Odd skills I possess which include but are not limited to taking my pants and shoes off at the same time

Thanks for the votes, readers: the results of Nested’s Choose Your Own Adventure Prompt are in!

Your choices, for ye forgetful folk, were:

1. The Journey  Continuous Loss and Finding of the Ring (Like Bilbo, only with better...and less hair.)

2. The 12 Step Program for Getting Over Your Addiction to Angry Birds

3. Twitter for Idiots, i.e. Twitter for Me

4. Odd Skills I Possess Which Include but are Not Limited to Taking My Pants and Shoes  off at the same time.

5. Why I am Probably a Terrible Wife and You Should Never, Ever Marry Me 

6. The Tale of Carter the Pinner 

And, as I expected, we have a tie. With 4 votes each, the winners are Twitter for Idiots and Odd Skills I Possess Which Include but are Not Limited to Taking My Pants and Shoes Off at the Same Time. Next, with 3 votes, was The Tale of Carter the Pinner, which I may do anyways because it’s my blog and I want to. Not at all surprisingly, no one wants to get over their addictions to Angry Birds. But then again, why would you?

Twitter for Idiots, or “Twittiots,” is going to take some assembly and research. Expect it tomorrow. You could blame me for not being prepared, but you won’t because I don’t think any of us saw Twittiots winning out of that spectacular lineup. But tomorrow you shall have it, kittens!

Today, however, I can and will deliver the list of Odd Skills.

Taking My Pants and Shoes Off at the same Time

OK. Let’s be honest here and just admit that literally 80% of us do this. And if we don’t, we should. My technique is quite simple, actually. You have to be wearing shoes that are either loosely tied or easy to slip out of or else you will fall to either your death or embarrassment  You also have to be really lazy. The procedure is as follows:

1.      Go to the exact location where you wish to leave your pants. I find that doorways are best, preferably directly near a laundry basket into which you will not put the pants after you remove them.

2.      Do your unbuttoning/unsnapping and slide pants down to your ankles. If your significant other is in the room and you feel like being a little sexy or really freaking them out (depending on what type of person your SO is), conduct a little shake-it dance.

3.      Using the toe of your left shoe, ground your right shoe and fluidly slip foot out of both shoe and pant leg.

4.      Repeat with left foot and leave pants/shoes where they lay. (If SO trips over them later and yells at you, blame them for not having depth perception. It really was their fault. They know you. They should know by now where you leave your pants/shoes.)

From here, you can do whatever you want. You can put on another pair of pants. You could bathe. You could do the sex things or whatever makes you happy. I don’t care. I usually put on a different pair of pants. But these pants are made out of fleece and let my wobble go free. But, as with all of my commands, it’s totes optional.

Opening a Starburst with no hands

Ok, friends. This was the kind of thing that got you labeled as a slut in high school. Although, when my friend and I learned to do it because that’s what all the cool girls were doing, we had not idea what the act….represented. So we may or may not have spent an entire afternoon watching Never Been Kissed (when it was still “current” if that tells you how long ago and learning to open a Starburst in our mouths. One Sam’s Club size bag of Starbursts, a near diabetic coma, and a mid-operation snack of some Chex Mix later and we mastered the craft. Then we found out what it signified and never did it again. 

Now it’s just the kind of thing that when it comes up in conversation (I swear, I don’t know how people keep giving me segways to talk about it), well, people either go, “Wow! I always wanted to be able to do that when I was in high school” or, if they are particularly nasty, “Oh can you now? That’s veeeeery interesting. Wink.” Or, and worst of all, “I don’t think you’re such a good role model for Princess Beyonce (their Yorkshire Terrier) after all.”

Ok. Let’s get a few things straight. If you’re worried about Princess Beyonce getting into that kind of trouble, you need to go and get your head looked at. Princess Beyonce ain’t interested in nothing that doesn’t taste like bacon. Secondly, even though I possess such an amazingly weird skill, I still spent all of my weekend evenings in high school with my girl friends watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, eating ice cream, and talking about how disgusting the concept of balls are. Think about it.

This got weird and a little gross.  Moving on.

Homemade pretzels. ‘Nuff said.

What? I said “’nuff said.” 

Ok, fine. They’re freakishly time consuming and labor intensive, but not difficult. And when you show up with them, people go batshit. I mean it. You show up to any gathering with a tray of big, chewy, homemade soft pretzels and a good beer mustard and people will literally fall the f*ck apart. “However did you learn to do this? Are you a wizard? Will you teach me your wizard cookery? What is your secret, oh wise wizardess?” To which you respond, “Yeast, mother f*ckers.”

Ok. You don’t say that at all. You launch into this long-winded speech about how, “It’s no trouble at all to make them! No, it doesn't take 4 hours total! Where the devil did you hear that?! Do you like them? Are you sure? I know they’re not the same as the pretzels at the mall but I had to use real barley malt syrup instead of the powdered flavoring. Are you sure their delicious? Tell me one more time how good they are to boost my fragile ego.”

Because why the f*ck else would you spend 4 hours making pretzels? 

I have learned two things about myself in typing this section. First, I am a total whore when it comes to compliments about food I've made, so much so that I will boldly lie to people about how easy it was for me so that they will bow down and worship my prowess. I know. I’m a dick. And second, there’s something about pretzels that makes me drop F bombs like it’s planting season.

http://memegenerator.net/Well-That-Escalated-Quickly

Being able to keep a straight face even when my surroundings are absolutely ridiculous

Here’s a little story for you. It was my great-grandma Twylla’s funeral. We processed in with the family, you know, because we’re family. And we sat through a lovely and inspiring tribute to the life of a wonderful and inspiring person who lived into her late eighties. But let’s not forget that it’s still a funeral. The service ended, the immediate family processed out behind the pall bearers. And then it was our turn. The man walking in front of me was one of my great-great uncle [insert German name here]s. He…uh…..he….let’s just say, for lack of ANY better term (and I searched far and wide), that he had a case of what Larry the Cable Guy refers to as “the walkin’ farts.” And I swear, every step he took, he deflated a little more. I made it all the way out of the church, looking appropriately somber, all the way around the back and across the frozen cemetery to the burial plot  (still looking appropriately somber), all through the graveside service, too, without cracking. But when we got into the car to go to the luncheon,I absolutely lost it. I laughed for at least 10 minutes. 

But I didn't laugh in church. That time. Now, the time my teacher’s baby shit herself publicly during a homily is another story altogether.

Labradoodle grooming

Of course y’all wouldn't know anything about this because you’re not too stubborn to pay someone to groom your 85 lb. leviathan of a dog. My mom and I, however, are too stubborn and bought a set of industrial sheep shearing clippers. And we have clogged them before – that’s how hairy our sweet Lolabear is. But she is a good girl, I have to give it to her. She’ll stand on the sheet and lift one foot and then the other and when she knows it’s time for her belly, she’ll lay down and roll onto her back. I’m not sure where this submission comes from because immediately prior and following this behavior, she will eat 10 pairs of my panties, put Rigby’s head in her mouth, and flip me the bird. But, I can give a labradoodle an awesome fade. For $5 more, I’ll shave their name across their backs.

Labradoodle toe-hair clipping

This is a more specialized version of the above. Labradoodles grow a ridiculous amount of hair between their toes and the main pad on their foot, which means they have no traction, which means that hardwood floors = skating rink. So, one must take a tiny pair of scissors and trim the hair and, inevitably, poop from between their toes. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: it’s a glamorous life I lead. But it’s a skill nonetheless!

Peeing nearly standing up

When you travel a lot in countries where toilets are little more, if anything more, than holes in the ground, you get really awesome at this. Why nearly standing up? Because you’re kind of afraid that if you squat down too far you’ll fall down. And we all know what that means. Yup. You're basically in the terlet. 

Writing cheesy sex scenes

I’m only listing this as a skill so that I don’t cry. I’m writing a novel, right? And I have two characters that I KNOW have to do the dance with no pants at some point. I have tried at least a dozen times to write this sex scene. AT LEAST a dozen. And this is about as good as I can ever come up with: “And then Woody (I know – why did I have to name him that!?!?!?) breathed in her ear. She was hot. So very hot. And then he mounted her. It was like they were two halves of the same piece of fruit, broken apart and rejoined, their skins and flesh melding perfectly together again in perfect unity. And then he broke within her.”

I know, OMG. Right? And not in the good way. I blame it on being raised in a shame-based Catholic tradition. Anytime I picture this scene happening in my head, it’s always so good. And I mean, good. But trying to write it and I get all awkward and flustery and start writing words like “heaving” and “member” and “quiver” and it all goes downhill from there. One time it ended up being like Sigourney weaver's Planet Earth narration about dolphin mating. Almost verbatim, I shit you not. That was a sad day. 

But, having read a lot of my mom’s smut novels in my day (hidden under the bathroom sink, of course. Me, not the novels. Well, me with the novels, I guess. Moving on…), I see that what I write is fairly reminiscent. Maybe I should forget about writing an epic war novel and write The Call of the Highlander, a romance novel that involves sex, danger, clans, kilts, and sheep.

Knitting straight lines

Ok. This is the part where all you smug knitting savants will turn your noses up at this and tell me that it’s not a skill. Sure, I can’t knit a thumb gusset. Of course I can’t knit a hat. No, I've never been able to cable anything. But I can do one thing well: knit scarves. Granted, they are scarves knit in straight lines on circular needles…… but they are scarves!

Maybe this is a good time to ask you knitting savants to teach me to get off the hamster wheel of straight line knitting. Maybe…..

Quoting, verbatim, lines from TV and movies I've only seen once

This is bad. Really bad. Bad enough that Carter asks me if I’m even enjoying what we’re watching because I’m talking along with the actors. Ok, so he finds it annoying. But it came in handy in high school when I was thought to be awesome for having the entire script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail memorized.

......A lot of my life just started to make sense for me.

It’s weird. It’s so very, very weird. And on that note, I think I’ll just bid y’all adieu. Tune in tomorrow for my segment on Twitter for Idiots: Twittiots. And thank you in advance for tuning in tomorrow after reading today. Blessings upon you.

It’s almost Friday, y’all!