Six Weird Things? About Me? Thanks for Asking!

I once did a Thursday Thirteen called “Things You’d Never Guess Just by Looking at Me.” I put most of the good stuff in that list, like the time I baked some laxatives into a batch of cookies and the time the homeless dude picked my nose in a bar. But per a recent tagging by Sweatpantsmom, I am again compelled to dive into my bag of embarrassing, odd, and trivial personal factoids. I’ve found that this blog post goes well with a nice, cold Newcastle. Or, if you’re at work, you could just slam your fingers in a desk drawer to make this entry a bit less painful by comparison. Enjoy!

1) Coordination. I am just coordinated enough to lift a fork to my lips and walk in a straight line. On occasion, I can corral my legs into a shuffling jog. Especially when the ice cream truck is leaving the neighborhood. I can’t hit a volleyball without cracking a nail or spraining a pinky, nor can I catch most objects thrown in my direction: a log of string cheese, car keys, a softball, a kitten. Other activities I can not do: run on a balance beam, touch my toes, hover for an extended period of time above a public toilet, or swim without leading a lifeguard to think I’m drowning.

2) Mothering. Abandoned baby animals I have tried to rescue and/or raise: four litters of kittens, three wild raccoons that I bottle-fed (and that thanked me with projectile yellow diarrhea), and a tiny, pink, hairless mouse I found on a bale of hay in our neighbor’s barn when I was seven. I tried stuffing a slice of cheddar cheese in its mouth, but seeing as how it didn’t have teeth and may have already been dead, that was a fairly futile effort. I think a cat scarfed it down about five minutes later. You know, in retrospect, I believe it may have been a rat. Because that sucker was way too big to be a newborn mouse.

3) Compulsions. What meme is complete without an embarrassing OCD-related disclosure? Here’s mine! I am always mentally counting inanimate objects and trying to find spatial order among them. Telephone poles, edges of a bookcase, cupboard handles, that kind of thing. I blame a long high school stint working at KB Toys, where I was actually responsible for straightening products on shelves so everything neatly faced out and was easily accessible to the customers. At KB, the CW wasn’t, “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” It was, “Get your ass off the counter and go straighten the doll aisle.”

Ah, KB Toys. I still remember the crazy regulars: the young woman with a mustache who wanted to be one of the Power Rangers and silently purchased her PR-themed toys with hot, dirty pocket change … the robust red-haired man who walked the mall smoking a cigar and conducting an invisible and inaudible orchestra (this was before smoking was disallowed in the mall) … and who could forget the dead ringer for Sloth from The Goonies who came in about once a month and only bought Barbie dolls.

4) That damn can of Skoal. I recently lost a blog contest to a can of Skoal, which I’ll be blogging about later.

5) Cinematic memories. First movie I ever saw in a theater: Pete’s Dragon. First movies I saw at a drive-in theater: a double feature of Young Frankenstein and The Rose. First movie I saw on VHS: Sixteen Candles. First movie I saw on DVD: Night of the Living Dead. Brain power devoted to remembering mathematical equations I learned in high school, names of people I just met, or what I walked into a particular room to fetch: 0.0047%

6) Speak out. As an adolescent, I was so terrified of public speaking or making phone calls that I had to actually write a script for myself before I ever called to schedule a hair cut, order Chinese take-out, or find out if anyone had found my retainer on the floor at Rocky Rococo’s. Today, I’ve discovered that public speaking is a wonderful antidote to constipation. This is the "Speak 'n' Poop" remedy, and if I ever think of a way to bottle it, I'll make a fortune.

And there you have it. Just a few more tidbits from my pantheon of pathos. Also known as: "Disclosures that may lead my husband to wear a bag on his head when seen with me in public from now on."