Please pick my nose

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Once you mention that something is your favorite or use a superlative like “best,” you’re headed for trouble. Hard feelings follow; your furniture gets upset or your facial features get up in your face.

I should know; both of these things have happened to me. A few months ago, I wrote an ode to my dresser. It holds a special place in my heart because it stands by me through the night, holding up the mirror while it reflects on the day, and discretely hiding my unmentionables. After that, both the chest of drawers and the nightstand got upset, and even the bed seemed hard to sleep with.

Yesterday I wrote about my nose and said that if I had to choose a best feature, I would pick it. I got grief about it all day: my eyes cried, my hair stood straight up and wouldn’t settle down, my teeth bit the inside of my mouth, and my ears (which I had failed to mention) refused to listen to my explanation about why I didn’t write about them.

In order to appease them, I decided to let them speak for themselves and ask the readers of the blog to pick.  I hope after this, I can convince them to settle down. Here are their pictures with their comments, appearing in alphabetical order that has nothing to do with any type of preference on the part of any person, living or dead.

✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

My ears are good listeners, like jewelry, and along with my hips believe you should keep growing all of your life. (Please excuse the absence of the left ear; she’s camera shy.)

✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

My eyes are observant, opinionated about things like beauty and color, like to wear green, and enjoy traveling and seeing new things.

✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

My hair likes to stay on top of things, doesn’t care for windy weather, and believes everyone should know more about their roots.

✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

My nose has an excellent memory, likes being in the center of things, and enjoys running in the winter. (She wanted to show you her running shoes.)

✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

My teeth are homebodies and don’t like going out; they like to do crunches, and have taken a shine to my dentist.

         ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤ ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤  ✤

(Note to reader: This second post about nose-picking is not my fault. My blog friend worrywarts {click here to meet her} misread yesterday’s title, made a comment about it, and planted an idea in my head. You can register your complaints on her blog. I almost promise not to write about things like this again.)

I pick my nose

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Even if the world isn't, my nose is straight.

I am a small woman, no taller than 5’3″, of slight build but wide in the hips. At the end of my torso, as you would expect, I have two legs, each one divided by an odd, lumpy knee.

My hair always liked being brown, until recently. My forehead needs a lot of space to think and furrow, so it told my hair quite emphatically, “Thus far, and no more.” Because so much skin is showing and I am modest, I wear bangs. Along the edges of my ears and forehead, the hair is experimenting with gray.

My eyes wear green, flecked with gold and brown. They don’t like make up because when they cry, they don’t like to make a mess on my cheeks. I admire anyone who considers those around them and tries to keep things tidy. No one has shown me as much of the world as they have, so I try to be kind to them and wipe their tears when they are having a bad day.

My jaw looks determined because it is. It has a lot to say if people would just listen. They don’t, so it is determined to keep shut unless someone really wants to know. We’ve enjoyed a lot of chocolate together.

My two front teeth are close, even though one is almost a year older. Some of the others arrived later and never learned to stand straight in a line. I’ve never held it against them. I’m attached to all of them and had a hard time two years ago when one them cracked under pressure. We couldn’t save it.

But my best feature is my small, straight nose. It is the leader of my face, breaking through the air like the prow of a small ship, the first to feel the cold, the first to bear the heat of the sun, and willing to help hold my sunglasses, all day if need be. My nose always gets there first, but it’s never proud. Day after day it brings me gifts; just yesterday it was the aroma of roses. And when I least expect it, it surprises me with brightly wrapped memories of my days as a child when I came home to the smell of freshly baked bread or broke through the surface of the water to see my mother beside the pool, lathering on lotion under the hot, summer sun.

I like all the parts of me, but if I had to choose my favorite, you can understand why I would say, “I pick my nose.”

Still ironing out the wrinkles

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Year-struck is being Freshly Pressed, and it’s taking a long time to get all of the wrinkles out. Sadly, only Yearstricken’s blog is wrinkle-free now. What with all the visitors, she considered getting freshly stretched by plastic surgery but that requires money. She’ll be back tomorrow as wrinkly as ever.

