I got tagged for a meme from Sten, which makes me feel far more important than I really am.

Here’s how it’s done:

a. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

b. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.

Wow, see now I always thought that my blog is sort of a shrine to my eccentricites, but hey, if the shoe fits, as they say.

1. I have an anti-foot fetish. You know those people that get their rocks off by looking at and/or touching feet? I know that I do, because I came across a library book wherein someone had painstakingly cut out all of the pictures of feet. Creepy? YES (and no, it wasn’t me who did this. I have neither the time nor the patience, and if I were to do this, I’d probably throw up all over the pictures)

Anyway, so I completely HATE having anyone touch my feet and ankles. I don’t even like to look at them. I have no real reason for this, no skeletons in my closet, but I have placed two very lovely tattoos on them (one large one per foot) to distract from their general ugliness.

Ben seems to have inherited my hideous feet, Dave’s feet remind me that we all do, indeed, come from monkeys, as his feet appear to be the esteemed Missing Link (I frequently refer to them as “Carney Feet,” and ask him if he is able to swim better with the flippers already attached. I know, I know, I’m a real TREAT to be married to), and Alex’s feet resemble Marshmallow Peeps.

It appears as though the problem is, as per usual, with me.

2. I desperately need to start a compost pile in my backyard, but am completely unsure how to do so. I am, however, getting tired of Ben yelling “Garbage POLLUTES the Earth” at the garbage can in our kitchen. My main fear about the whole thing is that it will attract even more wild animals into our yard (the very real fear is that I will then decide to let them into the house to keep as pets. “But DAVE, LOOKIT HOW CUTE STINKY THE SKUNK IS? WHY WOULD I PUT HER BACK? SHE CAN SLEEP IN BED WITH US!”), as well as a minor fear that our neighbors may bomb my house if the smell is too noxious.

3. I am 100% addicted to Diet Coke, especially what I call “Fatty Ones” (which means the Super Double Biggest Super Size at any given place. Well I am aware that it does bear a striking resemblence in both texture and taste to battery acid, and is likely turning my insides into mush, I am in love with it. Let’s put it this way: if my husband were inside of a burning building, and I had to make a deal with God to save him ONLY if I gave up my daily (hourly) Diet Coke, I’d have to think about it. (Dave is also horrified that Alex also finds it’s delicately charming flavor to be most amazing. Yes, I have given my baby Diet Coke. You can call DCFS now, I’m sure they’ll have my file handy).

4. When we BBQ, which is fairly often during the summer months (Dave’s first thought when he realized that we were going to buy a house was NOT “Hey, I don’t have to park 547 blocks from my car” but was “I can get a grill!”), I insist that my hot dogs be charred. Blackened. Burned. While I find hot dogs to be a true delicacy, I cannot eat them if they do not resemble charcoal briquettes. Hell, if you gave a piece of charcoal to me smothered in ketchup (I am a bad, bad Chicago-ian), I can’t be sure if I could detect the difference. Again, I’m sure that my insides are probably riddled with The Cancer, but hey, you have to live a little.

5. I am likely the least romantic person you’ll ever meet. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that I fought long and hard to elope to Vegas and get married by Elvis, nor was I kidding when I said that I argued to have our first dance be the YMCA. I genuinely wanted to dance myself down the aisle to “Jungle Boogie” or “That’s The Way, Uh-Huh, I Like It.” But Dave (who I referred to during the wedding planning as “My Wife”) would have none of that.

Because of this, Dave proposed to me at Tiffany & Co, rather than take me to some elaborate set-up dinner or something. I think he was afraid that I’d laugh (which I have a nasty habit of doing when I am uncomfortable. I have to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing during funerals WHICH I DO NOT REALLY FIND FUNNY AT ALL.) or start mocking him if he didn’t just do it then and there. The floor could have swallowed me whole, then and there, but we made the day of some college chicks who were oogling the rings.

6. I cannot sleep when it is overly hot in my bedroom OR without some white noise. Well, nowadays I have many more issues relating to my sleep problems, but unless it’s arctic in my room AND it sounds like a wind tunnel, I can’t sleep worth a damn. I’ve been known to turn on the A/C in the winter and/or open up a window to the frigid outdoors JUST TO COOL DOWN.

