25 Things About Me! NOT YOU!!! ME!! ME ME ME!! ME!!!

1. I broke the hubcap off my Uncle Buster’s truck in 1986 and blamed it on the hound dog, Barney.
2. My house has a name and everyone who lives in it eventually gets married and moves out…..except me. Which I think means I’m going to have to sell it and buy a new house that likes me better than my roommates. Stupid house!
3. On the way back from the deercamp one day I asked my friend Agador Spartacus (name changed) if he preferred sex or deer hunting. When we pulled in his driveway an hour later he was still working through the pros and cons; then, his wife walked out of the house and we forgot what we were talking about. That’s one of my favorite conversations EVER.
4. I want to go to Africa and hunt big scary angry things with claws and teeth and tusks, but I really don’t want to get eaten. “Eaten by something” is probably my second least favorite way to die – right behind “crushed by something.”
5. I am not afraid to hang big, mounted, too-large-for-the-room animal heads in my house wherever I feel like it and I’m going to keep it up; so get used to the idea.
6. Granddad gave me a cigar when I was 8 to prove the point that tobacco would make you sick and not to mess with it. I smoked it to a nub and asked for another one. Right then Grandma walked in and he got in trouble, then he got mad at ME for smoking a cigar. Hey, did you want me to smoke the cigar or not? Make up your mind.
7. I know my cousin Maggie harbors a long-buried desire to go hunting with the guys, but she refuses to admit it. Come clean, Maggie, and we’ll buy you a rifle.
8. I can hit a chimney swift, flying, with a .22 rifle and so can my cousin Seth; but we bet you can’t.
9. I shot a squirrel in the head (on purpose) with a pellet rifle at 97 yards and I have a witness. Actually, I have two witnesses: Seth, and the neighbor whose birdfeeder the squirrel was sitting on. Only one of the witnesses was impressed.
10. I am always ready to go on an adventure of any kind.
11. Aaron Harris is one of my most trusted confidantes and greatest friends. He snores and gurgles in his sleep like a wounded grizzly bear, but still has the audacity to complain about MY snoring. It’s our only regular area of personal contention.
12. Emily Jones is one of my best friends, ever, in the world, period. Sometimes I have to holler at her, then she hollers at me, then we go out for dinner and fight over the check.
13. I would trade the next 30 years for October 1989, Grandma’s house, and a red ryder bb gun sighted in just the way I like it.
14. If I could get any one thing to put in my yard right now it would an Olympic trampoline. I would set it up behind the house so that when I bounced just high enough my head would pop up over the roofline every so often and people passing by on the street would see me and freak out.
15. I can’t think of anyone I actually “hate” but I can think of a whole bunch of people that would be much better off on an island together…with no electricity…..or telephones…..or clean underwear….If we could wire all the houses and broadcast their antics on the internet – that would be even better.
16. Dairy products make me feel itchy and hot which leads me to believe that yes, I’m still allergic to them.
17. I recently conquered my lifelong fear of sour cream by accidentally biting into a taco that was absolutely slam-full of it….but the conquering nearly killed me.
18. I’ve chosen a life without motorcycles, even though I love them, because I know my limitations: one of them is an inability to NOT go fast on machines that are built to GO FAST. When confronted with temptation I always think “well, I’ll just hop on here and putt around for a second to get a feel for the road” then 20 seconds later I’ve got bugs in my teeth, one eye won’t open, and my brain is screaming “I BET IT WILL GO FASTER IF YOU JUST LEAN INTO IT A BIT.”
19. I got on the back of a waverunner once with a tall blonde woman and to this day I still hate…………waverunners.
20. I hate to love fishing because it alternately bores me to tears and thrills me to death. Fishing with me is like watching a horror movie - long periods of boredom and awkward social interaction punctuated by moments of sheer terror and glory.
21. Michael Brock, John Dickens, Cody Broome, my Uncle Robert and Aaron Harris have the best dating stories the world has ever known. I could tell you one of their legendary dating stories entitled “BoomBoom Boiler Room”, but I refuse to contribute to the downfall of humanity.
22. I slammed on brakes once to scare a date who wasn’t paying attention to the road. That taught me the important lesson that sometimes I think things are funny that other people don’t think are funny…ever.
23. If I had to list my top 1000 favorite things in life it would include everything you might guess and some things you might not, like: marshmallows in the microwave, gasoline smell, fire, The Ragone when he’s on his game, The Ragone when he’s way OFF his game, leather smell, Labrador retrievers, burned gunpowder, heavy recoiling firearms, driving, Strib Stribling and Josh Youssef (preferably together), the word “dillydally”, and beef jerky.
24. I once dated a woman whose perfume gave me a headache and made my stomach hurt. Then one day I realized: it’s not the perfume.
25. Austin Lee just walked into the room in his nearly-see-through boxers with his gut hanging out, stopped at the dining room table, tied Ragone’s necktie around his neck, then danced around the room singing “I could be a Chippendale, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.” Nobody seemed surprised.