost.

   That’s just one of MANY bizarre, completely unnecessary lies this guy told.

   posted by Jeff on 11-6-2009 at 12:41 pm

3. MIT still has a swim test requirement. I always heard that it was a requirement of all land grant colleges back in the day, but I have no idea if that part is true or not.

   posted by Vicki on 11-6-2009 at 12:44 pm

4. My college had a swim requirement. The registrar took great pleasure in waking the folks who hadn’t taken it up on the morning of graduation so he could watch them swim!

   Private SLAC in the US South, BTW, not a land-grant.

   posted by HB on 11-6-2009 at 12:48 pm

5. I graduated from Texas A&M (which is why this story caught my eye). We didn’t have any strange graduation requirements, but A&M does have requirements for getting an Aggie ring. They are:

   1) 90 completed undergraduate cumulative hours
   2) 45 completed undergraduate resident hours
   3) 2.0 cumulative GPA
   4)Must not be on academic probation, suspension, dismissal, expulsion, or on honor violation probation from the university.

   I know at some schools, you can just buy a ring or the requirements are minimal (like just a certain number of hours).

   posted by Jeff on 11-6-2009 at 12:50 pm

6. LIES: My high school boyfriend is probably the worst liar I ever met. He brought a tape of a band called Chronic Future to school and told everyone he was in the band when he lived in Arizona. As if in the Google age we couldn’t discover he was totally lying. And what’s sad is that he really is a musician and excelled at it – so instead of being known for that he became known as a total tool.

   Graduation Requirements: I can’t think of anything too out of the ordinary, except that I went to a Christian high school where we had to sign a covenant with the school of things we wouldn’t do while attending there – like drugs, drinking, and having sex. It could actually get you kicked out of school if you broke the covenant.

   Parades: I live in Indianapolis, and the Indy 500 Parade runs through the city every year. Some colorful charcters come to that, most of whom are drunk and wearing clothes that are way too tight, with some sort of light beer logo somewhere on their person.

   posted by Jillian on 11-6-2009 at 12:53 pm

7. knew a pathalogical liar who claimed to have AIDS so he could get disability pay, food stamps, free medical, sympathy, freebies etc. When someone at an ER finally decided to actually test him, instead of taking his word for it (as everyone else had. who would lie about THAT?) he was busted. State came after him for fraud. He left the state (CA) & is probably continuing his lies elsewhere.

   posted by Carmichael, CA on 11-6-2009 at 12:58 pm

8. I went to college at VMI (Virginia Military Institute). As a freshman, you are called a Rat. In order to graduate, you had to take Boxing and Swimming, both during your freshman (Rat) year. We normally referred to them as “Rat Beating” and “Rat Drowning” classes.

   One PE professor wouldn’t give you an A in boxing unless you drew blood on your opponent.

   And of course, it didn’t end there. You had to take Wrestling your sophomore year.

   posted by Tom on 11-6-2009 at 12:58 pm

9. A musician friend told me that he was scrambling to finish his album because his record label (a small but well-regarded indie outfit) was folding at the end of the year and they wanted to be sure they could put his album out as their last hurrah.

   I emailed the head of the label to let her know how much I’d enjoyed its output over the years and how sad I was to hear they were closing up shop and got a very perplexed response. Five years later the label is still going strong. I note that they seem to have dropped my now-ex-friend though.

   posted by JL on 11-6-2009 at 1:23 pm

10. 1. I used to work with this guy who was a legend in his own mind. He would tell stories about being lost in Alaska, owning companies, meeting presidents and many many more things. All of which was a lie. The timeline didn’t add up and he wasn’t old enough to do everything he claimed.
    2. My HS required us to give a speech that had to be 12 minutes long and was judged by the city council. If the city council didn’t like the speech you didn’t graduate.
    3. A pet parade. People paraded with their pets. I didn’t plan to go to it though. I was at work and the road around my office was closed for it.

    posted by Chris on 11-6-2009 at 1:24 pm

11. My ex-boss would steal other people’s ideas, alter them very slightly, then pretend they were his ideas all along. He would pretend to not remember the original idea and he trained his wife to go along with the lie as well. If you called him out on it he’d just look all puzzled like you were crazy. It’s one of the many reasons he’s an ex-boss now.

    posted by LJB on 11-6-2009 at 1:26 pm

12. 1.I don’t know if this is the most bizarre lie I have ever been told or not…but my cousin visited me once when I was studying abroad and she had this awesome prada shoulder bag. Now I was a poor college student at the time and she knew how much I liked her shoulder bag so she said she had actually bought me one too but forgot it at home and that as soon as she got back to the States she would send it to me. I waited and waited and waited and I checked my mailbox every day…no shoulder bag.

    2. My high school’s official graduation requirement was to have to wear business casual attire underneath your cap and gown for the ceremony. They did mandatory checking underneath people’s gowns on everyone prior to the ceremony. Well our valedictorian ( a complete geek and braniac) went up to get his diploma and while had had adhered to the business casual rule, once on stage he pulled his pants down and mooned everyone(On his behind he had written in capital letters “F#$% U”)He mooned the class of 400, all their parents and families, the local tv station as they were filming the ceremony. It was quite a shock. Needless to say I believe the school notified Harvard (where he had gotten a full scholarship to) and they took it away from him.

