I was tagged by Ingenious Rose to tell you eight random things about myself. At first I was going to politely decline because it didn’t seem like the kind of thing I do here (whatever that is), but then I remembered I had once started an essay about things you don’t know about me, only it morphed into my confession about my lip balm addiction and so I decided what the heck, who can I embarrass but myself? And so I pulled out my list of random facts about me, cut it all into little strips of paper, placed them all into wire bingo ball cage from my old bingo game, and gave it crank.
I pulled out eight slips of paper and then realized we had a slight problem. They weren’t numbered one through eight at all. They had numbers like 54 and 27 and 17 and 3. So after giving it some thought, I decided to simply renumber them, rather like the Pennsylvania road exits. Because I recently visited Philadelphia, and noticed as we were driving there, that each exit had a number and then another old number, like so: Exit 7 (old Exit 12). So now each random thing about me has two numbers. One old and one new. I’ll put the new number 1st and the old number in parentheses and hope you don’t get lost trying to follow along.
1 (17) I have beautiful white teeth. I’d like to tell you it’s because of how my mother used to make my brother and I brush our teeth with Ajax powder right before we went to visit the dentist when we were young, but I don’t think that’s it. Even though the dentist remarked to my mother how nice and clean our teeth were, I think he suspected the truth. Certainly the hygienist wrote something about all the grit she was flossing out of our teeth before he looked into our mouths? And he must have seen the scour lines, don’t you think? At any rate, I’ve never had a cavity, not one. And now that I’m adult, I bleach my teeth the proper way, with bleaching solution I buy from my dentist. It’s not gritty at all.
2 (54) I was in my mid-twenties before I realized that Mr. Rogers was the voice of all the characters who inhabited the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. I have to say I count it as one of the biggest shocks and disappointments of my life.
3 (3) My cell phone plays Flight of the Valkyrie when my husband calls me. I programmed it that way because that is the Star Wars theme song, only my husband claims it’s not. Even if he is right, which I suspect he is, don’t tell me. I like to be the one who’s right.
4 (27) I have stolen two things in my life. One was a bookmark from a classmate when I was in the 3rd grade and in Catholic School, and the other was a rubber grape from a fake fruit display in a grocery store. In my defense, I needed the bookmark because it was very cool, a painting of a dog on velum of some sort, and I needed the grape because I’d lost the rubber ball on my squirt ring and the grape was the perfect size to replace it. I suspect I might be sent to Hell for these offenses.
5 (32) When I was a Junior in high school I traveled to Europe where I spent two weeks seeing the sites of Italy and Greece. And by sites I also mean sights and the cute boys there. And I kissed one! Outside, on an Italian street! And my friends photographed this! And when I came home, I went to pick up my photos with my boyfriend. Only the girl who worked at the photo store had been on the trip with me and wanted to see my photos. So we looked at them, my traveling companion, my boyfriend and I, and then we came upon the kissing photo…
6 (71) I have these tenuous connections to famous people: I attended middle school with Patrick Swayze’s cousin (or so she claimed); I once worked with Courtney Thorne-Smith’s sister-in-law; and I swiped a Coke can that Paul Newman was drinking out of at a car race in West Virginia, took it to school, and made a Coke can lamp out of it in shop class.
7 (11) As a child, I misunderstood the words to the Hail Mary prayer and forever wondered WHY they would put a curse word at the very start of a prayer. I was in my late teens before I saw a written text of the prayer and everything made a lot more sense. And if you’re not getting this one, the curse word is the place I’m going to in number 4 (27) above.
8 (69) I cannot whistle. And that’s a crying shame because I have really big boobs. I would whistle at myself in the mirror all the time if only I could.
Running With Books 