 

(Note to new readers: The Freshly Pressed post was from last week and was a lead-in to the post that followed, Math has Problems. Thank you for reading, commenting, and following.)

 

 

 

A name by any other name

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Texas' most famous Hogg - Governor during the 1890s (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

 

If you are from Texas, you already know about Governor Hogg and his daughter. Before Hogg, governors had to be brought in from out of state; he was actually born in Texas and served during the 1890s. I heard about him when I was a very young child and immediately loved him because he named his daughter Ima. At the time, I didn’t consider how Ima felt about it; I just liked the sound of it. When I heard he had another daughter named Ura, I wished that my parents had loved me enough to name me Ura Hogg. Later I found out that Ura didn’t exist. I have lived with a broken heart ever since.

 

I can’t trace my love for wordplay to the story of Governor Hogg, but it definitely taught me that people’s names are fun to play with. (Note to reader: I am doing my best to stay away from pig puns. With a name like Hogg, that’s hard to do. But for your sake, I will gird up my tender loins and get out of this paragraph as fast as I can.)

 

Here’s what got me to thinking about Hogg. Yesterday, we saw a car with a license plate from Iowa. From deep within my brain, a wish came bubbling up; a wish that my last name was Lott and that I was from Iowa. Then my online name could be Iowa Lott.

 

The lovely Ima Hogg kept her name all her life (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

In the privacy of my own mind, I do this kind of nameplay all of the time. I once worked with a woman whose last name was Mennen. When she told me she had a grown daughter, I was quite excited. Before I could offer to be a matchmaker, she told me the daughter was already married. I dreamed of fixing her up with a man named Black. She would use a hyphenated last name: her maiden name and her husband’s last name. I imagined her wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and a black suit to work. When people asked her name, she would answer simply, “Mennen-Black.” Had I been more careful about who I married, I could have had a name like that.

 

There’s more, of course, but today is the first day of classes for this semester and I need to get there early. I always look forward to my classes. The people sitting in those chairs are not just students to me, they’re names.

Y’all write purty and you’re mighty kind

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So many of the bloggers I read write purty. They corral a bunch of words and make them  do all kinds of tricks that make me ooh and aah and say, Boy howdy, how do they make those critters do that?

 

Poet lariat

After I read their posts, I start thinking that I need to get me one of them poet lariats and lasso me some of those big words and teach them a thing or two. I’ve hung around the corral enough to recognize a big word when I see one, so the problem is not with my sight; I just can’t steer them in the right direction, no matter how many puns I make. Even if I caught one, which is highly unlikely since I don’t know how to use a rope, I’m not sure what I would do with it after I got it. They have pointy horns, y’all.

 

Some of you don’t even need a lasso; you tame them with your voice, like some kind of word-whisperer. Then the words do whatever you tell them to do. How do y’all do that?

 

 

 

*******The above portion of this blog was brought to you by my inner Texan********

 

Dick and Jane, along with their pets, Spot and Puff, taught me how to read in the first grade, and while I can read just about anything, I have never been able to write much beyond that level. In fact, my blog is suitable for your average 11-12 year old who is in sixth grade. How do I know? I went to www.read-able.com and typed in my website address. This could explain why I often feel like the only non-grownup in the room.

 

If I have visited your blog, you know that this extends to the comments I make. I often write one or two paragraphs in the comment box, reread them, and decide I had better erase them to save myself embarrassment. Then I write, “I see the words, The words are good. I see the good words. Run, Spot, run. Come see the good words.” I know I’m exaggerating; I hardly ever express myself that well but on better days I do.

 

In spite of that, I have received several awards in the past month. I assume this is because you think I really am an 11 year-old hiding behind the gravatar of a more mature woman and are impressed that I have a blog. Or maybe it’s my juvenile sense of humor.

 

For whatever reason, both Susan at susanwritesprecise and Elyse at fiftyfourandahalf were kind enough to nominate me for the Awesome Blogger Award which involves writing something about yourself using the ABCs. I just put my blocks away or I would take pictures of them for the list. The links to Susan and Elyse are to the posts that have the nominations. Please be sure to read more of their posts.