    3. I can’t think of the oddest, but the oldest is the parade my dad took me to when I was three years old. It was a parade downtown Milwaukee to welcome the Brewer’s back after they had made it to the World Series. I will never forget that.

    posted by Emma on 11-6-2009 at 1:28 pm

13. My college had a few requirements for each year. Our sophomore year, you had to take the Sophomore Writing Experience, which was a writing test (and I don’t think they do it anymore); Junior year, you had to take an interdisciplinary class (called JINS) which was writing intensive; Senior year, you had to present a project from your capstone class and turn in your portfolio that you were required to keep from all four years.

    posted by Megan on 11-6-2009 at 1:31 pm

14. A guy I knew in high school told everyone he had spinal cancer to explain all of his absences senior year. I’ve got a few other examples, but that’s the worst (best?).

    posted by Kate on 11-6-2009 at 1:35 pm

15. RE #1:

    Oh boy, anyone with kids hears tons of totally unnecessary lies because they lie so badly and are too young to make up even slightly convincing ones and my son has certainly piled them on.

    But…. of the ones told by adults, I would have to say my bf-person makes up the most unnecessary ones, usually to cover something up (totally innocent, though) that he doesn’t want me to know about himself but I already noticed or figured out years ago, hah.

    posted by Sarah in CA on 11-6-2009 at 1:47 pm

16. RE Chris:

    I had a co-worker like that too. It was in Las Vegas and he was maybe 21 at the time and he was claiming to have worked at all these places, mostly casino/hotel properties in the city, been in the military, etc… but he definitely wasn’t old enough to have done any of it!

    posted by Sarah in CA on 11-6-2009 at 1:53 pm

17. 3. I was in the flag corps of very small college band and sophmore year we got a new band instructor who had grand but odd ideas about parades. We had 2 parades homecoming and Applejack festival. She decided we had to do some field choreography in front the VIPs but the parade route was so short for one parade that no one but the grandstand saw us perform. And during the other parade she gave us the signal to do the routine and it turned out to be just a large group of people not the grand stand. So we did it again later.

    It turns out all her prior teaching experience were junior high bands.

    posted by Lewen on 11-6-2009 at 2:01 pm

18. 2. At Cornell, we have to pass a swim test and take two semester of phys ed. I took bowling for one semester, it was the best class ever.
    Unofficially, I think everyone needs to go gorge jumping before they graduate–jumping off a bridge into the lake. I haven’t done it yet because I’m deathly afraid of heights, but it’s one of those things you’re supposed to experience at Cornell.

    posted by Jessica on 11-6-2009 at 2:07 pm

19. I went to a Christmas parade once where I asked one of the many, many Santas for a pony (I was 26 at the time). His response was a horrified look and, “What? Down the chimney?” It was soundly awesome.

    posted by amanda on 11-6-2009 at 2:10 pm

20. Our high school required a student to be able to swim six laps, tread water for a minute, and take a driver’s ed course.

    I accidentally forgot to take the required course and instead just passed for my licence. My way of passing that one was just to present my driver’s licence.

    What was really weird was that we were the only public school with these requirements in our district.

    posted by Trilly on 11-6-2009 at 2:20 pm

21. 1a) My husband’s ex boss was a pathological liar. He lied about anything and everything: meeting famous people, where he was staying when he was out of town on business (assuming he was actually out of town like he was supposed to be), orgies with Playboy bunnies, the amount of sales he brought in to the business, etc. It was sad. He had a pretty interesting life as it was, he didn’t really need to be lying about anything.

    1b) Everyone knows Aggies are not to be trusted. And now, thanks to your anecdote, Jason, everyone knows that wanna be Aggies are not to be trusted either.

    2) This may not be weird to some, but I went to Catholic High School (after eight years of non-denominational private school) where I had to complete 150 hours of community service in order to graduate.

    3) When I was nine, I played the Virgin Mary in the Las Posadas parade along the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Las Posadas is a re-enactment of the search for shelter by Mary and Joseph on the night of the birth of the baby Jesus. I don’t know what’s weirder – the idea of a 9 year old Mary, or the re-enactment parade taking place along the Riverwalk in front of large crowds of spectators…

    posted by Renis (Go HORNS!) on 11-6-2009 at 2:21 pm

22. A friend of mine claimed to have gone to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, stayed with the Canadian Olympic team courtesy of a hockey-player friend of his, and met several of the athletes. I asked him about pictures or souvenirs of any sort, and he showed me a hockey puck that he had brought back.

