Thursday, October 13, 2005

100 Things Wrong With Me (Part 3)

In case you missed Parts 1 and 2 of this series, a short recap:

Half the folks in Blogland have a 100 Things list, in which they detail 100 miscellaneous facts about themselves, usually along the lines of "My favorite color is blue," and "I'm half Irish, half Dutch." I thought about doing this, but the boring details of my psyche began to put even me to sleep. Therefore, I give you my list of 100 Things Wrong With Me. I've chopped it up into nice, bite-size pieces, lest I lose your attention somewhere around #54. Here's #21-30.

21. I am the absolute worst at sports; just completely inept. In grade school and junior high, it seemed imperative to the other kids that they end up on the team I was not on, or else the world might end. There was much groaning and snivelling amongst the members of the team that got stuck with me. Snot-nose little bastards.

22. I take issue with women who think men should put the seat down after using the toilet. Why not the other way around--why shouldn't women put the seat back up after using it? I think any woman who just goes racing into the bathroom heedlessly, yanking her pants down in mid-run and flinging herself on the seat without looking at it first deserves to get a wet butt.

23. I leave the refrigerator door open the entire time I'm in the kitchen. I am tempted to rationalize it by saying that I might need something else out of it before I leave the kitchen, but that's only sometimes true. The real truth is, there are plenty of times when I take something out of the fridge knowing that I won't need anything else out of there, and I still don't close the door. I can't explain to you why I like having the door open. What I do know is that it makes my husband want to wring my neck. He'll close the refrigerator door behind me, and I'll turn around and open it again, just to be evil.

24. I'm genuinely stupid when it comes to math. I actually use my fingers to add. I don't even try to hide it, which means that not only am I a big dummy, but I'm not even smart enough to be ashamed of it.

25. When Brian and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, I thought it was our first. Brian was shocked and appalled that I seemed to have no idea how long we'd been married, and my attempt to play it off with "Time flies when you're having fun!" didn't fool him. Now, in my day-planner it doesn't just say "anniversary" on October 5th, but it also tells how many. This year it said "3rd anniversary." I've also been known to get my son's birthday wrong when asked, and the kid is not even a year old yet. I don't think.

26. I'm a picky eater. I pick up each piece of chicken with my fork and inspect it closely on all sides, looking for anything suspicious that I might need to saw off. I look like a forensic scientist inspecting for clues. Except that I eat what I inspect after I'm done inspecting it.

Eww.

27. I rarely cook. My mom owned a restaurant when I was growing up, and because she worked all the time, there were no at-home meals. When I was hungry, I walked to the restaurant and ordered off the menu. Nowadays you'll find me sitting at my big, empty dining room table, waiting sadly for someone to come along and serve me.

28. I regularly utter the phrase, "I hate people."

29. I have no hobbies. It seems like there have been ten billion occasions in my life when I've had to fill out a form that included the question "What are your hobbies," or someone in conversation asked me what my hobbies were. I always feel like a soulless mannequin when I am forced to admit I have none. The whole goddamn world is out there skiing, rock climbing, whittling, playing tennis, knitting, cooking, bear hunting, or making homemade tampons out of masking tape and dental floss, while I fritter my life away cracking jokes and reading Fark.com. All I can come up with is that I like to read, write and watch movies, which is really the same as saying, "You would swiftly die of boredom if you had to hang out with me for even one day."

30. When The Sopranos current season is airing, I spend the entire season doing something that must be really irritating. You know how the theme song says, "Woke up this morning, got myself a gun?" I continually try to find ways to bait Brian into letting me tell him that I woke up this morning and got myself a gun.

A sample exchange:

Me: You won't believe what happened this morning.
Him: What?
Me: I got myself a gun. (Then I cackle with laughter as he rolls his eyes.)

Then, half an hour later:

Me: Oh crap. I just realized I have to get up early tomorrow.
Him: Why?
Me: To get myself a gun. (More psychotic cackling.)

