True Confessions .... 20 facts about me. corpgent’s write-off entry.
Apr 18 '03
The Bottom Line There is no bottom line.
1. I have managed to reach the ripe old age of 75, one year at a time. It seems like a long time, it seems like a short time.
2. At the age of twenty, I abruptly became seriously ill and was convinced that I was dying. For some unknown reason, it didn’t bother me that much. I remember saying to myself, “Well, at least I won’t have to do dishes any more.” Since that time, I have had no fear of death. I felt that I was truly living on borrowed time.
3. My first memory is of a childhood accident when I was two years old. My brother, three years older than myself, suggested that we climb into the front seat of our 1928 Chandler automobile and play “Mommy and Daddy.” The car was parked on top of a hill in front of a country store, where my parents were buying groceries. My brother released the hand brake and the car rolled down the hill towards a lake. He became frightened and jumped into the back seat, but I sat there in the front, watching the scenery roll by. Fortunately, before the car entered the lake, it hit a hitching post. The car stopped, but I continued on, right through the windshield. I remember my mother holding me in her arms and reading to me while my father frantically tried to find a doctor in rural Wisconsin on a Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t understand why my mother was crying. She never had done that before when she read to me.
4. My grandfather enlisted in the army in 1917 during World War I. He was fifty years old at the time. They needed engineers to rebuild bridges and such, so the army waived the age restrictions. He was gassed during his service in France and suffered lung problems the rest of his life.
5. I don’t think my father ever recovered from the shock of my remark as we were about to walk down the aisle at my wedding. I looked at him and said, “How did I ever get myself into a situation like this?”
6. Fast-forward twenty five years. My husband walked into the bedroom early one Monday morning, woke me up, and said, “I’m leaving. Which car should I take?”
I thought he was going to work, so I said, “Take whichever one you want.”
“I’ll take the Pontiac. That way I can lock my suitcase in the trunk,” he said.
I then surmised that he might be going into Denver on a business trip.
“I’m stopping at the bank to take out some money,” he stated.
“You can’t do that.”
“What do you mean, I can’t do that?” he barked indignantly.
“It’s Veterans Day. The bank is closed,” I said.
“$%@#$%#” he said, and stomped out of the house.
That was the last I ever saw of him.
7. The 1963 Land Rover he left me with soon needed some parts, which took a long time on their way from England, so I bought a 1975 Fiat Spider convertible to get me from work to home each day. I had beagles to take care of and it was the middle of winter. I could not walk through the snowdrifts in our little mountain town. Wow, was it a sexy car, bright orange, and it could turn on a dime. The only trouble was that when the beagles saw something interesting, they would just jump out, no matter where we were or how fast we were traveling. The reason I chose that car was that this was the only dealer that would deliver a car to me that very afternoon before any paper work with the bank was initiated. I wanted a car, and I wanted it NOW!
8. My best friend, Carol, has 28 cats. It really wasn’t something she planned. People keep bringing her abandoned cats, and she hasn’t the heart to turn them down. I give her cases of cat food every Christmas.
9. My Dodge van is now twenty years old. It is slowly rusting away in the Florida humidity, but I can’t bear to get rid of it. I wish it got better mileage. The last tune-up didn’t do a thing for its MPG.
10. My Sweetie does all the shopping and cooking. I taught him to cook in 1977 because I told him that someone who got single so often needed to be able to make something besides coffee. Since he retired and joined me in Florida, I am not allowed to go into the kitchen.
11. I have over 150 jig-saw puzzles. They are stacked in a corner of my storage room, floor to ceiling. Every time I think it is time to get rid of them, and start packing them up for the thrift store, I can’t seem to be able to get them down to the car. They are like old friends. I can’t abandon them.
12. As of today, I have 784 movies on videotape and DVD. The apartment complex I now live in has their own cable arrangement, so I cannot get premium channels without commercials. I seldom go to theaters because the sound is too loud for comfort, so it’s Blockbuster or Netflix for me.
13. Sweetie and I have a storage unit in Duluth, Minnesota, with most of our furniture in it. After almost eight years of storage charges, it would have been cheaper to get rid of the furniture. Who knows, we might go up there to live someday. It’s a great place to live.
14. After high school, I attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Its curriculum was commercial art, including dress design and cartooning. The first summer, I applied for work as an artist. One place I applied was on South Wabash Avenue. At my interview I discovered that the artistic work they wanted was painting black dots on dice, probably crooked dice, because surely they have machines that would stamp black dots on dice. I didn’t take the job.
15. Going back to my attempts to work as an artist......I finally wound up that summer painting shower curtains. My favorite pattern was swans and cattails. With piecework, I could make bunches of money with that pattern. I think I could still do that in my sleep, today.
16. After graduation from art school, I discovered that the advertising agencies hired the boys to do art work and the girls to do typing, both at ridiculously low rates of pay. Consequently, I then switched my goals and became an accountant. Much, much more money. After all, I couldn’t paint swans and cattails forever.
17. When I was in grammar school I received a scholarship to the Chicago Art Institute. It was a Saturday class, and although I was very young, I still remember everything about it. It was a marvelous opportunity.
18. While I was working at a University, which shall remain nameless, I was responsible for locking all my work in a large safe. One day, when I returned from lunch, there was someone rummaging through the safe. I was indignant. “How did you get into the safe?” I demanded. “Oh, didn’t you know? All the safes have the same combination.”
19. I used to have a little Chihuahua named Susie. I was into knitting at the time, and Susie and I had matching knitted outfits. Many times people would stop me and admire Susie’s outfit, but they never noticed mine, which took many, many hours longer to knit. Sigh.
20. This was really hard. Coming up with twenty things I could share. My last fact is that I am an advice column junkie. For details, see my last review, “Advice for advice junkies....”
For other participants in corpgent’s write-off, see http://www.epinions.com/content_3202850948
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Member: Pat
Location: Florida
Reviews written: 55
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