Several Embarrassing Things About Me, Some of which Are Quite Funny

For some reason, Very Josie's post about Ursa Sucrosum getting swindled to the tune of $20 got me thinking about lessons learned, and how much those lessons cost. That in turn led me to a dangerous period of introspection - never a good (or healthy) thing.

For me it was how to handle money, and like most lessons of any worth it was taught to me by my father. I was 17, and in great wisdom or great folly he gave me one of his credit cards to me for my exclusive use. I in turn used it like a money spigot. I bought pretty much everything. I worked at a local gas station (for my old friends, the Rock and Roll Texaco, that's now a Pump -n- Pantry next to the Bel Aire diner) and would ring up a $50 transaction with the credit card and pocket the cash. All the time. I bought jewelry - and I hate jewelry. I bought things that were illegal for a 17 year old. I bought things that were illegal, period. And before I knew it, I was $2600 in the hole. That debt took every penny of my disposable income for three years to pay off, but pay it off I finally did, having gained an acute sense of the power and the peril of the consumer credit system.

I have been (voluntarily) unemployed for a year and four days, and we're still cranking along because we have no consumer debt - in fact no debt at all except for our mortgage - because my dad handed me a credit card with a smirk, knowing exactly what would happen. Thanks, Dad.

Anyway, that got me thinking about other embarrassing traits I have, and I thought I'd share them with both of you. Enjoy.

1. Except when preparing for, during, and immediately after a shower, I am NEVER barefoot. Never. I wear socks, all the time. I have sex with socks. Were I to have sex in Fenway Park I'd have sex with socks with the Sox. If I'm barefoot for any length of time my world starts to crumble. Long-time readers of this little chucklefest know this already.

2. I have learned many life lessons from the sitcom Scrubs.

3. In 2004 I bet a buddy a thousand bucks to his two hundred that the Red Sox would not win the World Series. That's right. He took the Sox and I took the rest of Major League Baseball, and we all know what happened there. He bought me lunch, though, with my G. Thanks, Sport.

4. After a long camping trip (during which I got mono but didn't know it yet) I met up with my girlfriend at the time and we went to Harold Parker State Forest and had some fairly nasty sex - after which we received an enthusiastic round of applause from about two dozen onlookers who saw every move.

5. I first broke the law in 1972, when I was four. I stole a pack of cinnamon gum from the local grocery store. It was the heist of the century. I got caught when I, um, chewed it in front of my mom, not thinking that without her giving it to me, there'd be no other means of me having any gum. She dragged me back down there and made me apologize.

6. My first crush, if you could call it that, was with a girl who grew up to be a lesbian, and not the kind you see in the movies.

7. I am afraid of babies. They are afraid of me. When they are offered to me to hold and vibe on their babyosity, I recoil as if I were being offered a fresh turd. Kids love me, all my nieces and nephews, and Ursa Sucrosum as well, but not babies.

8. On more than one occasion I have been "the funny guy" at a gathering so intensely and so often that someone will look at me with weary eyes and say, "OK, man, that's enough," and turn away with scorn. I stop being funny guy perhaps 50% of the time when that happens.

Well, I reckon that's about all for now. Until next time, remember: don't offer to have me hold your goddamn baby. It won't end well for anyone.