Since we were all women, unsurprisingly the conversation turned to the question of weight, and one woman offered this possible alternative view.

“Say you weigh 150 pounds, but you want to weigh 125,” she explained. “If you think about it, you do already weigh 125-plus a little extra. So you could use an affirmation that says ‘I am at my goal weight’ because you are.”

“That’s true,” piped up another woman. “Apparently a lot of us are just overachievers!”

She is actually a student of Kung Fu, and is about to test for her purple belt.

But the fun did not stop with an inventory of her lethally dangerous back seat. After she finished listing all the weapons with which we were vaguely familiar she told us, “I also used to have a [name of some unpronounceable Chinese weapon] that was really big. I named it My Little Brother but my friend [Important Side Note: a guy friend] told me I had to call it My Johnson.

So the next time I saw him I told him that I hadn’t had any time recently to practice with My Johnson. I totally cracked him up.”

And almost caused a major car accident as the three of us were driving back from lunch at the time, and explosive, convulsive laughter tends to impair one’s ability to drive in a straight line.

Best. Lunch. Ever.

Friend 1 (to Friend 2): “So are we letting you drive?”

Friend 2: “Well I’m not riding in your car. I don’t want to accidentally sit on a dagger!”

Me: (doing a double-take, not quite sure I heard her correctly.)

Friend 1: “True. I do have about 3 in the backseat.”

Me: “Um, what?!”

Friend 1: “I also have a couple of double swords, a regular sword, and a spear.”

Me: “You’re like your own little Waco.”

I am out here to visit one friend I’ve known since I was 10 years old, and one friend I’ve known since I was 4. (I will be 34 on Sunday if that makes the math any easier for you.)

It’s always a gift to have friends, especially ones who have known you for so long (and who still like you anyway.) My Seattle friend and I went to elementary school together, and we loved to entertain ourselves by highlighting what were, to us, the seemingly mystical connections between us. My initials were JLD; her initials were JLC (spooky, huh?) And we were born at the same hospital, 9 days apart (can’t you just hear the music from the “Twilight Zone”?) We liked to joke that we were “Twins Separated At Birth”, which was funny for so many reasons, not the least of which is that she is (and always was) tall, lithe, graceful, and elegant. And I…am not. Not even a little bit.

My other friend was special because she always knew things I didn’t. Her mom was a nurse, and so she was always the first person around me to be conversant in The Facts Of Life. Even now, 30 years later, I find myself remembering things she said and having little “Aha!” moments (”O-o-h, so that’s what she meant!”)

I really wish I could say that I had some awesomely funny stories from our past adventures to share here with you now. But unfortunately I do not, because I was back then (as I continue to be now) just a Big Giant Nerd, but without any of the redeeming qualities I now possess that allow me to make up for that fact. Now, I am “witty”; then, I was just a geek. So all of my stories from that time would pretty much go like this:

I was very short and my hair always bushed out.

I did not know how to dress or how to talk to people.

I thought I knew everything.

But I was really stupid and embarrassing.

The End

So to conclude this extremely long and entirely rambling post that does not actually say anything (See: Hours spent on a plane, 187 jongjillion), I promise to be on the lookout for stories that contain some actual humor. Or at least, some pretty pictures for you to look at.

-”Grannie, do you want a beer?”

-”Isn’t it funny how easily your fake nails catch on fire when you’re using a lighter?”

After that I knew I would fit in just fine.

2. Learning today that it was not a python, but rather a boa constrictor. Apparently my friend has been visiting the snake on a regular basis over the past three days.

3. Hearing from my friend that, “It likes to curl around this button on my coat.”

4. And that, “It likes to curl around my neck and sleep under my hair.”

5. And that, “It LICKED MY EYE.”

6. And that, “It’s only $100, so I could buy it and then keep it with me in my coat when I come over to see you.”

The center where the retreat was being held was an hour away from the airport into which we all had to fly. As the arrangements were made to transport us all to our final destination, I ended up riding with someone who had rented a car and wanted people to ride with her and help her navigate. As anyone who knows me (or has read this blog) knows, I am a little challenged in that area. (And here in Atlanta, it gets a little warm in the summertime.)

I really don’t think I have the words to do this story justice, so I will just give you all the ingredients and let you imagine it for yourselves.

1 Car
3 Women
2 Passengers Prone to Motion Sickness
Only 1 Front Seat
3 Sets of Directions, all starting and ending at the same place
3 Sets of Directions, all of which were completely different

Believe it or not, we did finally get there, and we were actually on time.

Once we had all checked in, we were each given a goody bag filled with amazing gifts that different artists, writers, and other creative folks had donated for the weekend. In order to make sure we didn’t miss anything, our fearless leader and retreat organizer went through her goody bag in front of the whole group and called attention to all the items one-by-one. I think this particular item was our favorite.

What she said: “And here is an offer for some business coaching.”
What we all heard: “And here is an offer for some bitchiness coaching.”
What we all said: “I don’t think any of us need coaching in that area.”

After we got all of our goodies we went around the circle and introduced ourselves. This particular moment actually happened at last year’s retreat, but since I didn’t have a blog then I’m including it now.

One of the women there was talking about how coming to the retreat was a really big deal for her because she often had problems getting out of the house and being around groups of people. Then she said this:

“But this is great. You guys aren’t irritating me at all!”

I think I filed that under the heading of, Most Dubious Compliment Ever Received.

This next moment also took place, this year, during our introductory circle.

As part of our program for the weekend, the second evening was dedicated to various small presentations from different members of our group. One of the retreat participants who specializes in event planning helped to organize this, and she said that her husband was a bit, um, taken aback by some of the phone conversations he heard during the planning phases. For example,

“Um, honey, did I hear you asking about fairy wands?”
“And were you wondering where to put them?”

