Charming, but single

I never do memes.

I was tagged by Texas Cinderella and I am going to do this meme, if only because I am sitting in a coffee shop with a sugar-free skim milk vanilla latte that took me three minutes to order correctly because I was so caught off guard by seeing The Nurse sitting with a group of other people doing some sort of study group, which confused me because I thought he was finished with school. (And also, because I hate him.) Of course, I think that it is possible that he maybe has to take some sort of certification exam? Boards? Nursing tests?

I have no idea. Suffice it to say that now that I am stuck here with my coffee because I cannot leave because he saw me set up my laptop before I ordered my coffee and he would know I was leaving because of him and all I really wanted to do for about two hours was chill out, listen to music and write. Am I going to let a Scumbag Ex and the fact that I’m not wearing any makeup stop me? To quote Whitney Houston: Hell To The No.

Also, as an aside, I have to say that it isn’t that I think I am above memes. I just usually don’t stay motivated enough to finish them. Like, I’ll get 37 things into a “100 things about me” post, go have a drink and forget where I saved the file. And then Conan will be on or my cell phone will ring and all is lost.

But not now. I am motivation-freaking-central.

Also, I wasn’t going to blog about this, but whatever. I heard through the grapevine a few weeks ago that The Nurse had been dating his Baby Mama for, like, a year before his swimmers found her egg. While he was dating me. While he was on Match.com. I didn’t mention this earlier because it was enough to just make me finally be over him, him not calling me, him getting her pregnant and the whole nine. The person who told me felt bad about telling me, but I was ecstatic. Because it was over. I was so mad that I let him make me feel bad about not being committed to a relationship when the truth was that he was seeing (at least) two women at once. I knew I’d never speak to him again and if he reached out to me, I would let him have it.

Anyway. The distracting-me-from-a-jerk meme. I think it is Six Weird Things About Me, but I’ll also go with Six Things You Don’t Know About Me, because I make the rules around here.

1. I feel bad leaving the movie before the credits end.

My Dad hates lines and crowds and when everyone rushes to the door, like when a plane lands or a movie ends, etc. So he sits and lets the crowd clear. When we were younger we’d complain about wanting to leave with everyone else and he’d say, “You see all of those people listed in the credits after the big stars? They all worked on this movie and no one ever stays to see their names.” And so then we weren’t staying because of the lines. We were staying to support the little people who worked for months on a movie and got no glory. And I still feel bad when I leave early – because clearly someone should know who the gaffer and key grip were.

2. I don’t eat most macaroni and cheese or any cherries.

I hate the way macaroni and cheese sounds when you stir it. (Especially the boxed stuff.) It makes this soggy gross noise that is like nails on a black board to me.

And when I was little, my mom would make us drink liquid Jell-O when we were sick because it was supposed to keep up from getting dehydrated. (Her mom did it to her and I imagine that one day I’ll forcefeed my children liquid Jell-O as well, convinced in a fit of parenting that if it didn’t kill me, it won’t kill my offspring.) I don’t know why, but this is the only reason I can think for why I refuse to even smell cherries. The scent makes me want to vomit everywhere.

3. I hate confrontations in public situations.

I don’t ever want to send back food at a restaurant. I hate having to make a scene about my coffee order. Part of it is a fear of confrontation – I get really nervous and shaky when I am angry and arguing. One time years ago at a previous job I got so angry at a coworker that my face turned bright red and my hands were shaking. I was right and she knew it, but I was so mad that I could barely speak. It was mortified that I’d been so physically angry and vowed to never let myself get to that place again. So I avoid confrontation.

The other part of it is that I’ve worked in retail jobs before – I got my first job when I was 16. I know that working in a store or restaurant is a hard thing to do, that you’re on your feet all day, that you are young and don’t have much control over anything, that you make low wages and that people generally act like you are a moron. (This used to piss me off. I wanted to be like, “Hey Soccer Mom, I’m not a lifelong candle saleswoman! I am paying for college!”) So I try not to have to make big scenes and make the day worse for people who already don’t get appreciated enough. I will ask politely to have my order fixed, but I can be a pushover in these situations.

4. I’ve never purposefully stolen anything from a store. (Though I did used to sneak into bars and download mp3s from Napster. And for that I apologize.)

A lot of people have shoplifting stories from when they were younger and taking risks. I don’t – I was so petrified of what my parents would do if they caught me stealing that I’d never done it. Until one day about three years ago. I was wearing a jacket that for some reason had a piece of Velcro on the inside cuff. (I have no idea why it had Velcro. The rest of the jacket was normal, promise.)

Anyway, I was with my sister at Victoria’s Secret going through the table of panties trying to find five different pairs. (They were having one of those five pairs for $19 sales.) We paid and moved to the next store. About 15 minutes later I saw a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties on the floor of the store by sister and I quickly picked them up, stuffed them in my sister’s bag and scolded her for not being careful. When she got home she couldn’t figure out how she had six pairs of panties in her bag, including one pair that was the wrong size. We figured out later that the panties had gotten stuck to the Velcro in the cuff of my jacket and I hadn’t noticed until they fell on the floor in the next store. My family still teases me about “shoplifting” from Victoria’s Secret.

5. I do not keep secrets. Eventually, they come out.

Just ask a high school buddy of mine who used to lie about staying at my house when she was dating someone older. Yes, I was the drunken bridesmaid who blabbed on about that lie on her wedding video (that she didn’t see until the final cut had already been sent to her parents and her grandparents).

She’s forgiven me. I think.

6. I used to fear playing “I Never” in college.

My group of friends was very pro-drinking game and we’d almost always end up at someone’s apartment playing drinking games after the bars closed. I feared “I Never” the most because there is such a fine line in that game between being normal and being either a prude or a whore. And I’ve witnessed too many times when someone would say something embarrassing, like, “I never showed a boob to my first cousin” thinking that other people would drink. And then room went silent in horror and you could hear crickets chirping in the background and they’d be mortified that they would be the only person who’d done that. (And to clarify, I have NEVER done that. I promise. All of my first cousins are a good nine or 10 years younger than I am, which would make it even creepier.)

Sigh. That was fun.