The Weird in Me

I was over at Moxie and she had a psuedotag for this meme: reveal six interesting or weird things about yourself.

1. I can gut a fish. My dad used to take my sister and I fishing all the time when his friends brought their sons along. No opportunity to be girly. We had to strut our stuff to make our daddy look good. Baited our own hooks too.

2. I can raise one eyebrow at a time (but my left goes up higher than my right) and cross just one eye. I can flip and curl my tongue, and make it clover shaped. I can hyperextend my thumbs and can bend my fingers at the first joint, making them go at 90 degree angles.

3. In 1998, I fell down a flight of stairs in rural Poland and had to be brought to the emergency room. First, the doctor came in the ambulance to examine me. When it was determined that I needed an x-ray, the doctor and the driver carried me to the waiting ambulance. Then they carried me down the stairs to the emergency room. The doctor at the hospital jabbed my ankle while holding a cigarette and pronounced it broken. They x-rayed it--despite speaking no Polish, I made it understood that I wanted a lead vest to wear during the procedure and the tech clearly thought I was being a pussy. It wasn't broken, but enough ligaments were torn to warrant casting. They gave me a plaster cast and one crutch, and told me not to walk on it. Apparently I was supposed to levitate. I made people carry me around until we found a doctor who would put a fiberglass cast on. It cost me the equivalent of $64, cash.

4. I always answer telephone surveys. I used to call people to try to get them to do market research surveys, and I know how nerve wracking it can be to be hung up on like a telemarketer. I took the job because I hated talking on the phone and wanted to be a better phone talker. I did become a better phone talker, so long as there's a script. When I was at this job, I worked with a guy who later died in the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack (I'm not sure we called it that back then), the Lockerby, Scotland one.

5. I lost 9 toenails after I completed the Avon 3-Day in 2002. My tootsies encountered a lot of friction because, as the physical therapist explained, I raise my foot to walk by lifting with my toes rather than pushing off the ball of my foot.

6. I honeymooned in Alaska because my husband and I would have been divorced before the end of a Hawaiian vacation (we had to stay in the U.S. because of his visa situation). When he went rolling down a hill past me on one of our hikes, I thought that I would be a widow after only 8 days (and my parents would kill me--they spent so much on the wedding!). In the end, he got wedged in a tree which prevented him from encountering the rocks and raging river below. We were rewarded, however, by communing with nature up there.