Unbelievable but true...

Life is stranger than fiction.

People who read certain passages in books and think "that could never happen," are usually wrong. When you read something in fiction that doesn't ring true, I'd venture to guess that ninety percent of the time it's because the author has dropped a ball or two in setting up the character so you'd believe HE or SHE would do or say that - because people, in real life, are capable of doing and saying just about anything.

So in honor of the odd, bizarre or just "hmm, that's interesting" I call this little blog segment unbelievable but true things that have happened to me.

I had breakfast with Flavor Flav.

I was a sorority chick in college. And no, there are very few suburban cliches that don't describe my upbringing - so there. One of my sorors had a cousin in Public Enemy who was the complete and utter shit, at that time.

She managed to hook the campus up with a Public Enemy performance. Now this was nothing short of manna falling from the sky because I went to mid-sized vanilla college in the boons of the Shenandoah Valley. Getting a Hip Hop group to perform there, much less one of the most popular and radical, was a feat this side of amazing.

Because of my connections, my friends and I were invited to the "green" room after the show.

#1 Groupies are real! There was so much jock riding that night, I immediately understood why guys in bands get so much tail.

#2 Some people try too hard to make conversation with "famous" people. I'm standing in a small circle of folks talking to Chuck D (and if you're too young to know PE outside of Flavor Flav, get up to speed here). This one chick gushes, "I really liked what you said about staying in school. That's such a powerful message."

And Chuck D looks at her with the straightest face and says, "I didn't say stay in school, I said get out that mother fucker and do something to make the world a better place."

Her face fell a little, but Chuck wasn't trying to embarrass her, he was merely clarifying. So the conversation went on without a missed beat.

#3 You need only be minorly connected to the band to get groupie love. Everybody from the dude who touched a spotlight down to the body guards were lining up their hook ups in the green room.

Anyway, after the deep, stay in/get the hell out of school topic was over, Flavor Flav interrupted and inquired about local eating places. I think his exact words were, Where does somebody get something to eat up in this mother fucker? Or something to that effect.

Oh #4, rappers tend to curse quite a bit. ::shrug::

Harrisonburg is a sleepy town, literally. At that time, everything except the Hardees and Waffle House closed by 9 p.m. So Waffle House it was.

I don't remember much about the dinner table conversation, that night. There's nothing especially profound or gossipy to share. We were just six hungry people crowded into the overrun Waffle House.

What I remember is that Flav was a really down-to-earth kind of guy. If stardom fed his ego, I couldn't tell from that one night. And years later when I saw him on Surreal Life tenderly helping Brigette Nelson when she got sick (or was she drunk? I don't recall) it rang true.

Although he became more and more outrageous on Flavor of Love, outrageous is as outrageous does. These shows want you to be caricatures and archetypes, so hey, he was getting his Reality TV on and I'm not mad.

I know a lot of people have looked at Flav and questioned how he ended up getting a dating show. But ya' know, first impressions are lasting ones. And he struck me as a nice, genuine guy with a crazy side. I've met more handsome guys who were also total douches. So, it balances in the end.

I used to have a photo of us that night but I gave it to my uncle who, at the time, was a huge PE fan. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm terrible at keeping mementos and such anyway.

But that was one of my celeb encounters. Breakfast with Flav. Yeah boyeee!