I'm not crazy about memes because they can be so deadly dull, but the "Six (or Seven or Eight) Odd/Strange/Unusual Things About Me" meme is usually more entertaining than most.
Nobody tagged me or nuthin', but I made a list anyway. You'll notice I was a bit of a wild child in my youth, but I swear I've been a fine, upstanding citizen for the past twenty years or so. For the most part.
1. I was once bitten in a bar fight. And it wasn't even my fight!
When I was 22, a date took me to a small-town knife-and-gun bar, where he promptly got into a fight with an old nemesis; the fight was broken up and then a cat (Don't ask; I never figured it out myself.) walked across the floor and my date picked it up and threw it at the other guy and the fight was on again. I was standing against the bar when the two rolled across the floor and crashed into me; the next thing I knew the other guy had his teeth buried in the tender flesh of my inner left wrist and I frantically pounded on his head until he let go. Then the cops came and sent everyone home.
Needless to say, it was my last date with that guy.
I never went to the doctor; I had no insurance and couldn't afford to. Luckily, the wound didn't get infected, but a long ridge of skin had been pinched up and never flattened out; it eventually turned black and fell off.
Wanna see the scar?
When my kids asked about it, I told them a dog had bitten me. Which was true enough, I suppose.
2. I was later involved several bar fights that were mine.
3. The statute of limitations has run out on this one, so I guess it's safe to tell:
About 20 years ago, I owned a 1970 3/4-ton Chevy truck that had a three-speed on the column and no power steering. It was a big, clunky fucker to drive and I was built like Nicole Ritchie back then, but my 1980 Buick Regal had died a painful death and I was able to buy this truck dirt cheap.
Anyway, I drove my friend Donna to town in it (probably to buy some weed, I don't remember) and, when we got there, I pulled over on the wrong side of the street to park against the curb. And my brakes went out. And I crashed into the front end of a car parked on the correct side of the street.
Those of you who knew Donna probably remember that loud braying jackass laugh, right? Well, she kept doing that. While repeatedly demonstrating how funny my "skinny ol' spaghetti leg" looked when my foot was flailing away at the useless brake pedal.
I had a hard time finding humor in the situation right then, myself.
So we got out of the truck to look at the damage and to face whoever come running, because surely someone had heard the crash. We couldn't see any actual houses because there were tall hedges in front of them, and we didn't know which one the car belonged to anyway, so we spent about five minutes milling around on the sidewalk, wondering what to do and making false starts toward one house or another (we may have smoked a little weed already, I don't remember). And Donna was still laughing her ass off.
But nobody ever showed up, so we finally climbed back into the truck and split.
4. I'm not a social person at all. I tried to be when I was younger, because I thought being social was normal and I desperately wanted to be normal.
Eventually, I got over that.
I haven't managed to stay in touch with anyone from my childhood, from school, from work, from anywhere. The only people I have regular contact with are related to me either by blood or by marriage. And I'm cool with that, because I enjoy solitude and I'm very selfish with my time.
5. I went to nursing school when the kids were babies, but a miscarriage and a divorce led to my dropping out just before finishing the first year. But not before I got to witness an autopsy!
A man being treated for congestive heart failure died at the VA hospital in Muskogee. Two hours later, he was on the autopsy table in the hospital basement, where I watched his chest and abdominal cavity being dissected.
The sight of it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, since they kept his face and genitals covered and it kind of de-personalized him. But the smell! Like fresh meat. Ugh.
Anyway, it turned out the guy didn't have congestive heart failure after all. His heart was fine, but his kidneys were covered in huge abcesses.
During another clinical rotation, I took care of a man in the last stages of cirrhosis who'd had a penectomy some years earlier. Which I didn't find out until I went to give him a sponge bath, so it was a bit of a shock.
6. The first concert I ever went to was in 1983, featuring David Allan Coe at the Sand Springs rodeo grounds. The event was advertised as having family-style seating, bring your lawn chairs and ice chests, etc, so I decided it would be all right to take the kids, who were both pre-schoolers at the time.
I got there and spread out a quilt for the kids to play on and then, while I kicked back and waited for the concert to start, I started looking around the rest of the audience. And grew increasingly nervous. Because every other person in the rodeo arena was a biker. Or a biker chick. It was a virtual sea of black leather.
This was not my usual crowd. Not at all. And there I was with my two little babies. I may have even been wearing a polo shirt. In the middle of Big Bad Bikerdom. Yikes! Would we make it out alive?
Well, as it turned out, the bikers couldn't have been more friendly. My cute little kids were a real ice-breaker and we all wound up having a great time.
7. I used to have a big ugly brown mole in the middle of my chest and I totally hated it, but I couldn't afford to go to a doctor and have it removed.
So, when I was 21 and stupid, I took care of it myself -- using ice cubes, a sharp knife, a pair of scissors, lots of cotton balls and a fifth of Canadian Mist.
The procedure was a complete success, but I'll leave the details to your imagination.
Well, that's all I can think of. That I'm willing to admit to, anyway.
(***wink***)
I'm not tagging anybody since nobody tagged me but, Sherri, if you ever do this you have to tell the "hole in the flannel shirt" story. And if my brother had a blog, I'd make him tell about accidentally shooting that chick with a blow-dart. That was about the funniest shit I ever heard.
1 comment:
I'm NEVER going to live that down, am I? Chris brings that up occasionally, and I still can't believe you told him about it!
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