Romeo and Juliet

So a friend of a friend just posted on Facebook. It says, "All I want for my husband and me is to be like Romeo and Juliet, happy forever." I can think of three possible explanations for this.

1) She knows Romeo and Juliet are a famous couple, and assumes their story was happy

2) This is a joke. (Please let it be a joke!)

or

3) This is a cry for help. Somebody get her the suicide hotline number, stat!

A Child's Prayers, or the Blind Leading the Blind

When I was a child, I really wanted a dog (or five). The greatest injustice in my young life was that my dad is allergic, my mom doesn't like dogs, and I couldn't have one. Every year I tried to get around my parents' reasons. I would ask for a dog for Christmas. I would promise to take care of it. I would show how responsible I was by offering to take care of neighbors' dogs (hey, it worked for Arthur the aardvark). But nothing worked. In frustration, I yelled at my parents. "If I were blind, you'd let me have a seeing eye dog, wouldn't you?!" Yes, they would.

From that time on, I prayed diligently that I would be made blind so that I could get a dog. My sight seemed a small price to pay for having a dog, plus the dog would not only be a faithful companion, it would also show me around so it wouldn't really matter. And, as an extra bonus, I didn't even know anybody else that was blind. I would be so unique!

Suffice it to say, sensitivity was not one of my strong points as a child. Nor, apparently, was praying for appropriate things.

Rachel the Hipster Child

When I was a child, I had two favorites in almost every category: my real favorite, and the favorite I told other people about. The latter was typically related to the former, but chosen for being unknown. I really just wanted people to think I was smart.

For example, my favorite Greek goddess was Athena. Her symbol is an owl, she was supposed to be pretty tall, she sprang fully formed from Zeus's forehead, and she was paradoxically the goddess of both war and wisdom. So that was pretty cool. My "favorite" goddess was Hestia, goddess of the hearth and of architecture. Nobody has ever heard of her, including spell check. I told people I liked her because architecture is cool, but really I just liked that nobody else knew who she was.

Speaking of myths, I really liked Greek myths. I told people I really liked Norse myths, and went so far as to check out books of Norse mythology from the library to perpetuate my image. Norse myths are pretty messed up, even in the realm of mythology. The gods are always dying (which is more or less permanent; time does weird things in the myths).

My favorite animal was the bottlenose dolphin, for pretty obvious reasons (I was a little girl, they swim around, they're pretty intelligent, and they jump out of the water when ships sail past them). I alternated between telling people I liked vaquitas and telling them I liked botos. Both of these are similar to dolphins, but have the added benefit of being obscure.

To be fair, botos are pretty awesome. And pink.

My favorite dinosaur was the stegosaurus. Spikes and plates, instantly recognizable, and clearly cool. My "favorite" was the protoceratops, which is similar to a triceratops but without horns. Actually I did quite like that one for its own merits, mostly because it's pretty cute. Also, how cool would it be to have a pet protoceratops? They're about the size of a (very) large dog, so they'd be way less intimidating than an enormous dinosaur. Plus it turns out their skulls are the probably inspiration for the griffin myth, so I'm going to go ahead and say in this case I chose well. Then again, can you really go wrong with any dinosaur?

Red Light District

So there was this one time Jonathan and I were house hunting, and our Realtor suggested we check out a particular house. We went over and walked in, and were immediately struck by one thing: every window and wall was covered in heavy cloth. We cracked a joke about the inhabitants being vampires and began the tour. Several other factors jumped out.

1. There was a strong scent of smoke, masked by an even stronger scent of incense.
2. Although there were several ashtrays outside, there were also ashtrays in all the bedrooms.
3. The house was listed as three bedrooms, but actually seemed to have been converted into five or six.
4. There seemed to be way more master bathrooms than would be expected.
5. Every door had several locks.

Can you put together what all of these features have in common? If so, congratulations! You are better at this than we were!

Our Realtor called us back a couple of days later and told us that under no circumstances should we continue to even consider that house. We asked why not.

"I just found out the previous owners were arrested for running a brothel out of it."

We didn't buy that house, mostly because of the awkward doorstep scenes we would have had with all kinds of strangers (OK, maybe just one kind, mostly) if we had ended up purchasing it.

Rachel the Uber-nerd

So when I was young and possibly even nerdier than I am now, I thought reading the dictionary was a good use of time. I would find new words and try to work them into my vocabulary. One day, I found the word contemn. It's a good word. The definition is "to view or treat with contempt".

A few weeks later, I found a great opportunity to use it in an essay. There was a character in some book who was extremely contemptuous toward some other character. So I wrote that character A contemns character B. I was pretty proud of myself.

Then the essay came back, with "contemn" circled in red ink with a comment saying, "condemn. Please use spellcheck."  I was livid. But at least some (questionable) good came out of the experience: I stopped reading the dictionary.

Confession: When I said "young" I meant a senior in high school.