Could you lie to this woman?

“Allie, when you get off drugs and come down offa your high, you can call me back and talk sensibly to me. Until then, I don’t want to hear from you!” And on that note, my mother slammed down the phone. Wow! I didn’t expect that. All I was doing was calling her to tell her that I was about to board a plane for Chicago to be on the Jenny Jones Show. Now when I say I was going to be “on” the Jenny Jones Show, I mean just that. None of this “I’m-gonna-sit-in-the-audience-and-be-on-t.v.” nonsense. That’s not my style. When I go, I go big.

It started as a prank. I love practical jokes more than anything else. It was a warm day in April 1993 and I was watching television with my roommate, Sara. While flipping through the channels I stopped just in time to hear the announcer say, “If you’re two friends fighting over the same man, give us a call. You could be a guest on our show.” Before I actually thought about what I was doing, I had the phone in my hand dialing the 800 number. I knew that I’d only be able to leave a brief message on the show’s voicemail, but it was worth a shot.

“Thanks for calling the Jenny Jones Show. What’s your story?” the female voice chirped. It wasn’t a recording. Adrenaline kicked in and I started rambling about how my roommate had been dating this guy and I’d stop at nothing to have him. I had seen enough of Basic Instinct, Single White Female, and Fatal Attraction to concoct an amazing story. “Well, I’ll pass this along to the producers and we might call you back if they’re interested.” I walked back into the common area, a little dejected. “I tried,” I told Sara. She went to work and I headed out to class.

An hour and a half later I got back to the apartment and I checked my voicemail. “Hi Allie, this is Julia from the Jenny Jones Show. Could you please call me back collect?” OMG! OMG! OMG! I frantically dialed the number and when she answered I could hardly contain my giddiness. I related the entire story to her and she told me that she needed to talk with Sara to verify our story. I gave her Sara’s work number and called her as soon as I hung up with Julia so I could give her a heads up. Luckily, she had been in the room when I was making up the story earlier in the day, so she knew the basic idea of what was going on.

After a few minutes, my phone rang again and it was Julia. “Hey, I need the name and phone number of the guy involved.” Shit! I hadn’t thought that far in advance. I didn’t know any guy who would go along with this story except my boyfriend, Ari. I blurted out his name and number, hung up the phone, and ran over to his apartment. He lived only a building or two away from me so I made it just in time to spew the same story to him before the phone rang. “Make me sound like a bitch,” I hissed. He went along with the story and hung up. “She said she’d be in touch,” he told me. My hopes of going nationwide were being dashed until later that evening. My phone rang and Julia informed me, “Okay, your story is great. We want you on the show. What’s the closest airport to you?” I told her and she added one more tiny detail: ALL of us involved had to go.

“But we need all three of you,” Julia told me. Ari had zero interest in going on the show. “I know how they tear guys up on that show. No way!” I begged, pleaded, offered sexual favors (not really), but he resisted. When Julia called him back, he told her the same story. For ten minutes they went back and forth: him trying to NOT be on the show and her trying to get him on there. Then I started hearing him talking numbers with her. WTF?! “Nah, I’m not doin’ that for $200. No way.” Back and forth again and the numbers kept getting higher. Finally he said, “600 dollars?! I’ll do it.” She agreed to pay him, but he was told not to tell either of us about the money (we were getting a free trip to Chi Town, that was good enough for us; plus we didn’t even think that getting paid was an option.

“I’m in,” Ari said after he hung up the phone. “We’re leaving tomorrow evening at 5:30.”

Next Time: Winging it in the Windy City