    Trouble was, I was with him on a school trip to SLC when he bought that hockey puck — a month before the Olympics.

    posted by Mike on 11-6-2009 at 2:27 pm

23. The parade we marched in this summer, itself, wasn’t unusual. It was your standard variety small-town Fourth of July parade, featuring old people from the Rotary Club (whatever that is), little boys baseball teams, little girls dance groups, and, of course, high school marching bands. What made our outfit a bit unusual was that we were dressed as zombies. Yes, the undead. We run a haunted attraction called Legends of the Fog, and decided to start promoting way early. Our float looked like a graveyard, which prompted some parade-goers to think we were selling cemetery plots. Our actors danced to “Thriller,” which was edgy, considering Michael had died the week before. But, most people, including a guy wearing a “King of Pop RIP” t-shirt dug it. Speaking of t-shirts, I was nine months pregnant and wore a “Zombie to Be” shirt. I got some dirty looks from a few evangelical Christian groups. In fact, one lady gave our entire float a “thumbs-down.” Little did she know we’d take first place.
    You can check out our video here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRzjz8QoR0

    posted by Robyn on 11-6-2009 at 2:35 pm

24. Back in highschool everyone was really into being on AIM chat as often as possible. It was like a Facebook for the 90′s. One day I made up a little poem and posted it in my AIM profile. A couple weeks later an annoying girl I knew through my boyfriend had the exact same poem in her profile (yes, my made up poem!). I asked her if she liked it, thinking she would give me credit. Instead she told me she heard it in a song and thought it was nice. I informed her that I had completly made it up myself. All she had to say for herself was that she swore she heard it in a song.

    And to Anthony, my sister is a chronic story stealer…but not on purpose. I will tell her something that happened to me or someone I know and if the topic ever comes up again, she tells the story like it happened to her. She mixes up her memories with my stories!

    posted by KayTee on 11-6-2009 at 2:37 pm

25. my college’s the quad had a few walkways through it, all intersecting in the middle. at the intersection we had the school’s seal. if you walked on the seal, you would not graduate in four years.

    posted by Jeff on 11-6-2009 at 2:39 pm

26. At my high school, we had to take two quarters of swimming. Typically you took a quarter sophomore year and another junior year. They never really told us why… but I always held a theory:

    My high school was fortunate enough to own an olympic-sized pool with an attached diving well. We had a very, very nice pool facility.

    There was one thing we did not have, however… a swim team.

    My theory was that we all had to take swimming just so the pool would get some use.

    posted by Susanna on 11-6-2009 at 2:49 pm

27. I had to have my car towed a few months ago and was being picked up at the garage by a friend, so I rode with the tow driver.

    He told me he had crashed a helicopter in Desert Storm, that he was monetarily supporting a woman whose car he’d been supposed to repossess (she called him her superman and wanted to date him, but he refused), that he hired an out-of-work friend to drive his sister around town while she was visiting so he wouldn’t have to, that he rode his motorcycle at 100+ miles an hour just to scare a passenger, and Oh, look, that woman in the car next to us is the one he was supporting monetarily.

    It was an odd mixture of plausible and implausible, and the sheer volume of interesting stuff made me doubt him. But except for the woman (she just randomly popped up in traffic next to a TOW TRUCK and didn’t spot us? Yeah, right), I have no idea which bits were true and which bits were lies.

    I had a co-worker friend who called these kinds of things “bar lies.” She enjoyed them because they’re utterly harmless – you’ll never see the person again. She lied to folks on the job about an accident her husband was involved in at one point. I knew the truth (itself rather implausible – or maybe I bought a lie as well), and she wasn’t really working very hard to avoid getting caught, she just did it for amusement.

    posted by R.M. Koske on 11-6-2009 at 2:56 pm

28. When I was at Georgia Tech, they required everyone to take a drown proofing course. It isn’t required any more.

    posted by David on 11-6-2009 at 2:59 pm

29. My college had a swimming requirement.

    We had to swim six laps of the olympic sized pool. I made it five, then my contact lenses began burning, and they told me I could grab some goggles and finish.

    No such luck–I ended up swimming eleven laps!

    posted by Chris on 11-6-2009 at 3:16 pm

30. 1. The summer after my freshman year of college, a girl I had been dating (she was from Kansas City, KS) came out to visit me in Denver. On her drive back home, she got pulled over by the Highway Patrol for speeding, and called me from a pay phone shortly after (not sure why she called from a pay phone because she had a cell). She told me this elaborate story about how some guy had been following her, and that she would get off an an exit and he would get off as well. She said she was speeding to get away from him. She indicated she told the highway patrolmen, but he told her he did not see anyone following her and ticketed her anyway. Then, as she is talking to me, she says, “Oh my God, the guy that was following me just pulled up! I have to go!” and she hangs up the phone.

    I am real scared, so I call my father. He contacts the Kansas Highway patrol and relays the whole story to them. We get put in touch with the patrolmen that pulled her over, and he says “She never indicated someone was following her to me. We take that stuff very seriously and would have done something about it.” So the Kansas Highway Patrol puts out an APB on her car, so they can confirm that she is alright.

    Meanwhile, I have tried repeatedly to contact her on her cell. She finally answers (after probably two hours). She goes into this whole thing about how after she hung up with me she ran into the gas station and she had the attendant call the police. She said they gave the Colby (Kansas) Police Dept the license plate number of the car the guy was in and it came up stolen. The “stalker,” meanwhile, drove off. She said she was in Colby for a couple hours talking to the cops.

