The Junk Drawer

If you’ve read my 10 Things I Don’t Have the Guts to Do post, you might assume I’ve left most scary things to the experts. That’s not entirely true. I have tried some fear-inducing things in the past. Some didn’t end so well, and that’s why they were a one-shot deal.

The High Dive from Hell

I was lucky as a kid to have a community pool only three blocks from my house. It was my home away from home most summers. For years I watched other kids jump off the high dive, marveled at their fearlessness and wished I could be like them.

I don’t remember the circumstances that led me one day to climb that ladder and patter down to the end of the board. I guess I wanted to say that I did it, even if it ended with me passing out or winding up in the ER.

With a throng of friends cheering me on below, I glanced at the water that, to me, appeared a mile away. Fear punched me in the face and I wished I’d left well enough alone.

I considered heading back down the way I came up, but I reasoned that my embarrassment would be worse than the fear of flying through the air. Besides, it always looked so fun when other people did it. All I had to do was step off the board and fall in! Weeeeeee!!!!

Oh, yeah, and I should have planned the flying-through-the-air part.

When I jumped off the board, I did so feet-first. As soon as I was airborne, I changed my mind and decided I’d like to do a head-first dive. Physicists and people with an IQ over 23 know that unless you’re a cat, you cannot change your body position while falling such a relatively short distance.

But I tried anyway and damn near killed myself in the process.

According to diving experts, “At the moment of take-off, two critical aspects of the dive are determined, and cannot subsequently be altered during the execution. One is the trajectory of the dive, and the other is the magnitude of the angular momentum.”

I landed with a lot of magnitude. Do you remember that earthquake in Pennsylvania in 1977? That was me.

Here’s what a normal pike dive looks like for someone who’s planning to open the pike and enter the water head-on, perfectly straight.

Look again. That’s exactly how I hit the water.

Pain ripped through me in ways I hadn’t known before, like a hundred little knives stabbing me in the gut. All the physical pain was localized to my abdomen, but the emotional pain was much worse.

Because I was under the water, I couldn’t see the looks on the spectators’ faces. But I imagined everyone wincing in unison, while clutching their own stomachs. That had to hurt, I’m sure they thought.

What little ego I had before going in was washed away as I surfaced from the Dive from Hell. To their credit, my friends didn’t laugh at me. Instead, they gathered around to make sure I was OK and hadn’t broken anything.

My ribs were fine, and so was my head, but I certainly had the wind knocked out of me. The only thing broken was my spirit. I never tried anything like that again in my life. But I did learn two important lessons. One, if your instinct tells you not to do something, listen to the voice. It usually knows when you’re about to be an idiot. And, two, I’m not a cat.

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Humor-bloggers prefer the belly-flop.

My husband Dave and I have been dieting religiously the last six weeks, but we lost our minds tonight and ordered take-out.

Here’s what Dave asked for when he placed the order by phone:

• Four cheeseburgers with mayo
• Two perogies
• One garlic knot

Here’s what we got when I picked it up and brought it home:

• Four cheeseburgers with mayo
• Two orders of perogies (3 to an order)
• And this…….

One garlic knot.

Every other time we’ve ordered from there, “one garlic knot” meant “one order of garlic knots,” which contains six knots. Ordering one garlic knot is akin to ordering a single french fry. It’s just not done.

The joke was on us. We got exactly what we asked for.

I don’t know about you, but we can eat about ten of these, and that’s after the burgers and perogies. So who took ownership of the one knot? Our cat, Stinky. She was smelling it up and down while I took this picture. Now we don’t have to split it, which is good because half a delicious knot is worse than no knot at all.

If you think my brain is twisted enough when I’m awake, you should see how things look when I’m asleep.

Here are a few of the recurring dreams I’ve been having for years:

1. I’m lying on the couch in the living room of my childhood home. The room is packed from floor to ceiling with very large balloons. They are suffocating me. It’s only when the clown comes downstairs and parts the balloons as he walks through the room that I can breathe again.

2. I’m suspended on a girder that sits perpendicular to the top of a familiar bridge in a nearby city. I straddle the end of it and, as it pivots, the girder swings way out over the river and I’m screaming. I don’t know how I got there or if I can get down. I feel death is imminent.

3. In my childhood neighborhood, I’m swimming through waterless air down a hill near my home. I do the breaststroke all the way to the little candy store at the bottom of the hill and around the corner. When I get there, I land lightly on my toes and walk into the store, where I go on to buy Giant Pixie Stix. I consider it very normal to have flown there.

4. I’m trying to put a punch bowl-sized contact lens in my right eye. It does not seem impossible that I can do this. In fact, I manage to squeeze the lens all the way in — and it fits perfectly. I don’t know how. It just does. I never put one in the left eye.

