A Weird Quiz

I don’t really get this quiz, but here it is. I snagged it from SamuraiFrog [link fixed –ed.] (and I’ve edited out a few questions that I wouldn’t answer on the basis that either positively or negatively, the answers aren’t the kind of thing I blog about). The things that I’ve done are marked with an X. (And I don’t get what the “levels” mean.

Level 1
() Smoked a cigarette.
(x) Smoked a cigar.
() Kissed a member of the same sex.
(x) Drank alcohol.

The only smoking I’ve ever done is a couple of cigars given me by guys I knew what they had babies. I wasn’t a big fan of the whole thing. I’ve never taken a single drag of a cigarette.

Level 2
(x) Are/been in love.
(x) Been dumped.
(x) Shoplifted.
(x) Been fired.
() Been in a fist fight.

First one’s a no-brainer, and yeah, I was dumped a few times before I found The Wife. I have shoplifted, technically, but the couple of times that’s happened, it was the accidental kind where I missed something in my cart at the store and only realized it when I was loading up the vehicle outside. Each time I went back in to pay for it. Swiping something big, like a video game or a book or a wicker swing set? Nope. My last job before The Store canned me, as both a downsizing move and a “You know what, maybe a guy who hates talking on the phone shouldn’t be in telesales after all” move. I was pissed at the time, but I’ve come to see their logic somewhat, although I will claim that their stated reason for canning me that day was complete bollocks. As far as fistfights go, there was the usual rough-housing when I was a kid, so I won’t count that. No Clint Eastwood-style barroom brawls for me.

Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person.
(x) Skipped school.
(x) Seen someone/something die.

Well, The Wife is older than me, so there’s that; also I seem to remember a Special Ed teacher when I was in third grade or something who had hair like Farrah Faucett, and this was in 1979 when that was quite a thing. A crush? Don’t recall, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I never skipped an entire day of school, but I did cut my share of classes. As for seeing something die, I was in the room when we had our cat Simba put to sleep, and a year or so later my cat Jasmine died in my arms as I was carrying her down to the car to take her to the vet.

Level 4
() Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook.
() Been to Paris.
() Been to Spain.
(x) Been on a plane.
(x) Thrown up from drinking.

I don’t like flying, not out of fear of crashing but because air travel is just unpleasant, to be honest: planes are hot and uncomfortable and friggin’ loud. As for drinking, I’ve only twice in my life had to “talk to Ralph on the big white telephone”. Once was the last time I ever drank bourbon; the next was the night before my wedding, when I ate too much, drank a lot of wine, and was already pretty nervous about the whole thing.

Level 5
(x) Eaten sushi.
() Been snowboarding.
(x) Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook.
() Been in a mosh pit.

OK, I’m claiming the Facebook thing, but I’m claiming it because I’ve met people due to blogging, and not Facebook specifically. And I like sushi a lot.

Level 6
() Been in an abusive relationship.
(x) Taken pain killers.
(x) Love/loved someone who you can’t have.
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by.
(x) Made a snow angel.

I need a clarification on pain killers: are we talking Tylenol, or the hardcore stuff like Demerol? If the latter, then I have to remove my X, because that and Advil are all I’ve ever taken. As for the rest: Audrey Hepburn’s dead, so I by definition can’t have her, but I love her all the same; I’ve watched cloud shapes many a time (and not all that long ago, either), and if you haven’t made a snow angel, then you either need to move where there’s snow or get a life.

Level 7
() Had a tea party.
(x) Flown a kite.
(x) Built a sand castle.
() Gone mudding (offroading).
() Played dress up.

Tea party. Don’t think so. Kites rule. So do sand castles, although mine wasn’t terribly elaborate; it was basically making a big mound and using my imagination to fill in the details.

Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.
() Gone sledging.
(x) Cheated while playing a game.
(x) Been lonely.
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school.

Jumping into leaves, or its close cousin task, purposely walking off the sidewalk so as to scuff through six inches’ depth of leaves, is akin to the snow angel thing in that everybody should do it before they die. I don’t know what ‘sledging’ is. Yes, I’ve cheated at games; what kid never stacked the deck in Sorry! so they’d draw a 2 and then a backward-4? Being lonely is a constant thing, and falling asleep at work and school? I’ve done both. (But not at The Store. Never. I’m a giant ball of productivity there.)

Oh, and what is “sledging”?

Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set.
(x) Felt an earthquake.
() Killed a snake.