    So my father contacts the Highway Patrol, again, so we can let them know she is alright. He relays my most recent conversation with her to them. The Highway Patrol contacts the Colby Police who state they have not run any tags today, nor did they receive that phone call.

    The Highway Patrol still had an APB out on her car so they could make sure she was alright. She was spotted and pulled over shortly after my last talk with her. The place she was pulled over was a couple hours east of Colby (even though she told me she had just left Colby). The Highway Patrol confirms she is fine, and sends her on her way.

    No idea why, after dating a year, she made up such an insane story. My best guess is she did not want to tell me she had gotten a speeding ticket, because I had warned her before she left about all the cops in Western Kansas. I called her up that night, told her she was both a crazy person and the biggest liar I had ever met, and broke up with her. That is still one of the crazier days of my life.

    Any chance that’s worth a free Mental Floss T-Shirt?

    posted by Chris on 11-6-2009 at 3:17 pm

31. 1. On Liars: I was once told by a guy that his entire family was killed in a bombing of their family reunion but he and his immediate family survived because on the way he jumped out of the car on the highway, going 75 mph. Apparently he didn’t want to go. He said he was fine, not a scratch on him, but it took so long in the emergency room they missed the whole occasion. Oh, and they knew the guy who did it because rescue workers found the charred remains of his uncle wrestling with this family enemy clutching the detonator. Sad to say, I may have still dated this guy in some capacity. A few years later when I met some guys that had gone to high school with him, they informed that they knew his family and assured me they were all very much alive.

    The same individual also wore blue tinted glasses and when they broke told everyone he couldn’t see without them. Luckily he found a pair of red tinted glasses in some sand dunes and he was able to see again, thank goodness. (Um, yea. Not making this up.)

    2. On Requirements: Wheaton College (Norton, MA) has an unwritten rule that everyone must go into the pond once before graduating. Many jump in, most are pushed in, some fall in as they attempt to raft across it on Spring Weekend in their homemade boats. I’ve never been in and I do hold a degree from the fine institution. There is also a rule stating that only seniors can use the front doors of the chapel. I only broke that once when I was working for Media Services as a sophomore and a vigil was being held for a well-loved alum who had died pretty tragically. I had to stop off there for a projector and only the front doors had been propped open. I decided better to be cursed than ruin this very emotional moment for everyone. Again, I graduated without incident.

    posted by BioloBri on 11-6-2009 at 3:21 pm

32. Lies: a band we went to see recently said during their show that Warwick Davis (little person actor and star of Willow and the Harry Potter movies, amongst many other things) had died and they were dedicating their show to him. They talked about it a fair amount, but it was a total lie. We think they may have had us pegged as a group of giant nerds (how right they were- we’re film archivists) and tried to think of the nerdiest lie they could tell that would mean anything to us. Bastards.

    posted by Kelly on 11-6-2009 at 3:45 pm

33. 1) I was told by a guy I was dating that his father had died the year before and how hard it had been for him. I think the sympathy was what caused me to date him in the first place, he acted so vulnerable and serious. About six months later I was at his house, preparing to make a special dinner before he came home from work when his sister called and said their dad had been in a car wreck and was in critical condition. I asked if they had different fathers and she thought I was nuts. When my boyfriend walked in a half hour later to no dinner cooking, I met him at the door with my purse and jacket and said, “Your sister called. Your dead daddy was in a car wreck,” and walked out. It was bizarre.

    2) None that I know of.

    3) My Girl Scout troop marched in the Mule Day parade (it’s this weekend, btw) in Calvary, Georgia, right behind all the mules. Our leader kept yelling “Stay in formation” (she was a little…militaristic, now that I look back on it, and her last name was Claus)but after almost planting my Buster Brown’s in three or four steaming piles, I veered off through someone’s back yard and went and waited by the van. And smoked. We also marched in a parade in Plains, Georgia when Jimmy Carter was President and we met his mother.

    posted by Donna on 11-6-2009 at 3:47 pm

34. 1. I had a friend who’s 89 jeep cherokee blew an engine. When asked what caused it, he replied that he was going 90 mph in reverse. Anyone who knows anything about automobiles knowns that reverse is the lowest gear, even lower than first. This was an impossible task.

    3. Dothan, Alabama has the Peanut festiville every year with a parade. About 10 minutes before the start of the parade a dump truck comes by and stops every 100 ft. The truck dumps a pile of fresh roasted peanuts in the road. Everybody runs out in the street and loads up their pockets with hot peanuts. Then you just snack as the parade goes by. Growing up redneck is great!

    posted by Johnny Cumlately on 11-6-2009 at 3:51 pm

35. I went to college with a girl who was a pathological liar. She convinced everyone she had leukemia and was going through chemo (to the point she would leave for “appointments” and her hair “fell out”), that she had been pregnant but miscarried, and that she was addicted to painkillers. After a phone call to her mother, I found out it was all a lie. WOW.

    posted by Sasha on 11-6-2009 at 4:09 pm

36. GRAD REQUIREMENT: My high school in the mountains of western NC required all students to pass a hunter safety course before graduation. I learned the different hunting laws and seasons and how to properly handle a real firearm. We also, bizarrely, watched a short movie of Jack London’s “To Start a Fire” where I learned, if you only have one match, don’t try to light a fire under a tree that’s covered in snow.

