Today's story is 100% in service to the idea of character balance, because the picture I've painted of myself so far is that of a Chaotic Good Legendary Polymath Ninja, and I don't want to leave the impression that I either have no flaws or are unaware of them. So here are several quick stories of me, being a complete and utter dumbass, just to paint a more complete picture. The last one's even Halloween themed! Enjoy! Also, BEWARE NSFW CONTENT.
Junior High
I was a bit of a troublemaker as a kid. Most of the time, it was innocent hijinks. I didn't want to hurt anyone, I just got bored and made mischief to amuse myself.
One day in junior high, my English teacher - an earnest guy who really tried to reach me, but tried too hard, which never works with teens - was giving students some 1-on-1 while the rest of us did whatever. I was bored. I saw two of the class bullies doing something down low along the wall, and got curious. I wandered over, and they had torn the hands, feet, and head off a Bend 'Ems alien figurine, exposing the metal wire inside.
They were trying to stick it in the electrical outlet on the wall.
I watched them for a sec, just to see what would happen - but they were trying to toss it in the socket, like darts or something. I got impatient waiting for something to happen, so I got down with them and said, "Guys, you're doing this all wrong."
I stacked up some textbooks until they were just below our target outlet, then got some paper rolled up nice and tight. I pointed out how the outside of the outlet is plastic, which doesn't conduct, and how you can actually see the metal inside when you look closely. I explained that this gave us a little wiggle room to set the wire bits inside the plastic part, but not touching the metal part. When all was carefully aligned, I took the rolled up paper, and tapped the figure fully into the socket.
POP!
Out go the lights. I had figured the room might go out because the circuit breaker would trip (my step-dad is an electrical engineer and would explain things like this to curious me). But no - I had actually disabled the power for all the rooms on our side of that floor. That was a sixth of the building, suddenly without power.
Of course the bullies ratted me out, because these were suburban white boys with no concept of solidarity. I got sent down to the principal's office, who called in my dad from downtown. While we waited, the principal was just flabbergasted. We'd met a few times, and he knew I pulled harmless pranks that made the teachers upset but did no damage.
This was not one of those times.
My dad was also flabbergasted. He started off furious that he had to be called in from work to deal with my shenanigans, but once he heard the whole story, he was simply struck dumb: how could I know enough to engineer a solution with on-hand materials, but not know enough to think it was a terrible idea that shouldn't be done?
I got a two-day suspension from school, during which my dad made me do work around the house so that it wasn't Time Off for Bad Behavior. When I got back to school, the power was still out in those rooms for a couple more days. That helped drive home how seriously I had screwed up. I also got some after-school work for the teachers who I had inconvenienced, like making a giant (and accurate) visual map for a social studies teacher who hadn't been able to do it during his planning time (since no projector). So there I was, tracing national borders onto butcher paper, when I noticed that the map was turning brown. Then there was a weird burst of - oh, no.
I had lit the opaque projector on fire.
You ever have one of those days, where trying to fix one screw-up just causes another? Yeah, that was most of my youth.
High School
During a family trip to Arizona, visiting the grandparents, we stopped in Sedona to see the sights. We did some hiking in Slide Rock Canyon, where my brother JD and I decided to swim in the 42° F (8° C) water, because why not? We also went shopping at the weirdo stores they have there, one of which sold bugs in suckers. I got a tequila flavored sucker with a worm in it, and it was pretty gross, which put me off tequila for years (until we went to Mexico in my early twenties and learned about the good stuff). I also got a caramel flavored sucker with an entire scorpion inside.
Naturally, I took that one to school so that I could eat it by parts throughout the day. I made a show of licking down the sucker to expose a part, and then eating only that part. I had plenty of practice from ants, worms, and grasshoppers, because I was a tomboy and did that sort of thing. The scorpion was definitely a step up, but a small one to me, whereas it was super-impressive to everyone else.
In the cafeteria before school, I ate one of the claws to impress my friends. Then in first period, I ate the other claw to impress the class. In homeroom, I ate the head and half the thorax to impress my homeroom teacher (who was also my brother JD's swim coach). Then in second, I ate the other half of the thorax and the legs. Finally, in third, I ate the tail and the stinger. People asked, "Isn't the stinger poisonous?" I figured the candying process probably denatured the venom. I mean, they wouldn't just sell poison in a caramel sucker, would they? Don't they know that people would actually eat these? And what the fuck is a "novelty item only - not for human consumption" anyway?
