"Secret" Shames

So, I've been "tagged," and I had to come up with some things to tell you about myself that are unflattering. The thing about it is that I think I'm a pretty opened book, so here goes my best effort at something you didn't know.

1. I'm a one-trip kind of girl. If I think there's a possibility that all the groceries can be taken in without a second trip, I'll have plastic bags hanging off my arms up to my armpits to get it done. I'm that way about lots of things though. I like to get things done as quickly as possible, and I don't like repetition. If I am in a store and I get thirsty, I just pop over by the checkout lines and grab a cold drink. I don't think it makse sense to pay for it, do my shopping, and then go back through the line again when I'm done shopping. I just open it, drink it while shopping, and pay for it when I'm done along with the rest of my loot. I really find nothing wrong with this approach, but judging by the look on Ryan's face when I do it, there must be some reason to frown upon it. Noone at a store has ever had much to say about it, so I don't worry about it. Once though, when I was pregnant with Kylie and extrememly lactose intolerant, I grabbed a chocolate milk from the dairy isle and guzzled it while grocery shopping. On the way home I nearly soiled myself, the car, and everything in it. We had to stop somewhere along the way for me to use the facilities, and Ryan thought that was great. He said that's what I got for drinking before paying. I think it was just the lactose thank you very much. I've done it plenty since then with no retail karma backlash.

2. Ryan is pretty handy to have around, and he's not too dumb either. If he hasn't done something before, he will usually read all about it, figure it out, and then do it without much trouble. Even the kids have figures it out. The other day Kylie said, "Daddy's a fixer." He happened to walk through the rom just then and just rolled his eyes, saying, "Yep, you break it, I fix it!" I, on the other hand, have my words, and that's about it. Mechanically, technologically, and sometimes even logically, I'm challenged. For me to figure something out requires a lot more time and effort, so I usually let him handle the more complicated things for us. Still I have to admit that sometimes I'm just impatient and play the helpless female because I know he'll have more patience to figure out the incredible knot the kids got my shoelaces into. Yes, I could do that myself, and if I did that I could wear my shoes instead of waiting until he got home, but I jut don't want the headache. Same goes for countless other things like changing tires, replacing batteries if the back of something has to be unscrewed, hanging anything on the wall, taking down the Christmas tree, and on and on and on. This started innocently enough, but it might have gotten out of hand somewhere along the line. One thing that I really could and should do for myself is straighten the covers at night. I don't mind a bit of a mess, but I absolutely cannot sleep in a bed if the sheet and blanket are not in their proper positions. If the stripes on the bedspread are going the wrong way, it has to be fixed before I can go to sleep. And if they aren't perfectly centered on the bed, it's all over too. I will (if Ryan isn't around to do it for me) get up and reposition the covers ever so carefully to put my mind at ease. But if Ryan is home, he's getting up to do it for me. Now, normally he doesn't mind, but sometimes he thinks I'm being ridiculous, and he'll mess them up even more just to irritate me. And that is a pretty effective way of pushing my buttons. Maybe what I should have really confessed here is that I find ways of blaming my neuroses on Ryan. A long time ago he told me that his mission president's wife told him she would sometimes ask her husband for a glass of water when she wasn't thirsty just because she thought it was good for him to take time to serve his wife, even in simple ways. So, I justify these abuses by saying that if he hadn't told me that story, I never would have thought to come up with all these little ways he could serve me.

3. This one may be a little odd, but it's true and it's kind of shameful, so here it is. I'm not a perv, but I will periodically open up my spam folder (not the actual emails, just the folder, mind you) to see what kind of wacky things are sitting there waiting to be deleted. All bulk mail or things that seem spammy get routed there by gmail without my seeing them, and occasionally it will accidentally put a valid email in there. So I've always checked now and again to make sure I haven't missed something that shouldnt have gone there, but I started to notice all these creative subject lines for male enhancement products. I guess they get filtered by certain red flag words, so they started finding new ways to market their products using clever catchphrases for the male anatomy. I haven't heard so many phallic-oriented euphemisms since middle school, and they just keep rolling in every week. Can all these people really be making money selling this crap through email, or do they just enjoy the challenge of thinking up new ways to say it? Maybe I should start thinking up ways to disguise pleas for help around the house. The kids always send those requests straight to their mental spam folders, and they only open them when they're looking for reasons not to go to bed when asked.

So there you have it. I guess now I'm supposed to tag some of you. I'll say Jessie Bettes, Amanda Magonigal, and Laura Vancour. Have fun.