13 Things I'm Embarrassed About

Or: Things people who see me everyday probably don't know, but I'm telling all of my Internetweb friends so please don't tell anyone else. 'Cause seriously? Some of this shit is just appalling. (By the way, Stefanie actually did this last week and I thought it was a brilliant topic for a Thursday 13 meme. Don't forget to do YOUR 13 things you're embarrassed about so I won't be alone with my shame.)

1. I watch television all the damn time.
2. I don't really understand exactly how politics works - House, Senate, Judicial Branch, Executive branch, checks and balances, all that - I get it. But ask me to explain the concept of popular vote vs. what are those other things called? See, exactly. But I did volunteer for the Kerry campaign in the fall of 2004, so I know enough to be dangerous.
3. My car is so filthy on the inside (dog hair, mostly, but still! Disgusting) that I live in fear that someone will ask me for a ride home in a blizzard and I'll say no, because they're better off walking through a blizzard than sitting in my car.
4. My husband handles all of our finances. Can I just say, I NEVER thought this would be me. In my first marriage, I handled all the finances. I was the one with "financial savvy" (did you hear that sound? That's the sound of husband #2 laughing so hard, he just fell off his chair.) Now I'm like a housewife in the 1950s. I don't know how much we make, exactly. I don't know what we paid or didn't pay in taxes in 2005. I don't know what our mortgage payment is, or how much our monthly maintenance fee is or what we pay for electricity. I'm like one of those commercials for a "Women and finance" workshop, where there's a young-ish widow saying, "Steven handled all those things. Now he's gone and I'm in big trouble. I wish I had paid attention to these things when he was around."
5. I really, really, really love crappy candy. Sophisticated my palate is not. Godiva chocolate? Forget it. I will take a bag of Chicks-Ducks-and-Bunnies-shaped SweetTarts any day. I am a grown woman who has been known to walk into one of those little candy store places and ask, "Where are your sour apple belts, please?"
6. The Lion King makes me cry every time I watch it. When Mufasa dies? And little lion cub Simba is saying, "C'mon, Dad, we have to go home," I cry. Not just misty-eyed, dabbing at my face daintily with a handerchief. Oh, no. Blubbering, tears/snots rolling down my face. Every time. Hell, I'm choked up right now just typing it.
7. On that same note, I am a Disney-phile. And I should know better. I have read about Disney. About their scandalous marketing techniques, about how everything is a merchandising opportunity and how their cheap crap is made by 3-year-olds in sweatshops in Malaysia and how Jeb Bush lives in Disney World's pocket and how the images of "princesses" ruin young girls' body images and ambition and still. I even forced myself to read an expose about Disney (called The Mouse Betrayed, if you must know). If someone said, "What's your ideal vacation destination?" before my sophisticated adult self got a hold of itself and replied, "Well, if it's spring, Monaco, but in the winter, we really love Santiago, Chile" I would blurt out "Disneyworld!"
8. I'm really impatient and bossy. If you're a regular Teacher Lady reader, you've probably figured this out already. I like to attribute my bossiness to the fact that I'm the oldest (which makes me a big believer in "birth order theory"), but I honestly think I was just born that way. It makes my real-life, flesh-and-blood friends all the more precious. Thank you, Schietto Sister, for putting up with me and my innate bossiness.
9. I can't do any "cocktail party tricks." I can't wiggle my ears, or tie a marischino cherry stem in a knot with my tongue. I can't pull a quarter out from behind your ear. Hell, I don't even know any card tricks. I don't know any good jokes, either. I'm a bad guest, which brings me to . . .
10. I really can't cook. This is different from claiming I can't just so I don't have to. I have ruined rice. I once tried to make a pasta sauce that called for ONE clove of garlic. Guess what I did? I threw in a WHOLE bulb of garlic. In a blender. At least that's one lesson I learned that seems to have stuck with me. If it can be burned or scorched or otherwise ruined, I will ruin it. If I manage not to ruin the food, I will injure myself. My personal favorite story? Trying to make a Tiramisu (don't ask me who I was trying to impress - I can't remember, but we all know damn well it was some guy), I opened the cupboard to get something and the roll of Saran Wrap (in box) fell and that jagged metal strip hit me on the skin between my fingers. You know something about that skin between the base of your index and middle fingers? It bleeds. A lot. At least now I keep all my "Wraps" - Saran, Reynolds, what have you - in a drawer where they cannot come flying out unannounced and attack me. Oh - and did I mention a Tiramisu requires separating eggs? After ruining too many eggs to count, I got in my car and drove the eggs to a friend's house so SHE could separate them for me. God, I owe her a phone call. That's a true friend.
11. Inexplicably, I love really expensive cooking stuff. I worked at Williams-Sonoma for TWO Christmas seasons. My pots and pans are All-Clad stainless. I have a KitchenAid blender and my large cooking utensils are all Calphalon. I even own a mezzaluna. All the better to poison you with, my dear.
12. I will never attend a high school reunion. Never. Not ever. And don't say, "Oh, you'll see - things happen - you'll change your mind," because that's what people say when I tell them J. and I aren't having any kids and THEY get the speech about the undescended testicle. So let's just say I consider high school one giant undescended testicle and leave it at that.
13. I name my cars. And J.'s cars, too. I don't know why. The first car I had right out of college was a cute little white Nissan Sentra. She was Miss Mappy and I loved her. Then I had Serena the silver Celica. I met J. and he drove a green Ford pick-up truck that I immediately named Otis (I think I waited until we were engaged to tell him this). Then Otis got old, J. bought a silver (practical) Mazda Protege and I named it Ralphie. One day I said to J., "I sure miss Otis." J. must have had enough of my ridiculousness for one day and said curtly, "Otis is dead. Ralphie killed him," and I almost cried. Now J. has a Merlot colored Saab that I named Viktor. And J. pretends not to know this about me anymore.