Why do I keep having these bizarre dreams over and over? Beats me. I suppose if you want to try and analyze them, you can. But maybe I don’t want to know.

I’m just glad I stopped having the one where I’m being chased by a homicidal maniac with a cleaver and a gun.

Care to share your wackiest dreams? Scary, fun, inexplicable? Recurring or not, let’s hear ’em!

* Yes, that’s me in the clown gear.

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My worst nightmare is that my ranking drops at Humor-Blogs.com. So click that link!

Now that the weather is getting warmer here in Pa., my sister Marlene and I have begun walking 30-45 minutes a day after work. We weave our way through her neighborhood, happy in the knowledge that spring is right around the corner and that we’re so dedicated to our exercise routine. We’ll be hotties by May, I’m sure of it.

Our walks are always pleasant and uneventful. But last Thursday was different. As we passed a random house, I heard a dog barking nearby and glanced over to find an unleashed one running straight towards me. I prayed there was an invisible fence that would stop it in its tracks. No such luck. He ran out into the street, right up to my knees and thought to himself “Do I take a bite out of the left leg or the right?”

I screamed immediately and Marlene grabbed my hand and pulled hard. “Come over here! Hurry!” My heart was already racing from our aerobic walking, but it was beating even faster at the prospect of having to fend off this creature. Its owners called to it, but it did not respond.

Marlene yanked me along and I never looked back. And then I almost started to cry. Still shaking a block away, I lectured to no one in particular that dog owners need to leash their dogs. Yes, I know most of the time dogs are fuzzy-wuzzy puppy wuppies, but you can never really predict how they’ll act in every situation.

I’m afraid of a lot of strange things, but my fear of dogs is not without reason. When I was a kid we lived near a couple who owned a German Shepherd we’ll call Satan. Our backyards faced each other, split by a small alley. Whenever they couple would come home from somewhere, the dog would freely jump out of the car and start barking at everything. He was as nasty as they come, but its owners loved him. “Oh, he won’t bite,” they would always say.

One day while sledding down the Ice Hill of Death, I made the mistake of heading down just as they were coming home. My timing couldn’t have been worse. Their car door flew open and out came Satan.

All I remember was “Uh-oh. This isn’t good.” I was completely prone. Laying on my back and unable to stop the sled, it wasn’t long before I was met by a face full of glistening, razor-sharp teeth. I’m shaking as I write this. I never felt as defenseless before or since.

I remember screaming as Satan lined up his jaw, ready to take that first succulent bite of me. He went right for the head. Because I was shielding my face with my arm, that was all he could manage to sink his teeth into. Luckily, I was wearing a very thick coat and his teeth only got as far as the inner lining. Thank God for small miracles.

The woman yelled “Oh, it’s OK. You’re OK.” Um, no. I’m not OK. Your dog’s trying to eat my face and would you kindly get him off me? Her husband managed to break things up and I hightailed to my house, tears freezing to my face.

When I got my coat off and showed my parents my arm, we were all relieved there was no blood. He hadn’t punctured the skin, but there were rows of swollen red marks where a clamped jaw had just been. My peace-loving parents contemplated the rest of the night whether they should press charges against the owners, since it could have been much worse and I was still such a mess afterward.

They ultimately decided against it and everyone went on their merry, separate ways. Our families never spoke again, though a few evil eyes were exchanged over the years.

No, I wasn’t seriously hurt and I’m thankful for that. But some thirty years later, I still remember what that bite felt like and I’ll always be fearful of strange dogs, except ridiculously tiny ones that I can swat away like gnats. It’s the big ones that do me in every time. Thanks, Satan. Thanks a lot.

I recently asked readers whether I should flesh out some post ideas I had knocking around in my head. The overwhelming majority voted for my 5th grade troll picture.

You may remember my instructions for what not to do with curly hair. This picture takes it a step further and shows what happens when you straighten it out and then promptly walk outside into 90% humidity.

I managed to achieve The Bad Hair Trifecta: Curly to frizzy to flat-headedness in under an hour. I don’t even know why I’m smiling. I look like my brother Michael, in his long hair days (no offense to my brother). In fact, it’s more an offense to him.

Even if the hair looked okay, look at that shirt! Where did I get these clothes? Granted, we’re talking late-70s, but still. I was never a fashion plate, and don’t profess to be one today, but you would think I could find something in my closet other than Trapezoidal Cowl Neck Polyester for a school picture. What was I thinking?

Mock away — if you’ve made it this far. If you can’t take it, please come back in a couple days and I’ll have something more pleasant to look at like puppies and cotton candy.

Note: I will NOT be offended if you mock me mercilessly. I deserve it if I’m going to showcase the best of the worst on this blog. I do it as much for my own enjoyment as yours. The fact is, I’m old enough to know that this part of my life is safely behind me and it’s a healthy thing to laugh at yourself, loudly and often. Enjoy!