    Also, I went to Meredith College for undergrad and all students are required to take a British Authors class where you must memorize the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English to pass and therefore graduate. I can still recite “Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour…”

    posted by arae on 11-6-2009 at 4:28 pm

37. 1. I once told my high school classmates I was a DJ for Radio Disney. Not sure why.

    2. My undergrad required business students to take either golf or tennis as their physical education requirement.

    3. Any gay pride parade, especially the ones in San Francisco, are pretty unforgettable.

    posted by Lucky on 11-6-2009 at 4:36 pm

38. lies: I’ve heard some doozies. A fellow I worked with told me that he was being stalked by Henry Rollins. He said that he had sent Mr. Rollins an email once, and that ever since, he had continually responded, demanding to be friends.

    A fellow my husband works with told us that the night before, he had been driving his Corvette at 124 mph when he lost control and hit the barrier on the interstate. He said the car was completely demolished, and the only thing that identified that there was ever a car there was the fact that the steering wheel was unharmed. I wondered how something like that hadn’t made the news (also, my mom works for the cops, so she would have heard something), or how if the entire car was destroyed, how he made it out completely unscathed.

    And finally… a woman my husband works with had sworn up and down that she had no idea where her own daughter lived. She said, “She doesn’t let me know where she lives.” Little did she know that, at the time, I was teaching Sunday School with her daughter. I had seen her at her daughter’s house a week before.

    **************************************

    parades: I was in Colorguard in high school and had to spin a flag in a couple of parades. A child (maybe 2 or 3 years old) ran out in front of me to pick up some candy ane “whack!” ran right into my spinning flag. I heard the child crying as we marched on. I felt absolutely awful. I was later APPLAUDED for not messing up the formation.

    posted by Pearl on 11-6-2009 at 4:39 pm

39. 1. One day I had to call a client of the company I work for, and her secretary picked up. I asked for the person, and was put on hold. A few minutes later, the secretary came back on the line and asked for my name, the put me on hold again. Then she asked what company I was with, and put me on hold. Then she asked the nature of my call, and put me on hold. Finally she told me that the woman was not available. As if it wasn’t obvious who wanted to know all that information!

    posted by amaneaux on 11-6-2009 at 4:44 pm

40. My friend in college dated a pathalogical lier…she went to great extreems to cover up her spending habits to her parents, but mostly lied to convence them that she was doing well in school.

    One of the best lies she told was to one of her professors. She said that she wasn’t in town to take a test because her grandmother had died and she had to go to Washington D.C. for the funeral. The teacher asked to see the obituary, which she was able to produce…because she had taken the time and spent the money to take out an obituary in the paper!

    The best part was that she used her grandmothers real name, so her parents were getting a lot of phone calls expressing the callers condolences.

    posted by graham on 11-6-2009 at 4:52 pm

41. I was sitting next to this guy in a bar who was complaining about how bad he felt. I knew I was asking for it, but I was bored and I inquired what was wrong. He informed me that as he attempted to leave a different bar the night before, a physical fight broke out between the two guys in front of him. Instead of sidestepping this nonsense like a normal person, he stepped in to break up the fight and took a shot in the face. He claims his nose was broken, and also that he carried these now unconscious goons outside. Incredulous, I looked at his unbruised not swollen face and asked him if it bled. Yes, he says, out of both of his eyes. Awesome.

    posted by kate on 11-6-2009 at 4:55 pm

42. Shortly after I met my current partner, I noticed him using different colors of Sharpie markers to make employee schedules for his workplace. Each marker was labeled: red, green, blue, etc. That really puzzled me since the cap indicates quite clearly the correct color. He explained that he is completely color-blind! I thought that was certainly odd, but allowed for the possibility.

    Later, something come up such that he mentioned a color as he has perceived it (accurately), so I pushed a bit. He further clarified that during times of extreme excitement, he could sometimes enjoy full color vision for a very short while, which is why he really enjoyed fast cars, parasailing, and the like

    Long story short, the poor guy is simply red-green color blind and got so tired of all the unavoidable questions, such as, “So, what colors can you see?” or “what does this look like?”… “or this?”, etc. To simplify his life, he told everyone he saw only shades of gray. And it worked until he met someone he loved enough he couldn’t lie to anymore.

    We’re still happy after 16 years… and lot of colorful moments!

    posted by Emessjay on 11-6-2009 at 4:57 pm

43. 1. In grade school a girl who bullied my little sister told everyone she was moving to Hollywood for the summer because she was replacing the actress who played Stephanie on Full House.

    posted by JC on 11-6-2009 at 4:58 pm

44. 1. When I was a kid, my mom and grandma told me some crazy lies to get me to do things. My grandma once told me that if I ate my noodles without chewing them, a black hole would grow in my stomach. I have no idea why she told me that.