Mind you, I don't even necessarily do this while we're watching The Sopranos (although I consider that a bigger score if he falls for it during an episode of the show), but randomly throughout the season. It gets harder and harder to trick him as time goes by, of course, and I have to get more creative as he gets more suspicious. Eventually, every time I open my mouth, he probably thinks I'm going to pull the Sopranos trick on him. One day I'm probably going to be having a heart attack or stroke, and he's going to think I'm about to pull the "got myself a gun" gag on him, and he'll simply ignore me.

29 comments:

Lyvvie said...

Don't worry about forgetting the kids' birthdays, I do that all the time!!

I have the added issue of the Brits reversing the way rhey write dates too, so i have to say it the long way "June 17th 1999 and May 13th 2004" otherwise it's all wrong and they look at me like I'm stupid.

I don't do well at sports because I'm a bad loser and an uncoordinated twat; so I always lose and have a tantrum about it.

And the obvious lack of math skills has only served us all well by doubling you writing skills.

CommonWombat said...

The Sopranos thing = Hysterical. Boy do I constantly torture my long-suffering wife with exactly this same type of humor. It's a miracle I'm still married.

And I can beat the "how old is my son" thing. I constantly get the answer wrong when people ask me how old I am. I say "um... 31?" and my wife just rolls her eyes and goes "33, dumbass."

I also constantly use the phrase "I hate people." However, I just as constanly say "I love people," because I find that half the time I'm totally losing all faith in humanity, and the other half of the time people are amusing the shit out of me by falling off of ladders or embarassing themselves in blogs.

Paul Michael Peters said...

People with hobbies are shortening their life spans. How many people fall off the couch and break their back or die while watching a movie? Much more likely to happen while rock climbing.

You could glue your fingers together and have to go to the hospital after putting together models. Puzzle pieces only get stuck in baby’s mouth. When was the lat time you saw a windsurfer on the news who was not maimed or injured?

Hobbies? What are you crazy? Just say no to hobbies.

Maddie said...

I LIVE to annoy my daughters. One time, Amanda, my "teenager" (she insists that I call her that) slipped in front of me and said "Usher's hot!" to her friend on the phone, and now EVERY time anyone asks regardging the temperature of ANYTHING, eg. "Is it cold outside?" I reply:
"I don't know, but Usher's HOT."
I do this constantly. You don't even know.

You and I, my friend. We could annoy MILLIONS.

acw said...

My fiance and I have been daitng for close to 4 years... we think. We actually have no idea what month, much less what day, we started dating.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm delurking today to tell you that I am wonderfully amused by how wrong you are. And even though we're both married, I'm kind of falling in love becasue, well, you forget anniversary details AND you're all equality about the toilet seat thing. Those two alone make up for the 98 others.

Joanna Arcieri said...

Sports? What are sports? I was always picked last in gym and no one ever wanted to be on my team. I actually felt bad for the team that ended up with me because their shot at the kickball title was completely lost once I got invovled in any way.

And yeah for watching movies! It's the best hobby out there and I recommend it more than any of those other boring activities where you can get injured or killed in a second.

I mean unless Al Pacino hops out of the TV and screams "Say hello to my little friend" to you, I think your chances of survival are pretty high.

AJH said...

I have the same trouble with applications. Besides hobbies are pretty boring. Books and movies are much more fun. I guess our hobby is being entertained.

Kiki said...

I'm a soulless mannequin too. I too have no hobbies. Unless you count drinking or watching t.v.

Little Light said...

Oh, I love #25. I've forgotten hold old I am a couple of times.

nita said...

oh yeah, and i publicly wished bear a happy 38th birthday IN FRONT OF HIS WHOLE FAMILY when he was 37 and i couldn't tell you at gunpoint (you know, if you went and got your gun) how long we've been married. but.but. woman, please! that child being yanked out of my vagina makes july 2nd the only day i can think about. although it passed before i remembered it this year.

i love you!

Heather B. said...

You are hysterical. I just read your first two lists of 100 things wrong with me and what you inscribed on your husband's wedding band was classic (and yes very funny)! You're awesome.

OldHorsetailSnake said...

I think you have him nicely set up for the kill. What kind of gun did you get?

I just hope he is not president of his hobby group.

Carbon said...

I'm with you on the Soprano's stuff. I find ways to do that too and hysterically laugh my ass off.

Then, my hubby will retaliate in little annoying ways. I'll say "You know What" and he'll respond "No, he died before my time"...ughhhhh...that's painful. It's not even funny! Damn husband!

Yoda said...

Yeah, sure, the Sopranos thing is funny, but I'm still laughing about the wedding band engraving, so it's hard to pile anything on top of that without passing a entire glass of milk AND my brain through my nose.

Also, you and I would have made the most pathetic team in the history of gym class...we'd play kick ball and whenever I was up, everyone would move closer to the plate. Once, I missed the kick, tripped over the ball and nearly fell flat on my face. I ALMOST made it to first base without being thrown out. When I got back to the bench, I tried to tell my team mates that I was trying to bunt, but they wouldn't believe me.

~Kurt

Jenny G said...

You have me laughing out loud with this one! I do it to my boyfriend with the Donald Trump cobra hand and "You're fired!" As far as the toilet seat, I don't care if it's put down or not EXCEPT at night. I don't turn on the light when I go to the bathroom at night, and I don't like those kinds of surprises.

soapbox.SUPERSTAR said...

I have successfully forgotten my anniversary every year. He always remembers first.

I also leave the fridge open and the freezer, especially when putting away groceries.

I also leave the water running - ALL THE TIME!

Ritmeyer said...

Luke and I have decided that the bathroom upstairs is toliet seat up and downstairs is toliet seat down. It makes both of us feel like neither of us is compromising which is how our marriage works, compromise lite.

I'm with you on the hobbies. My friend has just taken up knitting or something with big giant kneedles. We're in our damn 20s, who the hell knits! I tried making up hobbies, gossip, bad joke giving but people don't buy it.

pat said...

I'm so copying this idea Karla! Consider it swindled. Now I just have to turn my plageristic ideas into something concrete, ie. actually write something...

dizzy von damn! said...

i am also a food inspector.

a hand sized chicken breast often gets reduced to four bites because of suspicious looks.

i resent your claim that this is something that's wrong with you though, as it is certainly not a bad thing for me.

right?

Poka Bean said...

making homemade tampons out of masking tape and dental floss? you're better off having NO hobbies than having one like that.

Anonymous said...

I have such deep emotional scars from gym class. People would actually fight over not wanting me on their team.

Miladysa said...

I never thought this day would come but after reading Part 3 I have to say

"We have alot in common!"

Pirate said...

You are without a doubt the most insightful and humorous writer I have ever had the good fortune to read. I concur on the fridge and toilet seat.

Isabella K said...

I don't understand about hobbies either. I have no hobbies. I firmly believe that all those people who list rock-climbing are lying. They have to be.

Anonymous said...

#23 made me think of the line from "the Big Chill" when Glenn Close was staring into the fridge and William Hurt walks by and says "That's the problem with these things - you have to watch them every second."

#30... I do something similar with poor Arwen. If ever she's telling a story that she starts with "I woke up this morning," I am *forced* to do a Muddy Waters "dunn-DAAHN-Nah-nuh" blues riff...

babyjewels said...

Yes, the chicken thing. This is why I can't eat things like chicken nuggets. I can't risk the cartiledge, fat string things, red stuff.

leesepea said...

Regarding the Sopranos thing:

I do that to my boyfriend incessantly.

And it's not even limited to one show or even a favorite film. Any pop culture reference I can toss in will do. A sample exchange this morning, as we pulled into a spot out in front of the condo, where the steps leading up were taped off as the edges of each step had been painted yellow.

Him: What's up with this?
Me: Looks like wet paint.
Him: No shit, but why'd they have to paint them yellow?
Me: So we could follow the yellow steps home!
Him: Groan.
Me: Get it?! Instead of "Follow the yellow brick road?"
Him: Oh, I get it. I'm just not laughing about it.

So, yeah, I'm with you on that one.

Anonymous said...

Ok I was howliing!! My friend and I have a bad habit of calling each other smelly pirate hooker in public, in honor of anchorman!! You are veddy veddy funny! I am a former texas girl! just moved to missouri, and then bowling for soup called me home! I read yall and don't miss much! thanks!