Can ya believe it?

In the comments section of my last post my own sister called me weird.

My own sister!

(Who actually oughta know, come to think of it.)

Now before you think there’s some kind of feud on the boil here, relax. I don’t hold it against my Littlest Sis. She’s a good pal and I know her well enough to know she didn’t mean anything by it. Heck, I am weird. And that’s a good thing.

It took a while to come to terms with that, though. You see, long before I became the virile hunk I am today, I was a gangly teenager. Hard to believe I know when you peruse the very model of masculinity currently typing these words. But I’m here to tell you that during my freckle-faced adolescence, on at least two (possibly as many as seventy-four) occasions, I quite clearly recall a series of young, attractive, frequently buxom young women calling me “weird.”

Few things wound the pride of a freckle-faced adolescent boy as much as being called “weird” by a young, attractive, buxom woman.

What did these young, attractive, buxom women base this on, you ask? Did I have some kind of facial tic? Was I given to shouting random words like “refrigerator!” in public places (like at least one friend in those days)? Did I stand in crowded elevators asking people out of the blue for another word for egg (like another friend in those days)?

No.

No, I was branded with the epithet “weird” because I dared broach unfamiliar conversational terrain in the presence of these young women. The meaning of life, questions of ethics, notions of honour and so forth.

It hurt at the time being called weird because I would have preferred that these young women like me. And in truth I don’t know that they didn’t, but certainly they found themselves on unfamiliar ground in my company, and had to respond somehow, and perhaps “weird” was just the first thing to come to mind. And no, I don’t hold it against them any more than I hold it against my charming Little Sis. I’m not suggesting that they were any less intelligent than me, and I’m absolutely certain that they’ve grown up into fine, upstanding individuals. I’m equally certain that between now and then they must have spent at least a moment or two pondering such “weird” questions as I posed then.

So my Littlest Sis has brought all that back, and I thank you Sis for reminding me how far I’ve come since those days, when a word like that could sting so much, and now doesn’t at all.

Yeah I’m weird all right.

Like a freckle-faced fox.