    But the best (and funniest) lies I’ve seen people tell are usually on chat sites. Some of the funniest are ones my friend told. She once told a person in Germany that New York experienced terrible buffalo stampedes, and that they ruined gardens and scratched windows with their horns.

    posted by Lindi on 11-6-2009 at 5:43 pm

45. Tybee Island, GA holds the Beach Bum Parade, during which all floats and entries have various hydro-weaponry and the entire island grabs their water guns and engages in a townwide water fight.

    posted by Curtis on 11-6-2009 at 5:57 pm

46. When I was in high school in the nineties, a girl I was friends with swore up and down that she personally knew Jonathan Brandis (the actor) and that he was always coming over to her house to try and hang out with her, but that her mom wouldn’t let them be friends because she thought he was a bad influence. Never mind that we lived in New Jersey at the time and I’m pretty sure no teen heart-throb ever so much as passed through our little town.

    posted by Marie on 11-6-2009 at 6:12 pm

47. @ Jeff – seriously, i believe even the most mediocre student can reach those qualifications (2.0, seriously? that can be pulled off without even trying). Just ask the goats….

    Once again proves why the Aggies will always be #2 to the Horns.

    HOOK ‘EM

    posted by Izzi on 11-6-2009 at 6:35 pm

48. -I’ve had someone try to convince me i was allergic to pretzels, and that my whole life i had been fed special, “no hurt feelings” pretzels so i could be like a normal kid.
    -I had a gang of friends that to join them you had to get good and lost in the woods outside of school, and get back before recess ended. Some people didn’t get back until after the final bell…
    -I have marched through new york on Columbus day parade, as a New York Military Academy cadet, and believe me, carrying a 25 pound rifle that is actually filled up with concrete on my shoulder for a few miles is NOT fun…

    posted by Nic on 11-6-2009 at 6:39 pm

49. Hands down, the best parade I have ever attended and walked in was the Gay Pride parade in Boulder, Colorado. It is one block long, just off the main shopping area in downtown Boulder, and participants walk up and down the block several times. The floats are either decortated bicycles, or little red wagons.

    One proud parader was pulling a little wagon with bobble head dolls and barbies lined up in it as if it were a minature version of your standard parade floats.

    It was a lot of fun to have participated in the world’s smallest Gay Pride parade.

    posted by Jeffrey on 11-6-2009 at 7:28 pm

50. I went to boarding school with a girl who’s father worked in Cyprus (the school was in the US). She claimed that before she had come to the school, she had lived with her dad and worked as a bartender for “over 2 years.” At the time she was making these claims she was 16 years old and had been at the school for a year. She would have had to have started working as a bartender at age 13. The drinking age in Cyprus is 17.

    Same girl later claimed to have been admitted to NYU with a “prelaw” major. At the time there WAS no prelaw major at NYU (I had just toured the school and ASKED about prelaw as a major, they told me they had a prelaw advising program but it could not be declared as a major).

    posted by moonablaze on 11-6-2009 at 7:32 pm

51. @Izzi,

    You’re right. The 2.0 isn’t a huge deal except for the fact that it’s even required. Most schools don’t require anything but a minimum of hours and some don’t bother to even check to see if you’re a student.

    The point is A&M has more requirements than most other schools just to get your ring.

    GIG ‘EM!

    posted by Jeff on 11-6-2009 at 9:10 pm

52. What I meant was my son, at Texas A&M, who is from an affair, with a direct descendant of Jim Thorpe and Jackie Kersee. That was the son I was talking about. But, he blew his knee last week and they reprinted the yearbooks. I’d tell you his name but I forget.

    posted by Radiator Dude on 11-6-2009 at 9:17 pm

53. My mother’s boyfriend won a contest that was being held by Lake to Lake Cheese. Part of the prize — in fact, a requirement for being able to claim the money involved — was to go to Kiel, Wisconsin and be Grand Marshall of the Big Cheese Parade, which I’m sure was put on solely for the purposes of the contest. Mom and I and a daughter of his accompanied him on the trip (all expenses paid of course), and yes we were in the parade as well. And in the evening were fireworks spelling out his name. I still have a T-shirt from that day.

    posted by VM on 11-6-2009 at 11:32 pm

54. So many outrageous lies I’ve heard… I remember some kid at summer camp said he had been to every airport in the world, even in Antarctica… My brother once told my mom that a teacher’s aide he didn’t like (who was a real b-word) died in a car crash… and a guy in college told so many tales that I eventually stopped believing he even went to our school.

    I’ve even told a few myself – in preschool I stole a little plastic monkey figure and told my mom that the teacher had hidden 1000 monkeys in the sand of the playground for us to find (I’ve since become a better liar – my freshman year I had all the East Coasters believing for a while that growing up in CA I had never heard of dodgeball).