In fourth, I got a terrible stomach ache and had to go home sick.
College
I've talked about Fae Jennie a couple times now. She was my first college girlfriend. I met her in the dorm where all my high school friends lived, because they were on top of their paperwork and got to live on the same floor of the same dorm. She was a rando to us when we all met (she'd met Z - my ninja training buddy, who knew about P:S the comic before he'd even met me - through the college anime club).
One night, a few weeks in, we were all hanging out way too late and I asked if I could crash on someone's floor. Fae Jennie volunteered, so I borrowed a pillow and laid down on the throw rug in the middle of her room (her roommate was out for the night). Ten or twenty minutes after lights-out, I heard a rustle in her bunk, and she said, "You don't have to sleep on the floor, you know."
By the next morning, we were a couple.
I'm sticking to the good parts because, by the point (and for the purposes) of this story, we were a good couple. I should probably mention right now that when I came out to her over the phone some ten months later, after I realized I was trans, she laughed at me. Point being, we were not a good long-term match. But things were really good in the short-term.
Anyway, after a few weeks of sleeping in each other's beds and generally being college newly-dates, I wanted to go down on her (and she was cool with that). It was the first time I had ever gone down on anyone, and while I was well-read on the subject, I had no practical experience. I took the best-sounding advice I had gotten: go slow, introduce yourself, your breath (both in and out) is a thing you can use, yadda yadda. Basic oral technique. She seemed to enjoy it - but then my dumb ass went and said something.
"Huh. It's right, what they say."
"What is," she asked.
"It tastes like fish."
"UGH!" She pulled away from me, reached for the blankets, and covered herself.
"What," I asked, all innocence and not-understanding. "Like, fresh fish. Y'know, like sushi."
"EWW!"
"What's the problem? I like sushi!"
It would be three years and half-a-dozen 1-on-1 explanations before I was able to accept what I had done wrong.
My First Car
My first car was a 1994 Ford Escort in Basic Bitch Beige, bought in 2004 for a well-negotiated price. That's not due to any savvy negotiating on my part - I took it to my parents' mechanic during the test drive, they told me it needed new brakes, I brought this up during negotiations, and I had also mis-read the price tag by $500 (I'd thought a 9 was a 4). The manager got called in because I insisted that I'd read the price tag right, and actually went and pointed it out to the sales guy - the manager then offered, "Look, if we sell it to you for $2,400, will you do the brake work on your own instead of making us do it?" I could get it done for $300, so I said Yes.
And that's the story of how I stupidly lucked into my first good auto negotiation; but it's not the end of this story.
My parents were in good hands with Bigname Insurance, but they wouldn't add me on to their plan because I never did my 25 hours of supervised driving while I was in Driver's Ed - I just waited until I was 19, then went to the DMV to get my license, and passed the first-time tests. They reasoned that they couldn't put a lot of trust in me, on account of the fact that they hadn't seen me drive habitually, for which I totally do not fault them. No sarcasm, this was a reasonable parenting decision since I was back home from college after stopping attending (I didn't "drop out," I just stopped going, but that's another story entirely that involves me doing theoretical physics research and just isn't really important right now). I was not the most responsible person, is what I'm saying.
So I got the Cheapo Podunk Insurance from a company that would satisfy my legal obligations, and hoo-friggin'-rah, I was street-legal. Within a month of driving around, I was stopped at a red light, and I got rear-ended.
By a Bigname agent.
Is that karma? I'm not sure.
Anyway, there followed a number of strange and unlikely occurrences with this vehicle, the sheer gobsmacking luck of which I would not realize for another six to ten years, depending on the story. But one night, I was playing World of Warcraft in my parents' basement (such a cliché, I know!), when my dad came downstairs and told me in The Dad Voice that I needed to come up.
I didn't even log out, I just got up and followed him upstairs.
As I walked through the kitchen into the dining room, I saw alternating blue and red lights pouring in through the living room windows. I stepped out front and saw... my car? It was colored like my car, but the silhouette was all wrong: there was no trunk, and only half of a back seat, and it was decidedly not where I had parked it. Where I had parked it, there was instead a purple pickup truck, looking like it had been punched in the nose by The Incredible Hulk.
A drunk driver had knocked my parked car about halfway down the block.
I can't relate specifics after that point, I can only say that I was probably in shock as I cooperated with the police and then went to bed. I posted a handmade cardboard sign on the wreckage of my vehicle the next day after getting my stuff out, saying only, "DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE." (Fat load of good that did me.) The day afterward, my mom came down to my room while I was playing World of Warcraft and said, "You, uh, do know that our neighbor - the one your wreck's planted in front of - had a husband who died in a drunk driving collision, right?"