What a weird thing to have on a list like this: wouldn’t anybody with, you know, eyes have watched a sunset? And I’ve felt earthquakes both in WNY and in the Portland, OR area. I may have killed a snake by running it over, unseen, while mowing the lawn, but never intentionally or maliciously. Snakes are good people.

Level 10
(x) Been tickled.
() Been robbed/vandalized.
() Been cheated on.
(x) Been misunderstood.

Everybody’s misunderstood. What makes human life interesting at all is the simple fact that nobody understands anybody else.

Level 11
(x) Won a contest.
() Been suspended from school.
(x) Had detention.
() Been in a car/motorcycle accident.

Why yes, I won a contest! (But I’m pretty sure that I didn’t win this year, boo hiss. We’ll see, but I would have heard by now if I had, which is a shame because I actually thought my entry this year was pretty good, if a little on the grim side.) And yes, I got detention a few times, a couple times for the afore-mentioned class-cutting and once for using the back stairs in our school building. (Yes, I’m serious. I used the wrong stairs and got detention. And then I kept using the stairs anyway.)

Level 12
() Had/have braces.
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night.
() Danced in the moonlight.

I recall that one dentist tried getting my mother to consent to braces for me, and her pithy reply has stuck in my memory evermore: “Nobody ever died of an overbite.” Seeing as how it’s not like my one jaw protrudes inches beyond the other, it was never much of an issue. And eating a whole pint of ice cream? I almost file that under cloud-watching and snow-angel making. Heck, in college we once went on a forty-mile roadtrip (both ways) to get a couple of pints of ice cream.

Level 13
(x) Hated the way you look.
(x) Witnessed a crime.
() Pole danced.
(x) Questioned your heart.
() Been obsessed with post-it-notes.

Working in retail in a large store, it’s not unusual to witness crimes being committed: shoplifting all the time. I’ve seen them get busted, and there’s always this nice sense of victory when this happens. Also, doesn’t everybody hate the way they look at one point or another? I don’t hate the way I look right now, but I do need to peel off some weight, which is why I (and the rest of the family) joined the Y this year. I’ve already got my resting heart rate down about ten points, and I’ve only been going for a month, yay! And I question my heart on a daily basis.

Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud.
(x) Been lost.
() Been to the opposite side of the world.
(x) Swam in the ocean.
(x) Felt like you were dying.

I’m not a big fan of mud, but squishing in it is occasionally fun. When we were living in our last home in the Portland area, before moving out here, there was a very large swampy-marshy area beyond the borders of our housing development where we kids used to go to explore and play and whatnot, and there was lots of mud to squish through. We never went there just for mud-squishing, but that would be incidental to exploring the area. Last I looked, that whole area is now built up into a massive development. Bummer. As for being lost, who hasn’t? Same with feeling like we’re dying. We’re made to die, so it’s natural we’re going to feel like it’s happening once in a while.

Level 15
(x) Cried yourself to sleep.
(x) Played cops and robbers.
() Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.
() Sang karaoke.
() Paid for a meal with only coins.

Yeah. Not to be pithy, but you lose a kid, and you’re guaranteed to cry yourself to sleep a few times. We never really played “cops and robbers” as such, but we’d play Star Wars, of course, so we’d have “Rebels and Imperials”, I suppose. And while I’ve paid for lots of stuff with only coins, I’ve never paid for a meal with them, that I can recall. I used to pay for comics with coins (back when comics were relatively cheap at less than a buck an issue), and books, but I don’t recall paying for a meal with them. I may have, though.

Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t.
(x) Made prank phone calls.
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.
() Kissed in the rain.

Oh come on! Who hasn’t told themselves they wouldn’t do something, only to go ahead and do it anyway? Heck, right now I’m telling myself that I’m not watching the Super Bowl, but I probably will. I never made a lot of prank calls, but there were a few. And in grade school, I was the kid who would get “The Giggles” very easily, which led to having milk come out my nose at lunch more than once.

(And by the way, there should be a special place in Hell for teachers who punish kids who get The Giggles. Any human being who genuinely has no idea what it’s like to get The Giggles should not be allowed anywhere near children. There was a teacher whose name I don’t recall, but she taught Agriculture and Metal Shop in our school, who was as joyless a human being as I’ve ever met, and she was ruthless to anyone who got The Giggles. She also gave a kid detention when he dropped a hammer on his foot and said “Shit!” out loud.)

Level 17
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus.
(x) Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about.
(x) Blown bubbles.
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere.

