I’ve been tagged to complete this task.
When I was probably between eight and ten, we had just come in from recess, and was skipping down the short hallway in my small school and passed one of the older girls (actually, THE oldest student) bending over to take a drink out of the water fountain. Being such a small school, everyone knew everyone else, and I didn’t think twice but took a swing at the girl’s protruding rear end with the flat of my hand. She turned and gave me a whithering look, being too old to tackle me with retribution. “You,” she said in an obvious effort to shame me into contrition, “are weird.”
This was one of the defining moments of my life, not because of what she said but because of how I answered. I had recently learned a wonderful trait of human nature, that if someone insults you and you seem pleased, it drives the offending party crazy. My friend Angela, who was always fighting with her weight, and I would play this game at my neighborhood swimming pool. Some cruel teenage boys would call her “water pig” until she cried. One day we passed them on the way to the pool, and they began their usual taunting. “Say, ‘Thank you for the compliment!'” I hissed at her, and she did, loudly and sassily. We laughed hilariously while the boys continued on their way in silence. It’s so much nicer to be able to laugh instead of cry.
So when my older schoolmate called me weird, I instantly answered, “Thank you!” She looked at me in shock, not because I had foiled her plan to put me in my place, but out of what I think was probably genuine concern. Perhaps she was envisioning what sort of life my acceptance of this diagnosis would entail. But she quickly recovered, rolled her eyes, and walked off displaying as much maturity as she could role model.
My thrill of triumph at this quick debate gave way to wondering exactly what I had admitted. Perhaps I really was weird? Up until that point in life I hadn’t thought about it and certainly hadn’t worried about avoiding that kind of stigma. But what was so wrong about being weird anyway? It meant being different, unique, standing out from the crowd. Those were all good things. Being weird wasn’t all that bad!
So at that moment I made a decision. It was a decision not so much of choosing to be weird but more of a choice to not put any effort into appearing normal.
Since then I have been accused many times of being weird. And instead of being offended, I nod and say, “Yes, I know.”
I guess it was sometime in my teen years that I realized something else. I’m not weird at all. I’m actually one of the most normal people I know. It’s the rest of the world that’s completely screwball. I don’t have tattoos or piercings all over my body in painful places. I don’t get dramatic haircuts or color my hair bright colors or spike it into dangerous protrusions. I always dress very modestly and conservatively. I am slow to speak and try to make my words thoughtful, insightful, or entertaining. And yet everyone who has ever met me has thought, and sometimes said, “You’re a little strange.”
In fact, I don’t have any piercings at all, not even my ears; I never wear jewelry, so why would I need holes? I have very long brown hair that I occasionally get my husband to trim (I’ve been to a stylist once in my life, and that’s when my mother convinced me to let her hairdresser give me a trim). I wear jeans and a tee-shirt every day with tennis shoes in the summer and boots and a flannel shirt in the winter, usually “men’s” clothes, not because I want to appear masculine but because they’re made out of comfortable things like cotton, wool, and leather, not polyester and plastic; occasionally, someone makes me wear a dress. And I generally refuse to engage in small talk; instead I launch into the historical significance of the Napoleonic Wars on a drink or mention that basin somewhere in Wyoming where carbon monoxide from volcanic vents sinks down and kills every living thing that wanders into it, just because those sorts of things interest me.
So instead of listing six weird things about me, I’m going to list six things I consider perfectly normal about myself.
1. I don’t wear makeup or jewelry, other than my wedding band. I don’t even wear a watch, because I hate having things on my wrists. I could cite I Peter 3:3 or claim I’m lazy, but I just don’t like doing it. It feels wrong. And I have never been interested in trying to improve on what God did. At the same time I don’t feel critical of people who do; I’ve just never seen the point myself.
2. I don’t shave or wax or laser. I haven’t except except once in the past nine years. Mainly this is because I hate it; also, see above.
3. I don’t know my bra size. This is because I don’t wear one. Some people seem to think I should, but no one has satisfactorily explained to me why. They’re hot, uncomfortable, and binding. The reasons I’ve heard have always sounded a lot like the pros of Chinese foot binding.
4. I enjoy the smell of burning flesh. It reminds me of my job working as an anesthesia aide in the operating room whenever the surgeons pulled out the cauterizer…ah, good times.
5. My favorite pizza toppings are anchovy and pineapple, but it’s hard to get a pizza place to believe you when ordering a pineapple anchovy pizza. In the last couple years I’ve also come to really enjoy bacon and pepperoncinis, so I’ll have to try ordering a pizza with all four sometime. Unfortunately, it will have to be a time my husband is not around since he will not be able to be in the same building as an anchovy without throwing up.
6. My mobile phone does not include a camera.
Now I have to tag six other people. The last time I did this no one played along. So here’s the deal: you have one week to complete this task. If you don’t, I’ll do it for you. And I won’t be kind.
Berck, Ben, Sarah, Sydney, Nathan, and Noell (But the deadline doesn’t apply to Noell because I know she’ll do it, but she only reads the blog once a month or so.)
Actual Fact: In 301, Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion, 12 years before Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313.