I processed this and said, "So shouldn't she be all for this message?"
"Look, it's in bad taste. You should take it down, as soon as you've got a moment."
I did so. But what I didn't do was file a claim with Cheapo Podunk Insurance, because I had heard that filing claims makes your premiums go up and I still had four months left on my term. I didn't want to have to pay more for those remaining four months, you see. Little did I know that you can file a claim for a total loss (and this was a total loss), cancel the remainder of your term, and receive a refund for the canceled portion.
I got $800 from the adjuster, but I could have gotten hundreds more if I had just known to do the paperwork. Silly me. Six months later, I moved out from my parents' basement and back to my college town to be closer to my former classmates and ninja training buddies.
The Half-Cup of Salt Challenge
Somewhere along the line, I got a reputation as someone who would do stupid things for money. I'm really not sure how this started. So my college pals would issue me challenges, typically for small amounts of cash they had on hand - but among six to twelve people, that can add up to decent beer money.
One such challenge happened when Silver Garou unexpectedly got his cleaning deposit refunded (he had forgotten about it), and had nothing planned to do with it. (What a problem to have, amirite?) Instead of, I dunno, "saving it" or something crazy like that, he decided to issue a challenge. We were out to lunch with W and Jack August, and he wanted their input on what could be worth $250.
Jack said, "What if you used mayonnaise instead of shampoo?" I said No. "All right, what if you used salad dressing for body lotion?" I said No again. "OK, what about rubbing tuna in your armpits instead of deodorant?" That seemed doable - so that would be, what, for a week? "Oh, shit - I was thinking for like a day." Garou decided to compromise and make it 3 days, counting on the fact that it was summer and I biked five miles to work every day. What he didn't know was that I shaved my armpits, so there really wasn't anything for the tuna to stick to. I did the thing and earned my cool quarter-grand, but the thing is, during those three days I was promoted twice.
OK, I think I see how this must have started: dumb luck and classical conditioning.
Anyway, this is not that story. Long before the Tuna Deodorant Challenge, we had gotten a Dispensarita: a bucket that comes with margarita mix, a packet of rimming salt, and a tap. (A dispenser of margaritas, hence "dispensarita"). We never rimmed our glasses, though, preferring instead to put the salt directly into the drink itself (which, like, that's halfway to a paloma already). This left us with a packet of rimming salt meant to cover a bucket's worth of margaritas - and so began the Half-Cup of Salt Challenge.
The challenge was for me to somehow consume all the salt. Being an absolute idiot, I chose neither to put it in my drinks, nor to add it to my food, but instead to just dump the whole-ass thing right in my stupid mouth. Every mistake, exactly once. I figured that my saliva would dissolve the salt, and I could swallow it bit by bit.
The plan started just fine: I was swallowing super-salty saliva almost right away. But then there was no more saliva in my mouth, and there was still just like so much goddamn salt. I figured I'd be patient. I occasionally added water. My mouth was exceptionally dry, but other than the gritty feeling on my teeth, I was in no real discomfort.
Yet.
Over the course of thirty minutes to an hour, the insides of my cheeks became increasingly dry and scratchy; my throat became sore and raw; my thirst grew and grew; the taste of all that salt just hanging out in my mouth became ever more nauseating; and finally, my skin started to get dry, then ashy, then itchy. Around this point, K came over to the apartment, and noticed I wasn't saying much (which is unusual for me). Garou explained the Half-Cup of Salt Challenge to him, and he screamed at me (in a playful, plaintive tone - not like I'd angered him), "Why would you do that?! Salt is The Great Desiccant!" I paused to briefly contemplate my life choices, noticed that a headache was starting, and decided I was done.
I spit the salt out in the acrylic bathroom sink (as opposed to the stainless steel kitchen sink), and it came out in a gross wet lump. I still had salt caked on all over the inside of my mouth, but I rinsed the giant chunk down first. Then I took mouthfuls of water and gradually rinsed the salt out, taking all my self-control not to drink (and thus ingest even more). When I no longer tasted salt in my mouth, then it was time to drink - and I drank all the water I could.
It wasn't enough. My headache was getting worse, my skin was still dry and itchy, and I laid down on the floor and started shaking a little. Mostly out of revulsion and discomfort, but still. S, the only other girl in attendance, came to check on me; she said I looked pale and unwell, so I decided that was enough for one night. I filled a bottle with water and rode my bike home, nauseous and itchy the whole way.