This is another group of things that if you haven’t done them, you need to come out of your monastic conclave and actually engage the world a bit.

Level 18
() Crashed a Party.
(x) Have traveled more than 5 days with a car full of people.
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading.
(x) Had a wish come true.

Rollerblading rules.

Level 19
() Worn pearls.
(x) Jumped off a bridge.
() Screamed “penis” or “vagina”.
() Swam with dolphins.

It was a low bridge into a swimming hole.

Level 20
() Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube.
() Kissed a fish.
() Worn the opposite sex’s clothes.
(x) Sat on a roof top.

Rooftops are fun. I like rooftops.

(Fish kissing? Huh?!)

Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.
() Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel.
() Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day).
(x) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about.

At my telesales job, one measure of our performance was our “Duration”, or literally the number of minutes were spent each day talking on the phones. A good day was held to be over three hours of actual talking; the standard was to have over 150 minutes total Duration. I rarely managed more than 120 minutes. My best days were Mondays, when I’d call a hospital pharmacist in Ohio (Akron, I believe) who would cheerfully talk on the phone about anything at all. That guy was a conversational Godsend at the time. All of the other sales reps in the office had regular customers they’d been calling for years and could carry on long conversations with them; the woman next to me would often have calls go on for forty-five minutes before she ever made a sales pitch. I never got to that point.

Level 22
() Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(x) Climbed a tree.
(x) Had/been in a tree house.
(x) Been scared to watch scary movies alone.

I’ve had apples that were extremely fresh, as in, picked that day, but never done the picking myself. As for the other things, well yeah.

Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts.
() Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once).
() Gone streaking.
(x) Visited jail.

I believed in ghosts as a kid and then got over it later on. I don’t believe in them now, but I’d like to; I just think that a world with ghosts would be pretty cool. And lightsabers. As for jail, I’ve visited in school field trips. I’ve never been a “Guest of Honor” though.

Level 24
() Played chicken.
() Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on.
() Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger.
(x) Broken a bone.
(x) Been easily amused.

Chicken is for idiots. I’ve swum fully clothed before, but never been pushed, so that doesn’t count. I’ve never once had a stranger comment on my looks (except for the once-a-year thing that happens here when some random visitor leaves a comment, always anonymous, that I’m fat). Bones? I broke my collarbone in junior high school, and I’m incredibly easily amused.

Level 25
() Caught a fish then ate it later.
() Made a porn video.
(x) Caught a Butterfly.
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
() Cried so hard you laughed.

I’ve never fished in my life! This seems to me a great missed opportunity. I’ve caught butterflies but always tried to be gentle about it, and to my way of thinking, there’s nothing better than to laugh so hard that you cry. This hasn’t happened in a while, actually.

Level 26
(x) Mooned/flashed someone.
() Had someone moon/flash you.
(x) Cheated on a test.
(x) Forgotten someone’s name.
() French braided someone’s hair.
() Gone skinny dipping.
() Been kicked out of your house.
() Tried to hurt yourself.

Yeah, I had too much to drink one night and mooned a college prof I didn’t like too much at the time. And I snuck a glance at a textbook during a test once or twice. I’m awful with names, just awful. Seriously, I’m terrible with them, and it’s a good thing that I work in a place where nametags are required. I’ve never seen skinny dipping as all that attractive of a prospect.

Level 27
(x) Rode a roller coaster.
(x) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling.
(x) Had a cavity.
() Blackmailed someone.
() Been blackmailed.

Roller coasters are great, but I only like the ones that don’t go upside down, and I hate indoor ones that go in complete darkness. Snorkeling? Just one time, at Disney World, in a controlled tank setting.

Level 28
() Been used.
(x) Fell going up the stairs.
() Licked a cat.
(x) Bitten someone.
() Licked someone – not in private places

Licking cats. Okily-dokily.

Level 29
() Been shot at/or at gunpoint.
() Flattened someone’s tires.
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on.
(x) Got five dollars or less worth of gas.

Guns give me the willies. Don’t like them. As for the two things I’ve done, which “gas light” are we talking about? If the “warning” light, which comes on when you’re on your last gallon, I drive until that comes on all the time. If there’s some light that indicates “You will run out of gas within the next forty feet of driving”, then no. I’ve never driven until I literally ran out of gas. I have purchased tiny amounts of gas before; once I pulled into a full-serve station in Canada and handed the lady a Toonie (that’s a two-dollar coin) and asked for exactly that much gas. She rolled her eyes at me, but did it anyway.

Well, that was a strange quiz.

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