Select Page

We all know social media was built around shameless self-promotion and adorable baby (and puppy!) photos. But as much as we love to hate on Facebook, it’s also an incredible place to build community and share the highs and lows of life together.

Last week my friend Chetna Shetty posted a status that went wild: “What’s something you’ve done that you’re confident you are the only person on my friends list to have done it?” I loved watching the answers her friends gave and stole the status (with attribution!) for myself. Since, it’s gotten over 300 comments, and at least five of my friends have borrowed it for their own pages as well.

I think what appeals about this particular “challenge” is analyzing what you know about that person [OP], guessing as to the types of friends they have, then puting out your own “only” that you think no one else will have done based on the audience. For example, I’m a skier and it’s safe to assume many of my friends are too, so you probably wouldn’t list a skiing accomplishment in my question feed because you won’t be the only one. But if you got struck by lightning, you’re probably safe to list that anywhere!

I’ve learned a lot of things about the people I thought I knew. Some surprising. Others sad. Many inspirational and downright shocking. Here are 100 of the “reveals” from my Facebook status. What would you share?

  1. Had rum with Fidel Castro at his summer house in Cuba.
  2. Let my boyfriend of a few months convince me to spend a summer in London working in a pub with him, then married him 6 years later!
  3. Had my gallbladder removed in emergency surgery at age 19.
  4. Accidently drove over an endangered species (spotted owl).
  5. Visited the Iron Curtain during the Cold War while living in [West] Germany.
  6. Building a log cabin completely from scratch with my son. We cut down the trees to start and are now almost ready to cut windows in it!
  7. Climbed Prime Rib of Goat (in Mazama, WA) in an over-the-shoulder man-thong.
  8. Jumped off a 50 foot cliff off the coast of Corfu, Greece. Topless. In order to get free drinks on the boat all day. I was the only female who accepted the challenge I might add. And two of the guys turned around at the top. I was 22 and traveling so free drinks was life.
  9. Once wore jorts to a wedding.
  10. Donated my kidney to my brother.
  11. Asked Al Gore to sign a copy of my book in front of 15,000 people.
  12. Led an all female climb of Denali with a 100% success rate!
  13. Two world records. One Guinness verified. [Fun fact: not one but THREE of my friends are Guiness record holders, including the world record squat!]
  14. Attended a Jewish preschool, public elementary school, Baptist middle school and Catholic high school. Bam. All that to evolve into a pagan. Where did they go wrong?!
  15. Mooned the Iraqi Embassy in DC during Desert Storm.
  16. Arrived at burning man by landing on the black rock desert in a plane entirely full of naked people.
  17. Smoked a blunt with Method Man.
  18. Watched Gorbachev give a speech at Westminster on the same spot Churchill delivered the Iron Curtain speech!! (Fulton, MO in the 90s.)
  19. Ran a marathon in Antarctica dressed like a banana.
  20. Survived being blown up. 💣💥(IED in Baghdad for anyone wanting clarification.)
  21. Descended to the bottom of the (then) deepest limestone cave in the US, “Virgil The Turtle’s Greathouse Cave” in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana-1,586 feet down!!
  22. Graduated law school after getting a BFA degree in painting. ⚖️ 🎨
  23. Run 28 full marathons (or ultra) in 7yrs after losing 115lbs in 2011…
  24. Camped in the summit crater of Mt. Rainier. [Turns out lots of my friends have done this!]
  25. Drove from LA to Vegas with a girl the same night I met her.
  26. Graduated with my Master of Occupational Therapy 15 years after getting my BFA in Crafts (not basket weaving, lol) I was 41 when I finished.
  27. Placed 3rd at Synchronized Swimming Nationals.
  28. Watched Ray Charles perform onstage and the very next night I performed on the exact same stage. 🎼sound check blew my mind: “his piano was Right. Here!!!”
  29. Rode Cranksgiving (Thanksgiving charity bike ride) in a Turkey Suit. 🦃
  30. Pooped on myself on accident while trying to poop outdoors?!? Mostly saying this because I want to see how many of you out there would even admit to it….liars.
  31. Run a boat on 2500 cfs volume at over 200 fpm gradient. and I won’t do it again! 
  32. I competed in the National Spelling Bee. Got out in the first round. Thesmothete. [on a related note someone else said] First runner up in the NJ State Spelling Bee. I lost on ‘shellac.’ The next girl got ‘soccer.’
  33. Did shots with Woody Harrelson in a bar in Grand Cayman.
  34. Worked in an orphanage in Siberia!
  35. Performed in a High School Musical as one of the leading roles with only one eye contact cause I lost it in the bathroom when I was getting ready. All the steps on the stage were quite terrifying.
  36. Probably the only one who has been inside the state data center and has an all-access badge for the entire state capital?
  37. Was at the wall in West Germany the night it came down to be One Germany.
  38. Rode a bicycle across the country from Portsmouth, NH to Vancouver, BC to raise money for affordable housing projects.
  39. Got drunk at passed out at the age of 5.
  40. Been ordained. Then excommunicated. Oops.
  41. Rode naked in a car with four other naked people across the state of Idaho. 