 

Things I like:

 

Before we go further, raise your hand if you read the word for U as underpants. That’s what I thought. Although I like underpants, it’s the underparts, or hidden parts of stories, and lives that I find interesting.

 

These same two writers, Susan and Elyse, nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award, which requires me to write 10 things about myself.

  1. I thought Kreativ was spelled “creative.”
  2. Nine times out of ten I write “blooger” instead of “blogger.”
  3. I like the word “blooger.”
  4. My cat, Puff, likes the word “blooger.”
  5. I don’t have a cat.
  6. I have an ice orchid.
  7. I think some of you reading this will google ice orchid.
  8. I am already counting the days to summer vacation.
  9. I am planning to go to Europe this summer.
  10. I am planning not to fulfill the requirements of these awards.

 

Elyse has a soft spot in her heart for junior high bloggers and also nominated me for the Red Educational Shoe Award. Thankfully I don’t have to write anything about myself, just nominate five supportive commentators. Here are some of the top commentators listed on my dashboard. My mom and I thank you.

 

Worrywarts-guide-to-sex-and-marriage

Just Add Attitude

Kate Crimmins

Kathryn Ingrid

RAB at youknowwhatimeant

Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

 

 

The last award I want to mention is the 7×7 Link Award from vixytwix at stayoutofmyhead. She also has a lot of good things to say, so be sure to read more of her posts. The requirements for this one are as follows:

1.  Share something about me that no one knows

2.  Link 7 of my posts that I think are worthy

3.  Nominate 7 bloggers for this award and notify them

 

Number 1: I often don’t want to push the publish button.

 

Number 2: Here are the 7 posts I think are worthy by virtue of being some of my oldest posts:

Furniture Envy

People I have a hard time trusting

Gobsmacked

You were here

Whinge

In which she rationalizes her addiction by blaming her mother (I miss you, Mom) and realizes that the title to the post is probably going to be longer than the post

After finding a cure for breast cancer, would someone please answer my question

Number 3: Here are the 7 bloggers I nominate:

 

dan4kent

Blondzombie

Rob Slaven

ShimonZ

JSD

Sam Flowers

Kojiki in Japan

It’s always hard to pick other blogs because there are so many good ones. I didn’t want to nominate people that I know have already received awards. Enjoy your reading.

I have to go now, I hear my mom calling.

The memory collector

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My small self

When I was small, I collected things I found: shiny objects, buttons, leaves, and feathers, especially feathers. I often dreamt I could fly and feathers seemed like a promise of that dream. Finding something of beauty felt like an accomplishment. My reward for paying attention. Somewhere on the road to adolescence, I lost every one of those treasures.

 

In my teens, I kept a drawer filled with notes, jewelry, stray buttons, foreign coins passed on from relatives, ticket stubs, a lock with a forgotten combination, and pictures of my friends and the boy I loved my freshman and sophomore year. One scrap of paper I saved until I was in my mid-twenties. The library in my high school sent out notes to students who had delinquent books. The notes were short and to the point; they had the student’s name on one line and the name of the book on another line, nothing else. I don’t remember if I was assigned to read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or if I chose it on my own, but I loved it and wanted to read more of his work. I kept that second book too long because one day in class the teacher handed me a note from the library. All that was written on it was my name and below that, The Idiot. I kept the note for years, my private joke with the universe.

 

 

I think objects might want to be found. Maybe a button works for months to untie the strings that bind it to a shirt, and when it leaps out into the unknown, it is looking for adventure. I want to see more of the world, it says; I’ve been manhandled enough, put in my place for too long. Imagine the pleasure it feels when a child or an adult picks it up, admires it, and carries it home as a treasure. At least, that’s how I would feel if I were a button.

 

My crown

I still have a box of small findings and remembrances, including a gold crown that was fitted for one of my molars but never put on. I could tell a great story about that, but unfortunately, I don’t remember much about it. My mother wore it on her charm bracelet for years and it has come back to me. Last summer I bought a wooden art box for my grandchild and filled it with some of the things I cannot throw away.

