Confession 27

Confession #27.

I am rendered nearly as helpless as a newborn kitten when it comes to dares.

I am independent, confident, blah blah blah whatever, but my dare immunity is almost nil. Maybe this stems from my desire to please people, or maybe it's just a part of being competitive. Either way, I love surprising people. Turning their faces from a placid smile to a gaping hole and two saucers is great fun. My parents deserve your sympathy, as they are often (still) peppered with what-if questions….

What if I got a tattoo?

What if I shaved my head?

What if I got dreads?

What if I became a pirate? Or a plumber?

It's not that I'm trying to be annoying, I just have a fondness for hypotheticals. And don't think I don't take them seriously. The latest was regarding dread locks… After sorting out the pros and cons, it's a no go for right now. The primary trouble is the length of my hair. I've been growing it out for quite some time, and if I did dreads now, I'd have to cut it short and lose all that hard earned progress. But this post is not about my hair.

There's something about dares. I think it's the same sort of thing that's in fire. It holds your gaze and takes hold of your inner reckless self. [So is a reckful person someone who's cautious??] Maybe it's just a desire to be daring. If you want to be daring, you should take dares? Liz always says to do a daring thing every day. That's a lot of daring things if you ask me.

Like when I was at that bonfire and the boys found a grub under a log. A royally grubby grub, huge, white, fat, nasty thing. Of course, the logical thing to do would be to dare someone to eat it. So they did. And I answered the call and won $5. Then there was always the trivial Truth or Dare stuff, kissing dumpsters and things. Then there was the time we used hand sanitizer to light our hands on fire… *Disclaimer: Little Miss Sunshine is not endorsing this.* And the time I ate cow tongue, and termites and fish milkshake.

The friends at school figured out my Achilles heel and sometimes used it to their advantage. Mark and Hannah in particular were adept at getting me on the bandwagon for a late night Tbell run using dares. Chris and Jake just started saying we'd never see each other after college, so we should hang out. That worked too. Unfortunately, the Aussie crew already knows I am without immunity when it comes to dares and competition. I don't know how I slipped that to Chezie, but I did, and the boys are convinced they'll have me jumping off the highest cliffs because I can't say no to a dare.

Fortunately, for my own well-being, there's a caveat to this weakness. If you think you're going to have me robbing banks or cutting my arm off, think again. The dare appeal stops at being illegal or stupid. I have few inhibitions, but thankfully, those are two of them. I would cut my arm off for a good cause though…

I'll leave Confession 28 for another day.

Little Miss Sunshine