  42. I swam from Alcatraz Island to shore of SF 🌊
  43. Have performed for several elementary school audiences juggling while riding a unicycle. Sometimes with fire.
  44. Made out on a helicopter pad in the Grear Barrier Reef.
  45. Asked her boyfriend of three weeks to hike the AT with her 😬😬 then proposed to him on top of Rainier many years later.
  46. Zip lined off the Great Wall of China!
  47. Flew into Dublin, rented a car, and proceeded to lap the entire island in about 10 days seeing as much as possible along the way before running out of money.
  48. Aquired my first passport at 3 days old. 
  49. I have a water collection with over 500 samples from notable rivers, lakes, oceans that I’ve been collecting since I was 7.
  50. Witnessed a murder.
  51. Ate pizza everyday for an entire year.
  52. Got to be Kid Rock’s bodyguard for a day in Baghdad.
  53. Spelunking Darby ice caves in the Tetons; 6hours, 7 repels, with parts where we paddled down an underground canal on an inflatable raft we brought.
  54. Can lick my elbow.
  55. Crossed the Albania – Kosovo border at a point only Albanians are suppose to use and was shepherded from one taxi to another that was waiting with no idea that was going to happen and then the taxi driver bought me a coke.
  56. Sex in a hearse (it was empty!) riding on an Alaska State ferry. 
  57. Got chased out of the Hotel California by the Federales in Mexico.
  58. Unwrapped and surgically excised the nonbloody toilet paper around my roommate’s used tampon and proceed to wipe myself when we were out of TP in college.
  59. Second degree burned my foot — while making a roux.
  60. Read the Top Ten list on David Letterman.
  61. Gave birth to first child during an accidental home delivery, on bathroom floor, and he was also en caul. 
  62. Shaved off all the hair on my entire body [a man wrote this].
  63. Discovered the largest opal on record (155 million carats is the estimate). Haven’t gotten the funding to pull it out of the ground yet.
  64.  I am pretty sure I invented selfies.
  65. Looked through THE telescope that helped prove the Big Bang theory at the South Pole. It was being taken down so I didn’t see deep into the cosmos but still a rad experience!
  66. Successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on someone that was choking and couldn’t breathe.
  67. Photographed a tiger 3 feet from me with no barrier between us.
  68. Learned to ice skate when I was two and speed skated competitively throughout my childhood as part of Midway Speedskating club in MN – the same club as Bonnie Blair, who won 5 gold medals and one bronze metal in the Olympics!! She was my idol back then haha! [Written by a man]
  69. Drove a car in the Vice President’s motorcade.
  70. Been in over 30 car accidents.
  71. Felt the heat from an erupting volcano!
  72. Ran away with the circus and performed with Cirque du Soleil.
  73. Used a slice of quesadilla to wipe after an emergency potty stop during a 50k.
  74. I made a pork tamale. I grew the corn and vegetables. Raised the pig, killed and butchered. Built a smoker and smoked the pork. Ground and nixtamalized the corn. Made the salsa. Every bit of it came from my home!
  75. Used the nastiest bathroom on the planet – Karaköl, Kyrgyzstan.
  76. Ruptured appendix in a tuxedo on father’s wedding day.
  77. I have scuba dived in both the Seattle and New England aquariums! I even once went spearfishing in the Seattle aquarium!
  78. Worked as a Recreation Therapist in a Psych Ward.
  79. Rode 7,000 miles last year [on a bicycle]. 
  80. Flew on the Vomit Comet…twice. I was part of a NASA research program when I was an undergrad. Zero G is a really incredible feeling. Highly recommend if you ever have the opportunity!
  81. Drank beer out of the Stanley Cup.
  82. Went naked tandem bungy jumping and ended up on the Canadian news.
  83. During a UW rally I was running down to red square wearing an inflatable ballerina outfit playing the tuba while having the cops spotlight on me while running down the middle of the street.
  84. Got paid by the US Forest Service to climb tall trees (often swaying in a significant wind!) to collect cones!
  85. Participated in Motorcycle Wheelie School!
  86. I was in full blown labor and put on a helicopter to be transported to a different hospital. When we landed I had to have a full cervical exam right there on the helicopter launch pad of the hospital. Outside right on the roof.
  87. Performed as baby Jesus in the church play at 2 days old.
  88. Died for two minutes.
  89. Was expelled from the United States Croquet Association collegiate division (for being too good… seriously!).
  90. Been struck by lightning.
  91. Jumped out of an airplane solo on my first skydive.
  92. I lived around the block from Mick Jagger in London. Didn’t pick up any moves.
  93. Hung out back stage with REO Speedwagon and Styx 🙌
  94. Traveled to Senegal 🇸🇳 alone when I was 21 to make a documentary film about oral historians “Griots” and their place in the modernizing west African society.
  95. Had lunch with James Doohan (Scotty from StarTrek) … more than once.
  96. Went to State for the Nation Geographic Geography Bee! #yupimthatnerdy
  97. Worked horseback security at Domino’s Pizza World Headquarters near Ann Arbor, MI. Stetson hat and all. 🍕🐎
  98. I nearly drowned in elementary school and the story made it into a published book.
  99. Officiated a surprise wedding for my 2 wonderful friends, who I introduced 🙂
  100. My wife!