Six Weird Things About Me

I've been tagged for the Six Weird Things meme, by Trudi and Katie.

At first I thought, "Wow, this will be easy! There are scads of weird things about me I can chose from - the hard part will be keeping the list to only six!"

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that, while there are myriads of weird things about me, none of them are particularly interesting or noteworthy. But since I hate to let my friends down, I will subject you to my list of Six Weird and Boring Things about Me.

In no particular order:

1. I have freakishly long toes. My friend Jay-Michael used to call me Monkey Toes. Actually, I have four very long toes on each foot, and a tiny stub of a little toe. I think my body ran out of toe material by the time it was forming the fifth toe on each side. I have threatened to trim up those toes so I could fit into nice, stylish smaller-sized shoes. I haven’t followed through on the threat yet.

2. The only type of eggs I can eat are scrambled, non-wet eggs. I hate to even look at fried or sunny-side-up eggs – they make me gag. The only use I’ve ever had for hard-boiled eggs is to throw at the city buses as they passed by when I was a juvenile delinquent.

3. I caught the winning redfish in a fishing tournament a few years ago. Not the women’s division or anything – the real top prize. My husband caught the prize flounder, and our buddy Ken got the speckled trout trophy. Of course, the weather was so crappy that we were the only 3 idiots who fished and caught anything. Those were the only 3 fish caught, so they won the prize. I have not fished in quite a few years.

4. I was the Philadelphia County Spelling Bee Champion in 1975 (eighth grade). Considering how big Philadelphia is, I guess it was quite an accomplishment. I lost at the tri-state regional bee. The word was “corrosive.” I got ahead of myself and said “C-R-O” and tried to correct myself. No do-overs in spelling bees. I have a Webster’s dictionary to show for my efforts.

5. One of my former jobs was Local News Editor for a small suburban Houston newspaper. My duties involved reporting, editing, page layout, headline writing, photography and anything else that came up. I covered city council meetings, symphony league luncheons, car crashes, school and church news, and a triathlon. I was assigned to take pictures of Air Force One landing at Ellington Field when Ronald Reagan flew in for the memorial ceremony for the Challenger astronauts. As the plane landed, I kept praying that it didn’t crash right in front of me because I didn’t want to have to cover another tragedy. At the time, I had no idea I'd be working in the space program and would work on the Columbia accident investigation many years later. As a result of that editorial job, I have also experienced a video tour of the sewers of Seabrook, Texas. Fortunately, we didn’t tour in person.

6. I cannot hear bagpipes without laughing hysterically. It has something to do with my Dad’s bad joke about a Scotsman inventing the instrument by, um, sticking a pipe up a sheep’s butt and squeezing. It’s a horrible visual, and terribly disconcerting when the bagpipes are being played at a funeral or memorial service. Personally, I don’t understand why anyone plays the bagpipes, ever, but especially at a memorial service. At my memorial service, I want people to play the kazoo.