7. Despite being both a health care provider AND a mother, I refuse to buy into the whole antibacterial craze. I do use Lysol on the occasion that someone has spewed bodily fluid somewhere other than into the toliet bowl, and I wipe down the counters on a semi-regular basis with bleach, BUT THAT IS BECAUSE I LOVE THE WAY BLEACH SMELLS. I AM A DAMN FREAK.

I’ll put my kid in the grimy grocery cart holders, sure, I don’t hand him an open package of bleeding meat to gnaw on, but seriously the kid has to develop an immune system AT SOME POINT. Of course I wash my hands after I use the bathroom, use proper protection when handling raw meat, and shower frequently enough (most weeks), but I don’t need to use Purell every time I walk into a room.

I don’t run a daycare (nor would I. Can you imagine that? Hahaha, I can’t.) in my home, nor do I perform patient care on MRSA or VRE infected patients from my living room. So you know what? I’M NOT NERVOUS ABOUT WHAT THEY GETS INTO.

*8* Bonus!!! (because I am a certified idiot, I posted this on the wrong damn day, so you, Darling Internet, are reaping the benefits of my error. A BONUS weird fact about me.) When I was younger, I worked as a hostess in a nice classy restaurant. One day, I glanced at the table I had been instructed to take back to their section, and upon seeing a couple of smaller people, I assumed that they were children. So I politely asked if they would like kids menus.

BUT THEY WEREN’T KIDS, THEY WERE MIDGETS! I INADVERTANTLY ASKED MIDGETS IF THEY WOULD LIKE TO COLOR ON KIDS MENUS!

Oopsies. My bad.

Just like the time I asked the guy with the bad toupee if he’d like to leave his hat up front. AND I WASN’T TRYING TO BE FUNNY AT ALL.

That was ALSO my bad.

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I totally had to cut myself off at 8 weird things there, because I am enough of a freak THAT I COULD KEEP GOING FOREVER (I can’t spell indefinitely).

The rules of this meme inform me that I must tag people to do it, but I’m not sure that there is anyone in the free world who has NOT done it yet. So I am tagging EACH OF YOU to delurk (I promise, I won’t bite.) and tell me ONE weird thing about yourself. Or make fun of me BECAUSE I AM A DAMN FREAK. Whatever. I’m not picky. Just looking for a distraction until my doctor calls me and informs me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my hormones, just my head.

Come on, help Poor Nervous Aunt Becky out.

Today I severed all ties with my maiden name. No longer am I Aunt Becky Sherrick, now I am officially Aunt Becky Sherrick Harks on all of my proper identification, even the one I had been holding out on because I totally didn’t wanna deal with it.

Oh yes, that’s right, I’m referring to the DMV.

My own circle of hell.

When I die, and I’m brought down to hell and I’m stuck listening to the Sandford and Son theme song over and fucking over again, my hell will look like the DMV. I will be stuck sandwiched in between the dirges of humanity in lines that go nowhere.

A gigantically fat woman in front of me, smelling her hands over and over after scratching her ass admiringly for a good ten minutes. A yokel with a dent in his forehead so large I could probably serve soup from it behind me, mouth breathing and occasionally coughing, his moist breath hitting the back of my neck and making me wish that I had been a better person.

This will be my hell.

Every line I reach the end of, I will just have to get into another line, where I’m yelled at and belittled by someone whose IQ is that of my cat’s and then I will take endless pictures, all of which I will look horrible and awful and nothing like myself. And when asked about my weight, they will scoff at me, rolling their beady rat-like eyes. I cannot POSSIBLY weigh 135 pounds, they will laugh.

Then I will shuffle off to a hard plastic chair where small children will throw things at my head. For eternity.

This. Is. Hell.

So it was with great trepidation that I approached the hallowed halls of the DMV to take the written test again AND to beg them for another horrible, awful picture. The last one that I have of me not only is my hair a different color, but I look like a man. No, really, I do. The picture was so bad that whenever anyone was having a bad day, they’d whip out the ID just for a laugh.

Har-dee-har-freaking-HAR.