So we made it through our first evening, and then I got to start my day off the next morning with this conversation.

Wild Child: “Hey, last night my roomate and I did a ‘Jenny’.”
FYI: If someone names something after you, it’s not because it’s anything good.
Wild Child: “We got off the elevator, and we didn’t know whether to turn left or right. You’re contagious.”
Me (to myself): Hm, this wasn’t really what I had in mind when I hoped that people would become fans of my blog.

All too soon the weekend came to an end, and it was time for us to say goodbye. As I was walking around the room hugging everyone, I got to one cluster that included the keynote speaker for the weekend. She is a pretty well-known author and speaker in the art and creativity world and as I approached, I heard the woman talking to her say, as if it were the most normal conversational response in the world,

“One day you’ll have to go out on the balcony and show your tentacle.”

Clearly that was not the moment to join that particular conversation.

Finally it was time to go home, and I was fortunate to be on the same flight as one of my fellow Wild Children. She was remarking on how excited the airline seemed to be about the fact that they had five different snack choices for us, and she said,

“You do realize that we’ve only heard the annoucement about what to do in case of a crash once on each flight, but we’ve now heard the announcement about our snack choices for the eighth time.”

My dad and my brother are exactly the same way, so I always know that if I am ever out with any one of these three men I am always OK. (I also know that I don’t actually have to pay attention to pesky little details like street names, street signs, the name of the actual city or country in which we are currently located, etc. because they will take care of all of that for me.) Plus, if the three of them are all together then it is like their navigational powers are amplified, so not only do we get where we’re going more quickly and more efficiently, but we also always have a parking spot waiting for us right by the door.

In contrast, I myself am never entirely sure of where I am in any given moment, and if you ask me how to get from one place to another there’s a very good chance that at least part of my answer is going to involve the phrase “by magic”. My husband has learned in giving me directions to avoid such tricky technical terms as “north” or “east”, and instead to stick to simple instructions like, “turn left by the big chicken”.

Unfortunately, this lack of navigational ability only increases if my mom and I take a trip by ourselves. Last fall she and I drove together to another state to stay with a relative who was ill. Every Single Day we had the exact same conversation: “Do we turn left out of the hotel parking lot, or do we turn right?” Every. Day. Not only did we not have a virtual map in our minds, nor could we remember from one day to the next in which direction we’d turned, but it never once occurred to us to write down the correct answer at the moment in which this decision occurred.

This Vortex of Spatial Dislocation only intensified the night that she, I, and another relative had to go to the grocery store by ourselves. (And I don’t mean to perpetuate unfortunate gender stereotypes here, but this particular relative was also of the female persuasion.) The three of us got in the car, set off on the very same road on which we had JUST driven on our way back from the hospital, and , you guessed it, turned the wrong way. And it took us AT LEAST ten minutes to recognize this fact.

The good news is that we all did survive this trip and manage to return home, and I discovered that if I really, really HAVE to I can reach down and tap into hitherto undiscovered navigational abilities. And I also discovered that on Volkswagen’s “road of life”, we are all much better served when I am just a passenger.

From what I can tell, the message of political correctness seems to be that while we respect and honor each other’s differences we don’t actually focus on them when we interact with each other, but rather focus on our common humanity. While this is a nice idea in theory, I have found in my life that I do occasionally need to take some differences into account, especially when I find myself in an extremely masculine environment like, for example, a feed store, and it is painfully obvious that I do not fit in.

My personal M.O. in a situation like this is to morph into “helpless female” mode: big eyes, self-deprecating smile, and a speech that starts out with some kind of comment like, “Well, my husband usually takes care of this for me, but today he sent me and I really don’t know what I’m doing.” This is not at all politically correct, but it is extremely effective. This is why I am able to do things like buy poultry feed, get our knives sharpened, talk to the internet customer service people, and get our car serviced. In these situations I am more than happy to let people who actually know what they are doing tell me what the best thing is for me to do, and then pay them for their services or products.

There are some people with whom this approach doesn’t work, such as one gentleman I met while I was working at a construction company. He firmly believed that because I was female and was working in the office, it was my God-given responsibility to make him coffee. Now, I don’t drink coffee, so it never occurred to me to make any (not to mention the fact that I don’t actually know how). Also, I have found that people who do drink coffee can be very particular about how it is made, and it is better to just let them do it themselves. But when I tried to explain this to him, this was his response: “Well, my wife didn’t help me build our house, but she still gets to live there.”

This approach also seems not to work with techo-guys who work at computer stores, as I discovered last fall when my husband and I had to make some technology related purchases. We decided to split up the list and I was deputized to go and get one particular item. I memorized exactly what he told me to ask for, went up to the counter, turned on my “vibe”, and …nothing. Not only nothing, but I was actually passed by at least three different sales guys. However, the second that my husband started walking in my direction, salespeople FLEW over from all corners of the store, tripping over themselves in their eagerness to sell him something. (Not that I am bitter).

It is also fun to flip this around and to not act like a stereotypical female with someone who is expecting it, like my mom. She grew up in the 1950’s when women went to finishing school, wore gloves, discussed etiquette, and always had a hot dinner on the table for their husbands even if they also had a job outside the home. When I was first married she and I had a lot of conversations like this:

My mom: “Well, I’d better let you go now so you can get dinner ready.”

Me: “I’m not cooking.” Or even better, “It’s [my husband’s] turn to cook tonight.”

My mom: Deep gasp, followed by silence, followed by a quiet, “Oh.”

As Shania Twain sings, “The best thing about being a woman/is the prerogative to have a little fun.”

And, I do.