 

Over the years I have tried collecting things of value, but I can’t sustain my interest. In Japan, I started a collection of the holders used to rest chopsticks on, called “hashioki,” but I grew tired trying to find a place to display them and gave most of them away. I use two of them for brush rests when I do Japanese calligraphy.

 

For a long time, I collected dreams, and for safekeeping, I put them in my heart. When I was alone, I would take them out, whisper promises I thought I could keep, believing that some day every one of them would grow wings and fly. I never thought I could lose them, but I did. And now I know why: my heart is a pocket full of holes.

 

When mother knew love

 

 

Memories are the only thing I am interested in collecting now. These stories, like the flightless feathers I loved as child, or like the fallen petals that when crushed still give off the faint aroma of the rose, or like the empty shell left by a cicada who grew away from her old self but left a part behind for me to hold and remember, these stories are the only treasures I have.

The road to riches

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Imagine that 100 people live in America. Ninety-nine of them are not millionaires. Just one is, and it’s not me.

 

Now, imagine that 535 members of Congress spend time in Washington failing to enact legislation to balance the budget. What percentage do you think are millionaires? Since one American in a hundred is a millionaire, you might guess that 5.3 of them have at least seven digits of net worth. (I know you’re troubled by the thought of  the .3 member: he’s been divorced twice and is paying alimony.)

 

Bipartisanship at its finest: everyone working together to create wealth for people that are themselves (See more information at: http://www.opensecrets.org/)

 

But really, you don’t have to worry about the divorced guy because if you go to opensecrets.org, you find that 40-50% of those who speak in sound bites are millionaires. Many, it’s true, are what we would call “poor” millionaires; they have assets worth less than $10 million. Not because they aren’t trying, but because so many congressional shoppers are out there looking for deals. Every day is Black Friday for Congress, and the mall is always crowded. Of course the assets listed on the website don’t necessarily reflect their spouse’s income, their congressional income, or the true value of their assets, so maybe some of them are just being modest.

 

I am upset.

 

I, too, can sit in chairs and fail to come to a consensus. I have had years of bitterness training, so I could add a lot to bitter partisanship. I get cold easily and would not mind cozying up to rich corporations with a few hot deals to share. I like to fly around in private jets and bring my family. I can talk for hours without saying anything of substance, and I love flip-flops. Why am I not in Congress getting rich off of the 99%!

 

If we want to get out of this economic slump and create wealth in this country, we need to enact mandatory Congress duty. It would be just like jury duty; all eligible Americans would serve one to two terms, enough time to double or triple their wealth. And I think that whoever she is in northeastern Wisconsin but originally from Texas that thought of this should serve first.

Math has problems

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My earliest introduction to math was positive. I happily held up my fingers, repeating after the teacher, “One plus one equals two,” joyfully unaware of what was to come.

One day, however, after the class sang a particularly moving rendition of the Alphabet Song, the teacher asked us to raise our hands. At her bidding, I held up my short, stubby fingers expecting to do addition. Without warning she said, “Now we’re going to take away one of your fingers.” Imagine my terror. Which one? And how? By sharp knife or chewed off by wild animals? I was relieved that I didn’t have to give her the finger; she only wanted me to bend it, but the image has haunted me all of my life.

Not too much later, the teacher began vaporizing numbers before my eyes, wanton obliteration of numbers which she euphemistically called “reducing them to zero.” Thankfully this early and repeated exposure to the ideas of removing fingers and total annihilation, all taught coolly and calmly with no emotion, and by an elementary school teacher, did not blind me to the callousness of arithmetic. No wonder I cried at math time.

Eventually, I grew used to the carnage around me and learned to accept both subtraction and zero with only an occasional outburst of conscience. Others I knew were not so fortunate.They loved slicing up numbers like so much pizza, and this attitude carried over into other parts of their lives. Some went on to split infinitives and leave participles dangling precariously. Years later, some of my classmates having learned that acts of violence against numbers had no consequences, went to English classes, where they attempted to murder the English language.

