You can't handle the truth!

1. Valentine's Day 1996 in a Russian elevator: TRUE! My friend Nancy and I went to Moscow for 6 months in college to teach English as a Second Language. We lived in a really tall building, and on Valentine's Day, we decided to get some exercise by running the stairs. (all 20 stories!!) We did this for a while and after we were done, we thought we'd give ourselves a break by taking the elevator back up to the 15th floor, where we lived. The elevator got stuck between the 2nd and 3rd floors, and if you know anything about old Soviet buildings, we could still be there if we hadn't banged and yelled loud enough for the security guards to hear us. (They thought we were nuts anyway, wearing shorts and running up and down the stairs in the middle of February). I guess I wasn't stuck in the elevator the whole day, but 45 minutes in a Russian elevator feels like a lifetime...let's just say the standards of elevator cleanliness aren't exactly high over there!

2. Trespassing on NASA property during my honeymoon: TRUE! Geoff and I went to Florida on our honeymoon, and a woman on the plane ride recommended a particular beach as being very natural and unspoiled by hotdog stands, etc...We found the beach and were walking hand in hand, googling at each other and probably looking like some kind of ad for an arthritis medication or something, and suddenly we heard this person SCREAMING at us. We turned around and there was a woman about 400 yards back, waving and yelling at us. We couldn't understand what she was saying, but she seemed very insistent, so we walked back and she was saying, "STOP!! You are trespassing on NASA Property!"She was saying all this stuff about protected lands and how we were endangering the ability of the astronauts, etc..Geoff said, "Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't realize." She looked back at us like were nuts and said really sarcastically, "Right. I'm sure you didn't notice the sign." SIGN? We turned around and there in ENORMOUS red letters was a huge sign saying NO TRESPASSING-DO NOT PASS THIS POINT. THIS IS NASA PROPERTY." We had completely missed it...We tried to explain that we were on our honeymoon and not really paying attention to anything but she just looked disgusted that we would lie about something like that. Hee hee...

3: I've been up to my ankles in french-fry grease: TRUE! In college, my friend and I got a job working as short order cooks in the student union. One of the closing duties was to drain the big fryer of its grease and fill it up with new stuff for the next day. It was somewhat complicated, involving turning the whole thing off to cool, then turning a valve to drain the fryer, removing the big tube, putting in a different tube, turning the valve back on to fill the fryer back up. My friend was in charge of it that night and I was around the corner. Suddenly I heard a big scream and my friend yelled "Molly!!! HURRY!!!". I ran around the corner and almost did the splits because the floor was so slippery-somehow the tube hadn't gotten connected up and grease was gushing everywhere and my friend was just standing there laughing because she was so freaked out. It really only took a few seconds for us to get the right valve turned but by that time we were both ankle deep in grease and I was laughing so hard I almost wet my pants. Fortunately the grease was cool, or it could have been really bad, but I still get the giggles when I think of how funny we must have looked.

4. I have personally helped put a man in jail: TRUE!
I'm realizing all these things happened in college! I managed to leave my wallet/planner under my seat after a class, and then it was gone when I went back for it. I called my credit card to cancel it and you guessed it, it had already been used! This was Logan Utah in 1995, so identity theft wasn't really common knowledge--stupid me had thought some handsome RM was going to show up at my dorm with the wallet and that would be the beginning of our love story...:)

The card had been used to buy some fancy hiking boots, and the woman at the store gave me a description of the guy who'd bought them. I showed up early to class and guess who strolls in wearing the boots! I called the cops and they questioned him but let him go, saying it was my word against his. The guy was waiting for me after class and we walked around for a while (I cannot believe I wasn't scared, but I guess he was kind of short!). He was dancing around the subject until finally I came out and asked him if he had taken my credit card and he said "Yes!" He said he'd never done anything like this before and please could he just pay me back, his parents would be so angry with him, blah blah blah. He played just about every sympathy card there was and I ALMOST felt sorry for him, until he tried to appeal to my sense of religion--he said something about God's forgiveness, and at that point I just got mad, because I realized he was being manipulative. I told him I needed to let the police handle it. At this point we had walked to my dorm (again, stupid I know!) and he turned away, saying he had to go to class. I couldnt' believe he thought he was just going to walk away, so I said, "Um, you're not going to class, you're going to jail!!"

The guy took off running! My friend was working at the front desk and I yelled, "That's the guy who stole my credit card!" And then I ran after him! He didn't have much of a head start and like I said before, he was short and wearing hiking boots, so I caught up to him. We had this completely surreal conversation about facing the music and then a cop car showed up. They took my statement and I wrote how bad I felt for him because he'd never done anything like this before, etc. The cop read it and said, "He told you he's never done anything like this before??" It turns out this guy had a record a mile long...my little Nancy Drew experiment was the last straw and he ended up in jail for a year. I still cannot believe I was dumb enough to confront the guy....

#5: My parents never planned to call me Liahona. There's no real story, and my kid is freaking out, so I'll spare you all another story. :)

I tag Heathere!