Hiatus!

I'll have more ridiculousness in three weeks!

Basketball is Not Kate's Forte

I rarely attended sporting events in high school. I don’t think I even made it through one football game. The reason I avoided sporting events was not because I was bored or I don’t like sports. It was because whenever I went, I would get hit in the face with a ball. This first happened at a volleyball game and I decided I just wouldn't go to any more games for the safety of my face.


However.



At some point, a ludicrously adorable boy in one of my classes asked me to go to his basketball game and I've never been very good at saying no to the ludicrously cute.

So after rehearsal for whatever play I was in, I used skills acquired by watching “Labyrinth” to find my way to the basketball courts.








There he was. Cute Boy. Playing sports. And he invited me! Awesome! I started to find my way to a seat. But then...























... It hit me. In the face. I was hit in the face with a basketball at the game I was invited to by the ludicrously cute boy in my class. He was pretty horrified and I wasn’t sure if I should sit or leave so I jack-in-the-boxed for a minute and eventually bolted.

He didn’t ask me out again. I don't even think we really ever spoke after that.

Things That Beat Me Up

Do you find that you are often the sad recipient of violence? I do! And the list of items that try to murder me are vast and intriguing. For example! Have you ever thought to yourself as you step out of your house, "Gosh, I should do a visual sweep to ensure that there are no malcontents lurking in the shadows getting ready to pounce on me the moment I move outdoors!"

Yes? Wise.

But do you ever think, "Gosh, I should check to make sure that FLOWER OVER THERE isn't getting ready to whack me in the face with its entire body?"



No? Never happened to you? Happened to me! A flower repeatedly smacked me in the face. For serious.

Also: Ever been beaten up by a kitten? True story:











I have also, on many occasions, found myself on the losing side of a battle with a wall. On the whole, it's usually not the WALL that has it out for me -- it's generally things like "corners" or "doorways" but I've absolutely run face first into the wall proper. It's not pretty.



And then we have my old foe The Chair. The Chair and I have a long history of disdain. I kind of suspect chairs think they're better than we are and are all bent out of shape because we sit on them and they can't do a damn thing about it. So while I sit, The Chair takes it upon himself to deliver bruises all over my legs. I don't always know how the marks appear either; I sit down, things get ugly, bruises form the next day.



Of course, then The Table decides it wants in on this violent action too and before I know it, I'm whacking my knees and arms on both of them!



Doors are tricky.

At first they're sort of like a wall: mostly harmless, generally not a big deal, I can maybe manage to avoid smacking into it.





BUT THEN THEY OPEN AND SUDDENLY MY FACE IS IN DIRE PERIL. NOT EVEN THE GOOD KIND OF PERIL.

Also perilous? Wind.

I was recently out one night and after trekking up to the top of a pile of dusty dirt, I was pretty proud of myself. Little did I know that the wind had received the "beat Kate up" memo that evening.





Another tricksy item is sunscreen. At first, it's nothing -- it's even nicer than the door or the walls or the wind. It's here to SERVE ME. TO HONOR AND PROTECT ME. We should get along great!!



We're not going to get along at all.



Finally, I am shamed -- deeply, earnestly shamed -- to admit that the single biggest thing that beats me up?

Me.

I don't know what my limbs are doing at any given second. Is that elbow supposed to be inside my nose? It's just too hard to control my own movements -- I've whacked myself upside the head, in the chin, in the stomach, on my thigh... anywhere... more times than I can count.

Shaving Your Eyebrows = Bad

Around seventh grade, girls begin to transition from happy, dorky kid into moody, obnoxious monsters who want clothing and shoes and sparkly glitter makeup. We start shaving, considering heels, and ...plucking our eyebrows.

After some serious consideration, eleven or twelve year old me decided that it was time to handle the problem of my FACE.

I picked up what must have been my mother's tweezers and started in on my too-bushy browline.

I know when I'm defeated. I put the tweezers down just before the tears started streaming down my face and trudged to my mother's room. Surely a mom would know better, surely parents would have helpful advice to avoid the ludicrous amount of pain that comes with plucking your eyebrows.

Thanks a lot, MOM. Faced with such uselessness I turned to go when my dad piped up with what sounded like the best suggestion since ever!

What a genius! He couldn't possibly be joking! I immediately ran off to my bedroom to test out my superawesomesohelpful Dad's advice! It was sheer ingenuity and I couldn't believe my luck -- that Dad! What a guy! Real salt of the Earth!

I only had an electric razor because I was barely twelve and shaving with one of those crazy bladed things scared the life out of my mom. I figured it wouldn't matter, a razor's a razor right? I could finagle a way to shave just the underside of my browline and maybe that silly stuff in the middle and that's all I really needed. I would be super pretty and gorgeous and all the middle school boys would fall over themselves to be in love with me. My expectations were high. And I was sure this would work.

It didn't.

I ran back to my parents' bedroom in a tizzy of horror -- there wasn't any way any boy at my school would love me NOW!! This was a CATASTROPHE! I had a third of an eyebrow on one side and half of one on the other!

My dad helpfully asked what happened to my face.

Lesson Learned, Dad. Lesson LEARNED.

Ridiculous Plate

This is just ridiculous: