20 things you may not know about me
Plus one that’s a damn lie.
After a lot of begging, cajoling, and favor-offering, I have persuaded my husband to write a post for my blog. Aside from the fact that he still puts two spaces after a period — hello, are we writing on a 1986 IBM Selectric? — I think he did a fine job.
I love that he gives you a little quiz and asks you to put your answer in the comments section. He’s a blogging natural!
Only one of these statements is completely false. If you like, guess which one, and post it.
Two Hands and a Roadmap
1) . . . was born in California wine country.
2) . . . played the flute in marching band.
3) . . . drives a stick. (Hey, now.)
4) . . . Hates raw onions and green peppers, but could live on sausage and gravy.
5) . . . Once used my toothbrush to clean something and failed to tell me until, uh, well after the fact.
6) . . . thinks I can’t do a good Irish accent, or pretty much any accent. Whatever, Lassie.
7) . . . sings OUT LOUD to Barry Manilow, and spontaneously so — any Barry Manilow, any time, anywhere. If caught completely off guard, she’ll even dance a little until she realizes . . . she’s dancing a little. It’s truly Pavlovian, only with less saliva. Not that much less.
8 ) . . . still owes Indialantic, FL, for a parking ticket from 1994. That’s why we can never move to that state.
9) . . . has dented every car we’ve owned (one before even getting it home from the dealer’s lot!), except the one I used to rear-end someone. We’re an equal opportunity couple.
10) . . . became more or less conversant in American Sign Language after college, even at one point joining a deaf choir. <insert joke here, naturally>
11) . . . grew up in Appalachia and somehow doesn’t have the accent — but has uttered the f-word in front of the kids (they inexplicably call it “the big cobra”), so she at least learned the language skills.
12) . . . after meeting her husband, thought he was gay. (After first date, wished he was.)
13) . . . for second or third date (you’ll see that it doesn’t so much matter), rode in airplane that my friend was piloting while he did aerobatics. At this point she no longer cared if I was gay; she just wished I was dead. In fairness, she’d said how much she loved roller coasters, which are way freakier than airplanes. People go to school for years to learn how to maintain aircraft. Some of those amusement park guys . . . well, we just hope they remember righty-tighty.
14) . . . giggles uncontrollably whenever the phrase, “super-duty” is uttered within earshot (from the Ford commercial).
15) . . . can dissect a sentence into infinite grammatical parts using Latin terminology, but couldn’t figure out how to set a simple digital alarm clock with two hands and a . . . um . . . uh . . .
16) . . . Tara is one of the funnier people you know, right? Well give her two glasses of wine and it’s guaranteed: one of you is going to pee your pants from laughing. So come prepared. (Nah, who are we kidding? It’s always her.)
17) . . . has a pretty good eye for being an untrained, amateur photographer, but she’ll figure out her digital alarm clock before she figures out focusing.
18) . . . is scared of almost nothing, except mice. I know, it’s not funny. Okay it is. I’ve heard sounds from her mouth, after seeing a mouse, that can’t be properly described in human terms.
19) . . . is an amazingly good cook. By far the best soup maker I know. Seriously, the soup is amazing. At this moment I’m eating chicken soup that, quite honestly, every human being on earth should have the opportunity to taste just once in their life. She even makes them up on the fly, using crap I’ve never heard of, and always tasty.
20) . . . is completely incapable of lying in a situation where it actually matters, and pretty bad at it even when it doesn’t. (Not that I would <ahem> recognize a good liar.)
21) . . . is the only person I’ve ever trusted 100% in my life.
~Mr. R.
OK, guys, which one of these is completely wrong?
Creative Commons photo courtesy of firemedic58.
I think I know but won’t spoil it for everyone else.
What accent?
This is hard since I only know Tara from the blogathons. But I’ll take a wild guess and say #7 sings outloud to Barry Manilow. But then again, she definitely could. It’s just too hard.
BTW, I’ve dented a brand new car before too. Not coming home from the dealer, but about a week later. I was 9 mos. pregnant and backed into a telephone pole on my way out of the Mailboxes Etc. parking lot. The car was stuck on the pole with no way of going backward or forward without denting it even more. So I sat in my new, dented car and called my husband on my new, first-ever cell phone and cried pregnancy hormone-induced tears. When I was in the hospital having the baby he took the car into the stop & got the dent fixed. Ah.
Michelle Rafter
I have no idea, but a sign language choir? Really?! I do know I’d love to have dinner with you two some night… What a laugh that would be! Good thing we don’t live in the same city, though. How embarrassing to pee my pants laughing the first time we meet.
So hard, all of them sound realistic . . . I’m going to guess #8. I love this idea for a post, gets people involved. I’m going to show it to my husband tonight, who will probably not appreciate your husband very much.
I’m going with the deaf choir. And if I’m wrong, I demand to see a video of her performing a Barry Manilow song.
Deaf choir. Who doesn’t sing along to Barry?
I’m going to guess #12 is false. And in response to #16, I nearly pee my pants from much of what she says AND writes!
Nat, for your sake I was hoping it was number 5, but somehow I can totally see that happening. I’ll go with number 1? On a side note, would love to witness number 7 and totally relate to number 16. I’m a giggling guzzler that occasionally gushes!
I agree with Ming, who doesn’t sing out loud to Barry Manilow? He doesn’t just write the songs the world sings, he tells the stories that inspire me to live each day as if it were my last.
I’m not going to wind up a Lola and for that we can thank Mr. Barry “Alan Pincus” Manilow.
I’m going to go with deaf choir because the alternative is that she either choose not to share this with me or that I am a very bad friend and wasn’t paying any attention.
Wait, wait, chose, right? I’m not even going to think about it or I will loose my mind like Lola.
I withdraw deaf choir and submit Irish accent. Because how would Tara know what an Irish accent sounded like?
I’m revising my answer to #5. You didn’t use his toothbrush to clean anything.
Or did you? Because this too will require photographic proof.
Hah! Hysterical comments….and fascinating guesses.
Photographic proof? You mean something in focus?
I have video tapes dating to 1984,documenting some of Mr.R’s points.
What are my bids?
#4. Who doesn’t like sausage?
Number 1 for cryin out loud!
My guess is for #8. I think she owes them money but not for a parking ticket, more likely she was ticketed for dancing naked in the streets to that Barry Manilow medley of all of the commercial jingles he wrote.
[...] I’ll be responding to my husband’s guest post 20 things you may not know about me and letting people know which of his 21 statements about me is false. To do this, I need to tell a [...]
What a great post! Mr. R is a natural. Hmmm … I’m not sure which is false, but I’m thinking either #4 or #16. I don’t remember hearing any pants-peeing stories. Let’s go with #4, though.
What the big cobra is your generations problem with urinary control?! I’ve lost count of the refs.to pants peeing. Jeeze,we boomers must have really screwed you guys up.
I vote for the toothbrush thing – that’s just low. Unless it was her own teeth she cleaned with it. I borrow the Monkey’s toothbrush all the time.
I want to meet your dad, he sounds cool.
MVR
[...] my husband posted 20 things you might not know about me, plus one that’s a damn lie. There were a lot of fun guesses in the comments regarding which of the 21 statements about me was [...]
loved this list- and I definitely could not decipher which was the false statement- I’ll be interested to find out.