underdogishere

Heather tapped me for this "five secrets" meme a while back. Personally, I'm not big on memes, and I tried to wiggle out of it, but she wouldn't let me. So now that I'm back, I'm giving it a whirl.

This was a really hard meme! I did not find it at all easy to come up with five secrets (or at least things very few people know), without resorting to things I really don't want anyone to know. But anyway, here goes:

1. When I was very young -- I don't know, maybe six -- I was playing outside by myself and became intrigued with the feeling and smell of inserting small pebbles in my nose. The problem is, I inserted so many that we (my mother and I) couldn't get all of them out. So I had to make a trip to the doctor to have pebbles extracted from my nose. I wasn't embarressed, but I suspect my mother was.

Parenting tip: Make sure your children know that there's a one-pebble-per-nostril limit.

2. When I was a teenager, I fractured (not a complete break, just a crack) my collarbone in an accident that can be directly attributed to my bicycle not having any brakes.

Parenting tip: If you know your children's bicycles do not have brakes, for God's sake don't let them ride, no matter how bone-headed they are about it. Children believe they are invincible. They almost are. But only almost.

3. I didn't get chicken pox until I was seventeen. The doctor said that, having chicken pox at that relatively late age, the symptoms would be much worse. He knew what he was talking about.

Parenting tip: If you can, make sure your children have all their childhood diseases in their childhood.

4. Again, when I was very young, I enjoyed eating dirt. In fact, I was something of a dirt gourmand, being able to appreciate the difference between, say, the rich earthy taste of the dirt under the back porch and the damp deep taste of the dirt from the bank of the brook at the end of our yard. People reported to my mother that I ate dirt, but she was unmoved, answering that "Everyone needs to eat a peck of dirt before they die." Looking back on it, it seems odd that if my mother really believed this she would allow me to continue to eat dirt. After all, if she prevented me from eating dirt, and as I grew older I washed my salad ingredients thoroughly, I could avoid making my quota of a peck of dirt and thus live indefinitely. It was almost as thought she wanted me to die young. Or perhaps not.

Parenting tip: On the off chance that my mother was right, you might want to consider preventing your children from eating dirt. On the other hand, I don't think it did me any lasting harm.

5. I was born with a tail. Really. But I don't have it anymore.

No parenting tip available.

There! That's five, and I don't think I confessed to anything actionable or criminal. Next up: Another meme tag, this one from Wen, and then at some point back to our regular schedule of boring posts about things like words and wars.

Labels: Memes