I passed through this early period with little outward effect and viewed math as a necessary evil. But when I got to algebra, I grew hopeful. Immediately I was introduced to variables. Letters at last, I thought; words cannot be far behind. But no, the  teacher wanted me to find “x” first. I didn’t mind; I enjoy helping others. The following day, he asked me to find it again. I wanted to remind him that I had found it once already and had even heard that my sister had found it two years before that. When he asked me to find the hypotenuse of a triangle, I wanted to speak to him about his carelessness. Not being able to find an occasional “x” or “y” is understandable. We all misplace items. However, the teacher had elevated carelessness to an art, regularly losing all the variables from “a” to “z” along with hundreds of hypotenuses a day. Outwardly he expressed a love for mathematics, but his disregard for individual numbers and variables showed the true condition of his heart.

Euclid's students express surprise when he gives birth to Geometry (Thankfully, Wikipedia was there to get this picture.)

Quadrants were introduced along with the strange question, “Where’s the point?” It became clear to me that mathematicians had difficulty finding the point of it all because they spent too much time with negative numbers. All that negativity rubs off on a person after a while. Soon they feel depressed and start plotting things. Sadly, there is no turning back from that slippery slope.

During this traumatic time, I was most disappointed by the so-called “word problems.” Perhaps this was because I longed for words, for dialogue, and a clear resolution. But the difficulties I encountered in these problems were not due to words, so much as a lack of words. Invariably the narrative lacked creativity and the characters were shallow. The story would have Jack leaving Chicago at 8 a.m. driving 50 mph, and Linda leaving Milwaukee at the same time, but driving 30 mph. Suddenly the teacher would ask me what time Jack and Linda would meet. However, I could not get past the fact that Jack was leaving. I was intrigued. What happened to cause Jack to leave Chicago? Did he bother to pack or leave a note? At 8 a.m. how could he possibly leave Chicago at 50 mph? The few times I had been through Chicago with my parents, the fastest we could travel was about 30 mph, but in the congested areas it was more like 20 mph. So there must have been a mistake; it must have been in the middle of the night. But why the haste? Was he being chased? If so, by whom? If it was the Mafia, then there was little hope he would ever meet up with Linda. And I wondered about her. At only 30 mph, she seemed less eager to see Jack than he was to see her. Why the hesitation? I needed more information, and yet, none was forthcoming.

I believe that the root of the problem is in the numbers themselves. Spartan and stoical, numbers tend to stand alone, need little beyond themselves, and shun excess. The less said, the better. Words, on the other hand, are epicurean, appealing to our senses. They tend to be generous, lavish, sensuous, even excessive. The mathematician uses words like numbers, comes up with a story of 25 words or less, and then asks others to help with the plot line.

Then there is the issue of inequality. Math is un-American. Mathematicians teach that some numbers are greater than others and always will be. Have they never read the Constitution and what it says about equality? They show no care or sympathy for the weaker or lower numbers, compare them shamelessly to bigger numbers, and yet count on them to be there when they need them.

Another concern is number procreation, or as it is more commonly called, multiplication. Numbers mate indiscriminately and often, more often than many may imagine, divide again. What exactly is this teaching young, impressionable minds?  What is equally disturbing is the mating of the positive numbers with the negative numbers. This leads to more negative numbers, which as I mentioned leads to depression.  It’s true that something positive does come out of two negative numbers mating, however, astronomers, all stellar mathematicians, have created imaginary negative numbers whose offspring are also negative. I suspect this comes of so much time spent staring out into darkness. Perhaps a day job is recommended.

Mathematics breeds a sense of hopelessness. Like women’s work, there is no end to it; at the end of the day there is always at least one more number to count. Numbers go on and on forever; there is no stopping them. I empathize; I have relatives like that. And it is not just the numbers. Those confounded numbers lines also go on forever like Saturday at the grocery store.

Am I going to pretend I am blameless? No, friends, for I, too, have participated in the dark side of math. I could try to proclaim my innocence by saying, “Yes, I played around with equations when I was young, but I never solved any.” But I admit, I bowed to peer pressure and spent many late nights doing things to numbers that even my math teachers considered wrong.

Is math a problem? Actually, it is many problems. How do we solve these problems? I don’t know; that’s why I’m sharing my story with you. Perhaps you know of a solution.

