25 Things

I didn’t get on Facebook until 2009. My friend Jay has reminded me several times that, prior to joining Facebook, I was like, “Screw that! Nobody needs to know MY business.” He then further reminds me that, within a week, I was on Facebook and had started a blog. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say. Anyway, right when I started Facebook, there was this wonderful thing going around called 25 Random Things About Me. If you got tagged, you had to post 25 things about yourself on your wall. That, my friends, was my crack. I couldn’t get enough of peoples’ 25 Things. Your kitten in first grade was named Boo? Dynamite! Cilantro is your favorite herb? Keep talking! You’ve lived in ten different states? WHAT STATES, GODDAMMIT?! DON’T KEEP ME IN SUSPENSE!!!!!

I missed out on the 25 Things craze because I was too busy freaking out about how bad I sucked at law school to think of them. Recently, however, I was trolling on a new Facebook friend’s page, I noticed her 25 Things, and I was taken back to those glory days. So here’s my take on 25 Things. All true.

1. I didn’t know that yams and sweet potatoes were totally different things until I was 26.

2. And I’ve been busy smacking people with the yams/sweet potato truth ever since. Look it up, nonbelievers!

3. My son forbade me from buying wedge shoes for several years. He called them Slut Shoes.

4. I don’t think my son’s knowledge of sluts is very good.

5. There is an onsite pharmacy at my job, where I am on a first-name basis with the pharmacist.

6. As a matter of fact, when I was off of work for two months to study for the bar, the first time I walked into the pharmacy after my return, the pharmacist shouted, “WHERE have you BEEN?!”

7. I have a pet pencil at work. Its name is Pency. I get a little panicked when Pency wanders off.

8. When you talk about your child’s food allergies, I am rolling my eyes on the inside.

9. Do you think moms whose kids are eating out of garbage piles in India are bitching about whether or not their child’s trash-picked dinner is gluten free?

10. How am I doing here? Number ten? Woot! I’m on a roll!

11. I am the opposite of a compulsive liar. I am a compulsive truth-teller.

12. One time, I was at an open house for a business – I was there for the free cookies – and someone asked me if I already owned the product they were selling. “Yes,” I mumbled weakly just to get away. And then thirty seconds later had to confess. I still took the cookie, though.

13. I really suck at Words With Friends. But I actually think that makes me a better friend.

14. I think it’s a person’s solemn duty to try to charm his or her way out of speeding tickets.

15. I mean, seriously. You think you’re helping yourself by acting sullen to a police officer? Amateur!

16. There is a grammar rant coming up on facts #19 and #20.

17. Sometimes the tragic stories of my life make my shrink laugh so hard she starts crying. So I guess I’m getting something wrong in the delivery.

18. I have taught my dog all of her commands in English and Swedish. Which, in truth, means that she just does whatever the hell she wants.

19. If you’re an adult, and you still don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re,” I really think there is something the fuck wrong with you.

20. And when people say, “Well, I’m just not good at grammar,” I nearly flip my lid. Guess what? I’m not good at directions. Do you think I use that as an excuse to drive to the casino every day instead of where I’m supposed to be going? No! I figure it out!

21. My last quarter of undergrad, I took two classes pass/fail: Hip Hop Dance and Hip Hop Music History. Go Bucks!

22. There are so many times that I want to say to people, “Snitches get stitches.” There is nothing funnier than a middle-class white lady saying that.

23. The 23rd fact is always the worst.

24. I love the word “forbade,” as used in fact #3.

25. I used to think I was pretty smart. Then I went to law school.