Any baked goods that seemed especially sticky or shiny or just off in some indefinable way were actually store-bought and gluten-free, not “homemade with extra butter.” They were on sale. The “low-fat, organic” corn chips were from a soon-to-expire bag of Fritos discovered near the back of the pantry five minutes before you arrived.
The blonde woman who spent half an hour flipping through our old magazines and sending a flurry of text messages before leaving rather abruptly was not Brian’s sister, visiting from Indiana; she was our new neighbor and we ignored her. Her name is Kim. Or Jill. She didn’t answer to either name at the elevator this morning. Maybe her name is Kelly.
In “Edge of Seventeen,” Stevie Nicks sings about a “white-winged dove,” not a “one-winged dove.” This renders much of the discussion of disabled dove imagery in popular music moot, although the host stands by the assertion that “When Doves Cry” is Prince’s best song.
All invitations to a coworker’s birthday gathering, an uncle’s timeshare, and a three-Michelin-star-rated restaurant were extended erroneously in moments of misguided largesse. Any expressed desires to go bowling, to care for foster puppies, or to split a CSA share were similarly imprudent.
After 1 a.m., references to the works of Gustave Flaubert were actually references to the works of Marcel Proust. Additionally, Flaubert is pronounced Flow-BAIR, not FLAW-burt.
Most anecdotes that began “I’m the same way!” or “That’s so funny, I do that too!” featured ill-advised but basically well-intentioned embellishments. The host believed that emphasizing similar experiences, shared values, and fabulous coincidences would foster a deeper rapport and sense of connection between host and guest. However, these anecdotes, while not exactly untrue, were also not entirely faithful representations of reality. They were hopeful articulations, perhaps, of the reality to which one might aspire.
The only patently untrue statements the host recalls making were: 1) “My semester abroad was a life-changing experience” (the host never spent a semester abroad, and if he had, let’s face it, he wouldn’t have learned much from it or used it as the impetus for changing his life in any meaningful way), and 2) “I go to the gym three, four times a week” (the host went to the gym three times last year but was grossed out by the locker rooms and failed to renew his membership).
The host did, in fact, win a creative writing competition, but may have overstated its influence and importance. The “scholarship award” was an envelope with $124 in cash, collected from the English department at his high school, and because the host assumes that everyone else chipped in $20, he often wonders which of the seven teachers contributed a measly four bucks. The host has his suspicions.
When the host declared, “You’re so much better off without him,” he meant to say, “You’re so much better off with him, and that’s why I am delighted to learn, just now, that the two of you are back together.”
The host does not know why he started crying about how much he misses his parents. They only live half an hour away; if he really wanted to see them more often, he could.
According to the International Bartenders Association, a Rusty Nail cocktail consists of Scotch and Drambuie over crushed ice with a twist of lemon. Half a cup of Drambuie with “just a little splashy-splash of whatever this is here” (i.e., Diet Dr. Pepper) is neither a Rusty Nail nor officially recognized by the IBA.
We sincerely regret these errors and apologize for any inconvenience or discomfort they may have caused.