White towels, swishing snakes, and canned goods all in a pretty little row

Me a meme?

I can do this. I don't think I have before, but I can be fun-loving and carefree in my blog. Sure. I'm a dynamite girl for a good time.

Kim at After the Ball tagged me to list six weird things about me. The easy thing is thinking of at least six. The hard thing is thinking of only six.

I decided to add my personal favorites, and ask my dearly and beloveds to tell me their favorites.

1. I only use white towels, personally. (submitted by: me)

Seriously, my face towel, bath towel, hair towel, and washcloths are all white. I have occasionally deviated to winter white and off-white, but that's as far as I go.

We do have many other colored towels in the house that everyone else uses.

And, in potentially TMI, this same rule extends to my lingerie, but only during the week. On the weekend, it is all's fair, including magenta items with sayings printed on them. Perhaps I believe the clothes make the woman. And perhaps I believe I need a lot of help hanging onto the "in control grown-up mom-type person" image. My husband and I did spend a lot of years as The Center of Our Known Universe, after all.

The towel and undie thing is post-kids to the best of our recollection. Further evidence of the "having children destroys brain cells, vital ones" theory I hold.

My sister has actually tested this theory by taking IQ tests before and after each child. She postulates that one loses at least two IQ points per child.

The good news is once they have their own children, you regain these points, states my mother. The better news is this means I am currently smarter than my sister, which goes in the "reasons not to have any more children" column.

2. The canned goods are perfectly aligned in a straight row, organized by type of product, in my pantry. Further, I unload anything in a box (cereal, crackers, etc.) and put it in a storage cannister, also aligned. (submitted by: me and my husband)

I am not making this up, and ought to post a photo as evidence, but err, ehhh, this one is close enough.

My husband says another part of this same disease includes my horror at any uneven surface, especially lumps in the bed.

3. My hair, apparently, resembles swishing snakes. (submitted by: Patience)

I prefer irregularly wavy, personally, as a descriptor, or straight, sleek and shiny challenged, but, okay, snakes, waving snakes. Well. Let's just say my hair and I have come to an agreement: it's in control.

4. I become unhinged when newscasters mess up their prepositions (it's information about, people!!!), and am driven nutso by confusion between effect and affect (and overuse of the word impact) as well as imply and infer. (submitted by: me)

Really, I ought to quit reading things like Strunk and White, Eats Shoots and Leaves, and Lapsing into a Comma for fun.

Also, I give myself tremendous latitude for typos (because I can't type for my life) and errors. So I'm a hypocrite.

5. I have an uncanny knowledge of cliches and sayings, many of which I tend to sing. (submitted by: my husband, and yes, uncanny is his exact word)

Please refer to my last entry wherein I admit my husband arrived on Earth from another planet. Surely everyone has heard "tongue hinged in the middle flapping at both ends" and "Lord willing and the creek don't rise" among others.

I also enjoy twisting these to suit myself ("If you can't join 'em, beat 'em.") and making up my own that sound like cliches.

In other weird news, I sing a lot, at home, to myself, the food, the kids, the pets, the furniture, anything. It is often a reflex to prevent "potty mouth" when aimed at inanimate objects, or a way to disguise my anger. Most often, though, it is intended humorously, to story tell about daily events. I use silly children's song tunes, usually.

(sung to "Do your ears hang low?")
Does your diaper hang low?
Does it waddle when you walk?
Does it squish between your knees when you squatty squat?
Does your diaper hang low?

6. My children have a bizarre affinity for mooning us while saying, "Here's my hiney! My bum bum!"

While I confess this isn't about me, in the end, it is, isn't it? After all, the apples can't fall far from the tree.

Also---and here's how it is a family thing---the hardest I laughed all year in 2006 was when my niece's talent was air writing the alphabet with her hiney, complete with poot to dot the i. I know, I am so proud, both of her comedic and bum-writing talents and my maturity for what I find hilarious.

BONUS: I can't stand the feel of chalk, or the sound it makes on any surface, and my neck hairs stand on end and I get the shaky skeeves if I make incidental contact. This is why I never have bought my children sidewalk chalk and grimace mightily when others buy it for them. It's also why my most consistent "pick it up yourself" rule is for sidewalk chalk, except when it is about to rain, in which case I leave it be, and wait for it to melt away.

As for Kim, my Made Meme Chick, I agree with your numbers:

2. I'm afraid of clowns. (I add balloons.)
4. I worry/fear/think that stuffed animals might not be quite so inanimate and that I may be hurting their feelings and or incurring future wrath by stuffing them into bags to put up into the attic.
5. ...I'm still waiting for my magic powers to be bestowed upon me. (In my case, I am still waiting for the Scout for the Big and Cool to spot me. I have been known to posture under certain circumstances.)
6. I never let an arm or leg dangle off of the bed because THERE ARE MONSTERS UNDER THE BED!!!!! (This is due to that stupid girl scout camp fire scary story about the killer who killed the dog and the lady dropped her hand off the bed and thought the dog licked it but it was really the killer...good grief.)

If I link to you, consider yourself tagged. If you read this, consider yourself tagged. Feel free to memeize in my comments (oh PLEASE DO!) or in your own blog. If you memeize, please do comment or link me so I can see. It's nice to see all the weirdness out there.

If I must name names, specifically:
OmegaMom
Borneochica
Jen
Valley Girl
Fortune and Glory
Bones

copyright 2007 Julie Pippert.

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