When I got home, I went right into the shower. I don't know how long I was curled up on the floor of my shower stall, just letting the water soak into my skin and even drinking from the jets, but it was at least forty minutes. The water ran cold, and I didn't even care. I was fine in a couple hours, but I stayed home and played video games the rest of the night.
From then on, my friends decided that before issuing any challenges, we should look up the LD50 of any substance I'd be ingesting. You know, to be safe.
Halloween
I have to tell a micro-story before I tell this mini-story.
When I was maybe 13 or 15, I was hanging out with my brother A and some of his friends at the nearby Fakename Park (yes, the same park where I'd take JD for ninja training years later). We were on bikes and blades, and just kinda taking a break from our travels to chill and enjoy the summer afternoon. Two of A's friends started trying to hit a golf ball with a baseball bat: one was pitching to the other, and he kept whiffing. Having learned nothing from junior high, I walked over to show them how it was done. Rather than rely on someone else, I lobbed it up to myself, and - whiff! I tried again, and whiff! Third time's the charm: whiff! OK, this is harder than it looks - one more try.
PING!
This golf ball must have flown about 150 yards, all the way from our end of the park and out the other. We watched it sail through the air, saw it came down and bounce once in the street, and then THWACK! There was now a brand-new hole about the size of a fist in my neighbor's brand-new siding. That's "brand-new" as in "the contractor literally just finished and hadn't even left the site." We watched a guy come out of the house, look at what happened, see the obvious hole, start screaming, look around, spot us, and get in his truck. It was only at this point that it occurred to us to make ourselves scarce, and I had to put on my socks and rollerblades first. He got to us, yelled at us a bunch, and asked where I lived. I told him the truth, and rode with him to talk with my parents and the neighbor (it was a Saturday). The main problem, as it was explained to me, was that the hole I made was near the bottom of the newly-installed vinyl siding - which is installed from the bottom up. Which meant that this poor bastard had to take down all the siding, replace the damaged segment, and then put it all back up again. I had literally doubled his work, with one swing of an aluminum baseball bat from 200 yards away.
Getting back to the main, this neighbor gave me dirty looks every time he saw me. I never did anything to him again, he just kept up the grudge for years. I have no idea what my dad had to say or do to make it right; I was just told it was handled, and to think before acting, and to consider taking up golf. Yeah, wow, I'm having a check-my-privilege moment just now, because I'm realizing that I got away with this Scot free and have no idea what was done to settle the matter. Anyway, over the next couple years, I got sick of this guy always giving me the stink-eye. Like, when do bygones become bygones? I know now that this is on the victim to determine, not some ready formula or what-have-you, but my teenage self got resentful.
- - -
Let's fast-forward to Halloween, when I was 15 or 16. I remember I went as a sorceress, complete with handmade magickin' robe (it was... more of a dress...). I'd had a mostly successful night, and we were passing by Fakename Park to make another leg of our journey. I saw that Neighbor Guy's lights were all out - they had been on earlier, when we departed. I moseyed on up to his driveway, temporarily straying from the group. Perhaps I skipped. Seeing no signs of activity, I noticed a straw dummy in a rocking chair with a bowl in its lap, next to a Jack-O-Lantern.
I was wary of the "dummy," as my dad had pulled such a stunt in a previous year. But as I neared, I saw that its limbs weren't right. The joints were too flat, and the gloves were weird. I ambled up to the bowl and saw a pile of mints inside. I took a look around for good measure, then dumped them all into my bag and rejoined my friends. We kept on through the neighborhood, spiraling out into the sprawl for a couple more passes before we came back home, sacks full.
It was tradition in our house to dump one's haul out on the living room rug, before a crackling fire, and have as much candy as you damn well liked while you prepared to trade with others. I didn't like Smartees or malted milk balls, so I traded them for Paydays and 3 Musketeers. I took one of the mints and popped it in my mouth. It tasted strange, not really "minty," but I'd had lots of different after-dinner mints and this didn't stand out too much from the crowd. My mom walks through, stops, and says, "What smells like mothballs?" She sniffs around, starts looking among the various things, takes a step and looks down to not walk on my candy pile, and sees a pile of mothballs interspersed with my candy. "D, why do you have mothballs in your candy pile?"
It took me a good moment to put two and two together, and then I took the mothball I had been sucking on out of my mouth and said, "I thought they were mints."
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