The good news was, I managed to pass the written test and I got a new picture and I even changed my name all without anyone punching me in the neck, insulting my mother, kicking me, threatening me, or suing me.

It was a personal best.

I now am very, very, very afraid for what karma has in store for me.

Last night was Parent Night at Ben’s new school. I sat there nervously next to The Daver on the hard pew and looked around into the sea of hippies all 10-15 years older than us, dressed in various shades of browns and greens nodding attentively. I was dressed in an electric red sweatshirt while Dave was wearing a bright purple shirt with blue jeans. The gasp of “there goes the neighborhood” when we walked in was palpable.

It’s not just that we were younger or that we were wearing designer clothes that weren’t from sustainable farms or that we didn’t listen to NPR or eat all organic foods, it’s just that we were different. They knew it, we knew it, and there was never going to be anything we could do about it.

I sat there, trying to pay attention as my ass cheeks feel asleep and noticed that I was the only parent in the room who spent the meeting figuring out how I was going to convince Dave that $450 pants were an investment.

Even Dave looked more enraptured by the speakers than I did. He wasn’t fidgeting, re-reading the handouts for what could be missed gossip about Britney Spears, or trying to count the hairs on HIS legs like I was.

It’s not that I don’t care about my 4 year old. I care very much about his preschool. I care what he eats and when he sleeps and if he potty trains on time and that he’s well adjusted and that he’s getting enough calcium and if he gets to play enough and most of all, if he’s happy. I care a lot about that.

But I can’t live my life for him.

And as we chose “groups” to join after the meeting was done, I introduced myself to the ethnic/cultural group that I had to join (joining a group, I learned, was mandatory) I plastered a smile on my face and was as polite and friendly as I could be as the circle of parents formed around me.

Pretty soon I was standing outside the circle, edged out by all of the unwashed, unshaved hippie women who, were living their lives for their children. So there I stood, on the outside of the circle, unwanted. I saw that, sighed and I walked away.

One of these things is not like the motherfucking other. Thank Jesus.

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Several months after that, we pulled Ben out of that horrible school and then we moved out of that town. Our interactions with other parents and staff at the school never improved and it was very, very clear that there was never going to be anything that we could do to fit in.

Thank God.

With friends like that, you wouldn’t need enemies.

Like the 25-year old adult that I have freakishly become, I celebrated college graduation AND passing of the Nursing Boards by committing to a surprisingly adult job. I know. I KNOW.

I must admit that my job hunting, unlike my English Major cohorts, I have been blessed to enter into my chosen (for the VERY short-term) a field that is interested in 3 main criteria:

1. A CPR/ACLS card
2. A License
3. A Warm Body

It’s nice in one sense, as I have my pick of positions at any number of hospitals, kick-ass benefits, and shifts. It is, however, decidedly unflattering, in the way that you don’t actually get picked on merit or awards, more on pulse and respirations. If you’re a warm-ish body, you’re pretty much hired.

This has been one of two weeks of orientation that I have had to undergo and I’m stuck in a room with 40 people who are so toothfully chipper and GO NURSING that it almost makes me ashamed and embarrassed. Not one of them knows that I’m really not looking forward to getting onto the floor and wiping asses and taking shit from people. They’ve all been waiting years for this day and I would rather be applying latex paint to a house with my tongue.

I’m trying to be optimistic about the next week as it will be one of the only times that we get a free lunch and more or less free reign over what we do. I do not scoff at free lunches. The size of my ass should tell you that.

So, for eight hours every day I am forced to sit through lecture upon lecture from EVERY department in the hospital because they’re still dating us right now and trying to woo us and make us take off our panties so that we can go all the way with them. I don’t mind being wooed. I do mind that we’re about to be butt-raped, but that’s neither here nor there.

Of the more interesting things that I’ve learned is this: If you’re at work and you accidentally run into your co-worker who is carrying a sheet of glass and you cut yourself, and he picks up the pieces of broken glass covered in your blood, he SHOULD NOT stick the bloody glass in his eyes.

I am very glad that they cleared that up for me because I had spent most of the week before that wondering about that exact same scenario. It’s like the hospital is psychic or something.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off too find some glass to break before I have to listen to a scintillating lecture about what Laundry Services does. It’s certain to be a nail biter.