Thursday, December 13, 2012

Who's Weird? Apparently I am, Three Things My Husband Finds Weird about Me



We all have our peculiar mannerisms that make us the weird humans we are in life. I must admit, at first when approaching this essay, I was going to use the weird idiosyncrasies that makes my husband so unique, being from “the port bub” he has a sufficiently large number of weirdisms. However upon deeper thought, and not because he is taking me away for the weekend after this final, I’ve decide to write about my own weird traits that he is forced to live with because, well he married me! I am sure I must have three, I would definitely have to think very hard to come up with three items of weirdness, but in the interest of a successful weekend, or eh all’s fair in love and weirdness, I was willing to put it all out there and take one for the team.

First let me say, in my life food is a necessity, a source of comfort, a staple, and a daily requirement.  As prior essay confession will show I do not like vegetables. However my distaste for the veg does not hinder me from partaking in a vast variety of food items. You can imagine I enjoy baked beans, rolls, seafood, pork, beef, venison, and on and on. Sounds pretty normal right?  This is where things get weird, at no time in my eating, does any food item touch another food item on my plate. I also go to great lengths to keep my food from touching and mingling together. At home we have separated plates, with divider slots so that everything stays well within its borders and territories. When I go out to eat, it can be a little complicated separating the food on my plate, but I assure you it can be done. Wraps unwrap with a single flip at the college luncheonette and I proceed to eat the meat, cheese and bread all separately. Fruit salad isn’t even safe, as it may come in a little cup, but it can be dumped out onto a plate, separated according to size and color, and then enjoyed one bite at a time as was intended from the beginning. What is all this hub-bub about combining food items, and don’t even get me started on shepherd’s pie, that meal is way too much food touching each other. Casseroles, chop suey and even pork fried rice can all be enjoyed separated and eaten one item at a time.

Secondly, and this may not be as weird as my husband says it is, but I have a particular way that my socks have to go on my feet. In 2005 I broke my ankle and had a cast for 6 weeks. During that time my husband very graciously had to put my socks over my toes and stretch the rest over my cast as far as it would go. As if it wasn’t aggravating enough trying to get the sock over the cast, it was even more aggravating that he didn’t understand the rules of sock donning.  There is a line sewn across the top of the toe of most all socks, at least the ones I can afford. This line, though hidden from the outside, has a very distinct starting and ending point on the inside of the sock. If one isn’t careful the starting and ending knots of the thread that the sewn line creates can become rather bothersome on the great toe and pinky toe. Therefore the line of the sock must be straight across the top of the toes and a gentle tug at both sides of the toes to remove any bumps the toes might feel from the sew lines. All this prior to ever putting on a shoe. Sock comfort is right up there with underwear comfort, it only goes on one way and no bunches allowed!

Thirdly, I have a certain way clothes and towels are folded when they come out of the dryer while still warm so no one has to iron. Towels are to be folded bilaterally length wise, then flipped three times first time away from the folder, one time back toward the folder and finally away from the folder one last time. All this to attain uniformity and fit in the closet and look neat so when someone sees the closet contents, like a nosy mother-in-law, the towels are not shoved in there all helter skelter like. Likewise pants have to be folded in such a manner that the pants are snapped fresh out of the dryer, folded with the butt together, a gentle tug at the crotch and another quick snap. Next use the same towel tri fold to achieve perfect size of the folded pant in the dresser drawer. If that sounds weird to anyone else besides me then color me surprised indeed. I thought everyone learned to fold clothes the same way I did. Clearly the expression on my darling husbands face the first time I showed him how to fold clothes and towels definitely let me know I was not getting to the make sense part of his brain. After numerous attempts we have decided I will fold the clothes and towels. It just makes perfect sense. 

In conclusion, I would just like to defend my weirdness as perfectly normal behavior to me. I see nothing wrong with savoring each individual bite of my food as it is supposed to taste not mushed together with a bunch of different foods and then I don’t know what I am tasting, all this while wearing my perfectly toe aligned socks and crisp pants free from wrinkles of an otherwise crazy life.


Respectfully submitted-Linisa E Beal

Monday, December 3, 2012

Divison Essay The Road in Front of My House

I am writing about the road in front of my childhood home for two reasons one because it was the last time I actually was able to just sit and watch traffic for lacking of nothing better to do. Two, I now live on a drive not a road. I have history on the Wyman Road it was also where my mother grew up and it only seems natural that I too would experience the best times of my youth on that road. Although our viewing pleasure was only 125 feet long of road footage, my siblings and I agree we definitely had the best spot on the whole road to view all sorts of antics.

First, there was a small hill, we called it a belly tickler, there due to the ledge that ran under the piece of road in front of my house, was cause for much laughter. The cars back then where big gas hogs. Many of them did not have proper shock absorbers under them. On more than one occasion we would watch the cars speed by our home and hit that small piece of hill and bounce a great distance afterward and even spin off a hub cap on to our property somewhere. You didn't even have to be present to know that someone was going to fast and hit the belly tickler, the scraping of their exhaust system was clue enough. I'm fairly sure we could have opened up a shop for exhaust repair and hub cap recovery.

Secondly, the distance between our dooryard and mailbox, which was directly across the road from our house, was six giant steps or twelve small baby steps or ten hops or five crooked cartwheels wide. It really depended on who was watching from the living room window how you actually crossed the road to get to the mailbox. Safely crossing the road was not always the best decision made by an eight year old. I left a lot of knee skin on that particular path to the mailbox. But I never got ran over like my mother always predicted. She would say, "one of these days you're going to get run over cutting up like that." She was very good at giving warning advice prior to trauma that never seemed to happen.

Thirdly, when the boy starting coming around in his car and showing off is when I must admit I did the most embarrassing thing I ever did on that road. As if it was some sort of romantic ritual, he was very talented at leaving rubber tire marks on the road in front of my house. I remember being more impressed with the smoke from the tires than the actually rubber mark itself. However, one time, after a long tire mark was left behind, said boy kissed me, he didn't even ask first. Again I wasn't as impressed with the kiss as much as needing to capture a piece of tangible history to mark the event. So I ran into my house after he left and took a picture of the skid marks on the road with my Kodak Instamatic 126. I kept that piece of history for years and though it seems funny to admit now I would totally do the same thing today.

When I return to the Wyman Road, I smile at all the memories made on that road many still very fresh in my head today. I'm even more sure when people ride by that small piece road, they don't think about the little blonde haired girl that lived there for nine years. They don't know about the excitement that ledge contained or the secrets of the bump belly tickler that seems to be a whole lot smaller now than I remember. I'll bet the few times I missed a cartwheel and dragged my DNA across the road was never given another thought once the rain would wash the blood away. But as for those tire marks that kept showing up in front of our house that caused my parents such confusion during that summer in 1979, I still have a picture, somewhere, that represents my historic first kiss and a pretty nice set burned rubber tire marks.