    Also, can I suggest that you guys do a post on famous pathological liars? As ridiculous as they are, they can be pretty interesting too…

    posted by Colin GG on 11-6-2009 at 11:36 pm

55. I agree with Colin GG — you guys need to do a post on famous pathological liars. These examples (truthfully) have been entertaining. You wonder how these big-time liars end up.

    posted by Bob on 11-6-2009 at 11:48 pm

56. Also — I’ve seen a handful of Doo-Dah Parades in Pasadena, California (yep, same city as the famous Rose Parade), and those are always fun.

    posted by VM on 11-6-2009 at 11:51 pm

57. I like telling completely outlandish lies just to see if I can get people to believe me.

    One day I was sitting around with a couple of my friends and I said aloud “I bet it’d be funny if I told people my dad played for the XFL.” Most people just caught the tail end of my statement and told me to say it again, so I just go “Yeah, my dad played for the XFL, dropped out of accounting to be a placekicker for the Las Vegas Outlaws. Played with He Hate Me.”

    Another time I made a fake livejournal posting talking about how I had competed on “Legends of the Hidden Temple” on Nickelodeon. What prompted that post is I had a story tangentially related to “Hidden Temple,” and I said to myself “I bet my friend Megan would believe if I posted some big story about BEING on the show.” So I concoct like a 600 word entry and within an hour, Megan had commented on the story a couple times. She even told MANY of her friends at school how awesome I was for it. Seven months after, I was hanging out with her and a couple friends at her place. I started guiding the conversation towards “Hidden Temple,” but not overtly mentioning it, prompting her to go “And it’s AWESOME you were on Hidden Temple.” At that point I just go “Megan, wanna hear something funny?” At that point she realizes she’d been had and went from giggly to pissed off in a nanosecond.

    posted by Kevin on 11-7-2009 at 1:18 am

58. I had the “pleasure” of working with a pathological liar / attention seeker. Time lines did not add up, stories were so outlandish, and why, if she had been trained as a nurse was working a $16 hour job in a non-medical setting?

    The college I went to required something called the WEPT, written English Proficiency Test – which I found funny, because, hello, we’re in college. I passed first try, my sister had to take it twice.

    posted by just me on 11-7-2009 at 1:55 am

59. I had somewhat the opposite of pathological lying, instead of making up stories as a kid, other kids would ask my mother about stories they’d made up about me to make her think I was the one making them up.

    posted by Bakedpotatoes on 11-7-2009 at 3:17 am

60. 1.) anthony, i had the same exact thing. a guy i used to work with would do that all the time. poor guy must have had a hard time keeping track of all the lies he must have been telling.

    i’ve met some liars in my day- but the one that takes the cake is an ex of my current boyfriend “found” my blog “while looking for quizzes”. poor thing didn’t realize i had been tracking ip addresses and noticed that she had been making anonymous comments on my blog for awhile before hand.

    the girl was nuts though. she’d steal people’s pictures and stories and use them as her own. sad, really.

    posted by emmiline on 11-7-2009 at 3:22 am

61. 1) my sister used to tell me that there was a secret passageway that went from our attic down underground and over to the neighbors’ house because it was part of the underground railroad for the slaves in the 1800′s. we lived in new jersey and i think our house was built in 1905 or so, but that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out where the stairs and ladders were hidden to get from the attic to the basement. she also told me there were skeletons in the passage. freaked me out for years.

    2) i think jessica is right: you are probably thinking of cornell. all freshmen, during orientation, have to swim one full lap in the pool. it was told to students (it’s actually false but well perpetuated) that it wasn’t a dean but a huge benefactor who had his kid die in cayuga lake and declared that to get the money, everyone has to know how to swim freshman year. actually, it was just a requirement for women in the early 1900′s and added for the men during the war. either way, you fail, you have to take swimming your first semester gym class (out of two required gym classes). it wasn’t so bad, and you could take dance (belly, swing, ballroom, latin, etc), martial arts, sailing, sports, whatever for your gym classes, so it was actually pretty fun and a good way to stave off the freshman 15. i took gym every semester through graduation!

    posted by Id on 11-7-2009 at 12:30 pm

62. 3. A couple years ago I was in Paris for New Years Eve and happened across an “Anti-2008 Parade” The French will protest anything!

    posted by Audra on 11-7-2009 at 12:58 pm

63. At our highschool we had a panther mascot and we had statue in front lobby..for good luck we were told to rub the panthers’ ear at games or graduation..well they would always rub it’s butt or in the crotch area

    posted by Ann on 11-7-2009 at 1:15 pm

64. I got into a fight with my ex-fiance and left the house one night, and when I circled back for cigs and climbed the stairs outside, I could hear her on the phone with my dad telling him that I smoke crystal meth.

    I busted in and told her it was over, and she cried and said she would call him back and tell him it was a lie if I stayed with her. I said “ok” just so she would tell my dad the truth and as soon as she hung up I said, “No, it’s still over.”

