MadMup.com

It's actually my cousin's fault that I haven't been blogging. She had the unmitigated gall to tag me for a meme, and since I've had a hard time coming up with answers, I've just avoided blogging. The time has come, I feel. I need to confront this issue head-on and use it as a character-building exercise.

So here are the rules for this one:

1. Post these rules before you give your facts
2. List 8 random facts about yourself
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

(You can see why this was hard for me - my whole blog is pretty much "random facts about me," so coming up with only 8 of them (and 8 of them that I haven't already said!) was difficult.)

1. I got banned from riding the bus to school for a day for throwing a banana peel out the bus window. My argument: "It's biodegradable!" To add insult to injury, the bus driver at the time was staying at our house, and I don't think he was paying any rent.
2. I cut my tongue very deeply with my teeth when I jumped off a table in my bedroom (more of a huge workbench than a table) and hit my chin on my knee. My parents were gone, so my brother called mom's friend Mrs. M, who was a nurse. She said to keep putting ice on it, which ended up not being so much fun.
3. I shot a friend of mine with a BB gun at close range. There was a quarry about a half a mile from our house, and I'd take my friends back there and we'd shoot at the junk that had been dumped in it. My BB gun was one my dad had and it had a pump action on it. The problem was, it was touchy. More often than not when the pump was returned to its original position, the gun fired. My friend Don and I were standing on a bit of hill looking at what piece of junk we were going to shoot next, when I pumped the gun... and it went off, hitting Don in the shoulder. It could have been a lot worse - the gun was spring-loaded. If it had been an airgun, it could have gone through his skin. I begged him not to tell my parents or his so we wouldn't be forbidden to shoot in the quarry anymore.
4. One Independence Day I lit a whole box of sparklers... while they were still in the box. I thought if one looked cool, 10-20 of them at a time would look even cooler. What actually happened was that the box burned instantly all the way to my hand and I got some blisters out of the deal. Any scientists in the crowd want to explain why that happened (the instant flash-burn, not the blisters)?
5. I think it was seventh grade when I took part in a spelling bee. I've always been a pretty decent spellist, so I was looking forward to this, my chance to shine. The people in front of me were given words that I knew easily, so I was looking forward to cleaning house. My turn came and I was given some form of the word "believe" - believed, believing, something. I knew the tricky part was the "ie," and I was so focused on getting that part, that I put the wrong ending on the word the "ed" instead of the "ing," or vice versa. It was a perfect Proverbs 16:18 moment.
6. One time for Children's Church (a separate service held in the basement of the church so that the adults upstairs didn't have to put up with us during their service) I played a song for special music... on a kazoo. To this day I remember the leaders exchanging glances during it that I came to realize later were of the "Oh my word, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen and heard" type. I'm not sure why they let me do it.
7. I've done stand-up comedy on two separate occasions. Both times were a mix of (ahem) "footnoted material" and my own stuff. The first time was in front of about 100 people and was fairly well-received. The second was in front of about 800 people and it was not. At all. And it actually got someone other than me in a bit of trouble. Sorry, Trev!
8. In two of the first three plays I was ever in, I was cast as a mentally handicapped individual. Make of that what you will.

I'm sure there are other things that would have been far more interesting, but my memory's bad.

So I'm tagging

• Brian A. - just to make him have to come up with 8 new things, as I'm sure he's done this before
• Carolyn - because an Aussie list is bound to have interesting things on it
• Dave - because it might get him to blog more than once a year
• Gretchen – because hers will be majorly thought-provoking, I have no doubt
• Jeannie - because she's the most likely to do it
• Josh N. – as the flipside to Gret’s, and also a way for him to take a break from seminary stuff for a bit
• Lee - because I'm sure he's got some great stuff
• Melissa - because it seems like there are some stories there I'd like to hear

Labels: meme, school memories