The Reverse Shawshank

Let's wrap up the week with a little something about me. You've read the blog, you may have seen the man, but does anyone know the enigma?  I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. What with the courses I recently took trying to label people in broad categories, and the seeming willigness of the others to be classified.  There must be similarities, sure, but can any of us really be painted with the same brush?  So, in the spirit of openness, here's my own fun little quiz..Answer honestly, then compare your results to mine. Ready? Here we go:

- I often go out of my way to be nice, literally offering the shirt off my back. I do this because:
   a.  I know what it's like to feel inferior or hopeless, I consider myself a bit empathic, and I don't want to see other people 'stuck'. LIfe is short and if I can make someone smile for the cost of a box of donuts or a couple hours of help, I'm in.
   b.  I feel I am the complete opposite of a nice person, secretly preoccupied with the notion of reaking ill will and chaos on all, and am attempting to overcompensate.
   c. I feel out of place in society, awkward and unfamiliar with the rules of social behaviour, constantly observing myself, and I believe this behaviour to be a rough representation of what a 'normal' person would do.

- When surprised by something free, say a pen or 1/16th size sample of basement subfloor, my first thought is:
    a. Gimme Gimme Gimme. What is it?
    b.  If I brought GIllian and Mara and drove around to every Home Depot, I could get enough to cover my floor.
    c.  If I get this for free and other people do not, I will be better than them.

- Although I try really hard to listen to people, while they are talking I am often:
   a. Self-consciously thinking - Is this how a 'normal' person would show attentiveness? Do I nod, say yes, chuckle slightly? Is that too much eye contact? That's too much eye contact isn't it? But if I look away, it'll seem obvious now. My eyes are going to start watering. Now they're noticing I'm staring. I think I'm supposed to blink or look down.
   b. Remembering a song/movie that had a quote similar to what was just said, and thinking how I could work that into a parody.
   c. Jumping ahead to the end of the conversation and thinking of my possible responses, which I need to update as you continue to talk, making it both necessary to listen closely and impossible to.
  
- I likely won't remember your name or what you even look like until the third, fourth, or fifth try. This is because:
   a.  I was too preoccupied by whether I made eye contact and greeted you appropriately.  Is this a handshake situation or a head nod?  How much pressure do you put in the handshake? Not too soft to seem like I couldn't care less, but so hard that I seem like an ass.
  b. Immediately after your name was mentioned I began anagramming it in my head depending on the possible spellings. I then began 'seeing' the words in the conversation. What they would look like backwards, do they rhyme, would I spell that with a z or an s? By then your name was long lost.
  c. I don't retain useless information. The first time we meet, I may never see you again. I don't need you cluttering up my brain.

- If I find something out of my place, say a roll of toilet paper on the back of a stall, a quarter on the ground, a straw outside of the dispenser, my first reaction is:
   a.  Fear - What have they done to this? Has it been spit on? Covered in itching powder? Put in someone's butt?
   b.  Suspicion - Is someone watching? Is this set up to mock people who are so cheap as to pick up a quarter off the street? Or perhaps to expose people who would pick up someone else's quarer and walk away without reporting it or trying to return it? As soon as I touch it some camera crew will pounce on me.
  c.  Anxiety - If I use/touch/take it any of the above might happen, but if I don't, I'll look like some sort of obsessive compulsive paranoid weirdo.

- I will likely lose interest in a conversation and any stock I might hold in your opinion if you being a sentence with:
   a.  I know it's true/false/nonfattening because my friend's sister told me and she used to do that for a living. (Hearsay means nothing.)
   b.  It's a fact. Statisics show... (statistics show that 99.5% of all convicted felons drank water at least once during their childhood)
   c.  On Oprah the other day...

If you answered 'all of the above' to all of the above, congratulations! You're me. We should hang out. And by hang out I mean sit on separate ends of the couch, not talking, while we watch a movie but don't actually pay attention to it becase we're too busy trying to time it so that our hands don't hit the chip bowl at the same time.

Oh, the Reverse Shawshank. I ended up not using that. That's when I look at the mud pit/driveway in my back yard and think "Y'know, if I gathered up the loose gravel on the street while I walked, I could probably fill this in". Unlike the movie, where he went for walks to get rid of it.