You can blame Shea for this one ….

Shea tagged me for something the kids are calling a “Creative MeMe — Lies and Truths.”

Idea is, you tell “six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. Nominate some more ‘creative writers’ who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)”

Shea has some doozies. What a dude. Damn, I love interesting people.

Okay, mine: One outrageous lie, six outrageous truths …

1] A while back, an unusual sequence of circumstances had me hanging out with Travolta in a nearly empty “waiting area.” We’re chewing the fat for a while, and when he learns that I’m headed to the same place he is, he gives me this look like I’m a space alien, showing me that big smile and eye-twinkle, and says, “Who are you again? And what’s your deal?” … Wish I knew, John. Wish I knew.

2] The summer before college, as a U-Haul desk jockey, I seriously freaked out a customer (a complete stranger) by correctly telling the man that I had seen him one year earlier standing in line with two ladies at a water-slide park, in a city 30 miles away, and that he’d been wearing a blue Speedo and puka shells, and that the ladies had been wearing matching one-pieces. I even told him the date I saw him.  … You should’ve seen the way that guy looked at me. … One of my coworkers spent the rest of the summer convinced I was magic.

3] My dog Venus once appeared on ABC News.

4] On a college road trip to a Sierra town east of Chester, I lost a bet to a local. To settle up, I had to go out back of this bar and squeeze into a small cage containing — I kid you not — this bobcat he’d trapped, and I had to stay in there for 30 seconds. My friends laughed so hard, one of them peed his pants. … Me? I still have the claw marks streaking down my left calf and across the small of my back [all I did was curl up and cover my face].

5] Back in the ’90s, the lead singer of Hootie and Blowfish sang to my wife for the better part of a 90-minute performance at the Concord Pavilion, and for some reason I never really felt threatened. … Me? Oblivious dingbat? Maybe, but she was going home with me, bub. 

6] In college, I circled the United States for three weeks … on $450.

7] As a teen employee of Hickory Farms, I once walked through the mall with my baggy collar shirt tucked into my too-tight pants. That would have been fine, if only my fly had been zipped closed and an enormous portion of my shirt wasn’t protruding through it — unbeknownst to me, of course.

Okay, name the lie, and after ample time, I’ll come clean.

Meanwhile, to continue the madness, I have been asked to tag a “creative writer.” And I want sick, I want twisted, I want perversion. I want Phillips!