Once a pun a time, or why you shouldn’t judge me

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Samuel Johnson frowning at Shakespeare's puns (courtesy of Wikipedia)

 

Samuel Johnson called punning the lowest sense of humor. I would take offense but the man is dead, and he wouldn’t care. When he wasn’t speaking ill of puns, Johnson collected words to put in his little dictionary of the English language, frowned through all of Shakespeare’s plays because they are full of puns and then annotated them out of spite, got grouchy and criticized literature (in a scholarly way), and tossed off poems, essays, and biographies before breakfast.

 

So, yes, we have a lot in common. But, we do not share the same opinion about puns. I think of them as the dark chocolate of humor; good any time of the day, at or between meals, with coffee or wine, with or without nuts, and in all forms.

Well known pharmaceutical company (photo by gabrielsaldana at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrielsaldana/5704626269/

 

I know what you’re thinking. No, friend, I am not addicted to chocolate. I use it purely for medicinal purposes. First, chocolate is good for the heart. I have loved chocolate since before I remember, and that’s how long my heart has been beating. If I stop eating chocolate, my heart may stop. I can’t risk that. Second, chocolate is good for the brain. You have only to read this blog to see the effects of lots of dark chocolate on my brain. Impressive, no? (Note: some questions on this blog are for rhetorical purposes only and in no way imply that you need to answer.)

 

As for the compulsive punning, I have spoken of it once before, and it is a kind of brain disorder called Foerster’s Syndrome that I self-diagnosed years ago. I have been self-diagnosing for years and have experienced multiple medical miracles along with bouts of alliteration in which I have been healed of life-threatening diseases of the nervous system, the digestive system, and for a short time, the bubonic plague, all without any medical intervention whatsoever. My baffled doctors attributed my symptoms to indigestion and the common cold. As if. No doubt there’s a connection between their bafflement and lack of chocolate.

 

All I’m asking for is a little compassion, friend, if and when I publish a post full of puns, even if it’s tomorrow.

The noble peasant

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Peasant blood flows through me. I like simple food, simple clothes, and a simple home. Even my mind is simple. I am a plodder and a hard worker – show me the broom, hand me the rag, and I will get to work and make it shine. Get me started; I will finish.

 

That is fancy talk for: I am a neurotic. I feel compelled to finish what I start, no matter how unpleasant it is, and I’ve convinced myself that there is something noble about doing so.

 

I also must take anything that is free. Two packets of artificial sugar are served with my coffee? I must take them home. Do I use artificial sugar? No. Have I ever used it? No. Does anyone in my family use it? (Note to self: Please stop asking questions you know the answer to.) But you never know, smarty-pants self. Occasionally, someone visits, asks for some, and I win.

 

When we travel I must take the toiletries placed in my room. If I don’t, the hotel will buy fewer products, which leads to a lower demand for products, fewer jobs, higher unemployment, and societal breakdown. So I do it for your sake, friend. I am noble that way.

 

Proof of how I am saving the economy. You're welcome.

 

I also ask others for their free toiletries, so I have bags of stuff. A number of years ago, I reached into one of those bags and pulled out a small, silver tube of toothpaste. I put all of it on my toothbrush and nearly gagged when I started brushing. Ack, I thought, this is disgusting. I continued brushing, gagging and sputtering the entire time, but finally completed the task I started out to do. After rinsing my mouth several times to get the taste out of my mouth, I looked at the little tube more closely. In tiny letters, it read: Shaving Cream.

 

Yes, I carefully brushed all of my teeth with shaving cream, starting at the back with my molars, working in a clockwise direction on each tooth, brushing both sides, and remembering to brush the tops of my molars. Did I brush my tongue? Probably. My neurosis goes to the dentist with me, so it knows the drill. (Gag alert: gratuitous pun.)

 

For a sparkling shave, I suggest Crest; for stubble-free teeth, my choice is Barbasol

 

If this neurosis had a blog, the comment section would be closed. So I’ve learned to live with it and call it being frugal or noble, but if you  read the fine print, you’ll see what it really is.