    She proceeded to call my dad AGAIN and say that THAT was a lie. What a crazy hag. 7 years with her, and now I’m getting married to someone else 2 years later. Ha!

    posted by Rob on 11-7-2009 at 6:18 pm

65. I had a girl I work with tell me once that she was born five MONTHS premature. Tried to tell her that was a physical impossibility, and she defended the story. So I asked her mother the next time she came in-her mother laughed and she that she had been born on the exact day she had been due…FULL TERM.

    posted by Amanda on 11-7-2009 at 11:55 pm

66. My high school in the suburbs of Ft. Worth always had a Homecoming Parade that wound through about miles worth of streets the week of Homecoming. Every organization/team/extra curricular made a “float” (aka decorated a car/truck/trailer) and threw candy at the parade goers. It was a great time and the students and community loved it. I had forgotten about it until I was telling my students in San Antonio about it and realized that we have nothing like it down here. So I wonder how many other Floss readers had homecoming parades at their high school? Oh, my college (Trinity University) had the Golf Cart Parade for homecoming. Each group would decorate a golf cart and go around the track…there was a contest for the best decorated!

    posted by Christi on 11-8-2009 at 9:39 am

67. I knew a girl once who was always trying to make people feel bad for her. You’d have a bad day and try to talk to her about it and she’d one-up you with something worse. I’m still not sure if this is true, but she claimed she was once in a terrible car accident that resulted in serious head trauma that still sometimes plagued her. Regardless of whether that was true or not, though, she also claimed that pre accident, she had been incredibly fit and used to weight lift with the guys in college, frequently benching more than they were able to. She claimed the reason she was now so overweight was because she had to take steroids after her accident. I’d seen pictures of her in high school and college. She was still overweight.

    posted by Mrs. Cookie on 11-8-2009 at 10:56 am

68. 1) I walked in on a friend of mine, who at the time was in the marines but out on medical pending medical discharge, telling a smokey, booze filled room full of girls that the scar on his back was a gun shot wound from a secret mission he went on to assassinate sadaam hussien…I said dude I was there when you got that mole lanced off your back!…hilarious.
    2)In high school the juniors going to be seniors paddled all the kids that just graduated 8th grade….yes just like the movie dazed and confused…I know its sounds like a story for #1 but its not. In college it was kind of required to get a little dirty in the library. Not too original but fun.
    3)Im from a small town in nj we had all kinds of parades but nothing too out of the ordinary.

    posted by CJ on 11-8-2009 at 5:25 pm

69. Regarding bizarre lies…

    Years ago I worked with a woman at an agency for adults with disabilities. She was overweight, and I accidentally stumbled upon the information that she was planning to have gastric bypass surgery. She told our supervisor and the individuals who received services from the agency that she had stomach cancer! The people at one house even sent this woman flowers, believing that she’d had surgery to have tumors removed. She was pure evil. Ultimately, she showed up at work drunk and told our boss she’d taken ProCrit when in fact she was merely loaded. She was subsequently fired and I feel that karma gave her exactly what she deserved.

    posted by Shelby Tucker on 11-8-2009 at 6:50 pm

70. I have an older brother who has always had “stories” and adventures. In the late 70′s his mode of transportation was Greyhound Bus, that would let him off usually in a town a half hour from our rural home. One time he was let off at a different town (because he was drunk and disorderly on the bus) and proceeded to tell my sweet, niave Mother that he was kicked off because he poached a duece in the isle since the bathroom was busy. She of course bought it and was just about ready to change her name and move to a new area!

    posted by Liz on 11-8-2009 at 11:44 pm

71. My brother’s baseball coach (whom is Hawaiian)apparently played professional baseball in the ’80s but was only called to the big leagues a few times. When asked why we couldn’t find anything on him on Google or any other search engine we asked why that was. His response: “In Hawaii if you don’t make it big you might as well not even come back. It’s worse for those that try to play and fail than it is for the ones that don’t make it at all. So i was forced to pay MLB $60,000 to erase my names from all the record books like I never existed.”…Seriously dude? You paid off Major League Baseball? What an idiot.

    posted by Mike on 11-9-2009 at 1:42 am

72. Weird grad requirements…. In High school we had to finnish 90 hours (they lowered it to 40 while I was still attending, I graduated in 2004) community service. They always had opportunities available so there was no excuse for not getting it done, but everyone always complained anyway. Stuff like picking up trash on the hwy, camp counseler for elementary school kids, all kinds of stuff. If you didnt get your hours done, no diploma.

    We also had Senior Exit Interviews. Had to get all dressed up suit and tie, worked for weeks on putting together a portfolio, and went into an interview with various volunteers from around the community. We got graded on it, and if you didnt pass you had to do it again. I dont think anyone didn’t graduate becuase of it.

    To participate in the graduation ceremony, you had to have at least a 2.5 GPA all 4 years, not miss more than a set number of days. Can’t have been suspended within the last 6 weeks of school for any reason at all… whole bunch of stuff to where about 200 of the 500 in my class were not allowed to be in the ceremony, but still got a diploma.

    We had weird rules all over the place actually… if your gpa was below 2.0 you werent allowed to go on field trips, had to stay like in a study hall, couldnt go to any of the after shcool dances or participate in sports or any other activities. We were on CNN my senior year becuase the principal was going to cancel the prom and all dances becuase we couldnt ‘behave’… (not a crazy lie I swear! )

    posted by ashley on 11-9-2009 at 7:28 pm

73. this girl i went to high school with probably had about 27 miscarriages. Been date raped a dozen times, her boyfriend beat her all the time… some how she never had a mark on her…

    posted by ashley on 11-9-2009 at 7:57 pm

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