Here at Just a Smidge, we continue to gain new readership
each year. This past year alone we have documented as many as two new readers.
So, for both of you just joining us, welcome! Let’s start the New Year with a
little meet and greet, shall we?
Hi. I’m Marc Schmatjen, aka Smidge, and I’m the lone staff
writer and head pool maintenance technician here at Just a Smidge. Based on how
much money I make writing this column, it would be inaccurate to call this my
job, so let’s just go with “hobby.”
I am a forty-seven-year-old husband of one and father of
three. My wife is an amazing woman who teaches high school kids math, which is
becoming increasingly difficult now that school isn’t necessarily used for
teaching anymore. For a math teacher, she’s an excellent counseloreferee.
We have three boys, whom we affectionately refer to as Son
Number One, Two, and Three. Two of them are teenagers and all three of them are
loud and smelly and they eat a lot.
Anyway, enough about my wife and kids. Let’s talk more about
me. Here are twenty other things that you should probably know about me, in no
particular order:
1) I am going bald, and amazingly, getting better looking with
every single lost hair off my head.
2) My grandfather killed General Patton's dog. That is the
single most historically outstanding thing anyone in my family has done. We are
a proud people.
3) Walking out into bright sunlight makes me sneeze. I am
one of only an estimated seven people in the world with this disorder. We have
a club. I inherited this trait from my grandmother, whose husband once killed
General George Patton’s dog.
4) I am related to U.S. president Grover Cleveland on my
maternal grandmother’s side, whose husband (my grandmother’s, not Grover
Clevelend’s) - I believe I may have mentioned this - killed General George S.
Patton’s beloved English bull terrier, Willie. I don't really care about being
related to Grover Cleveland since he’s not Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy got shot in
the chest while leaving his hotel to give a speech. He continued on to the auditorium
and gave an 84-minute speech with a bullet in his ribs. Teddy was the only truly
cool president.
5) A few of my literary heroes are Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, Erma
Bombeck, Michael Connelly, and Dave Barry. My grandfather did not kill any of
their dogs, that I am aware of.
6) I am 47 now, and my once-fantastic eyesight is relaxing
like a tired dad in a Barcalounger. My arms are not long enough to read small
print anymore, or even the medium print. Also, every other part of my body
aches.
7) As an author and a writer, I am not afraid to say that
books of non-rhyming “poetry” with sentences like, “My mind is a seedless
grape, grasping to comprehend the melancholy oration, drowning in a cacophony
of humanity…” etc., are written by people who are too scared to attempt to
write anything that is required to make sense.
8) Another highlight of being 47 now: My face is going numb.
Why does this happen to men? You see old guys all the time eating dinner with
food stuck to their faces. We just can’t feel it on there anymore. My chin is
completely dead at this point.
9) My three favorite flavors are burnt pepperoni, slightly
burnt bacon, and well-toasted sesame seeds. Basically, if it has caught on
fire, I want to eat it. Except for my s’more marshmallows. Those should only be
browned. (And they will end up stuck to my chin, where they will remain until
my wife scolds me.)
10) I was in shape once. I swam 100,000 yards in one week
when I was in high school. I could not swim more than 50 yards or so today
without needing a floatation device, an oxygen tank, and a defibrillator. See
number 11.
11) I love bacon and I sit all day. See number 10.
12) I constantly get my left and right mixed up. This makes
driving directions with my wife fun.
13) I am a recovering engineer, so I know there are only 10
kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
14) My favorite joke of all time is:
A guy walks into the psychiatrist’s office wearing nothing
but underwear made out of Saran wrap. The doctor takes one look at him and
says, "Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts."
15) I like writing dialogue.
“You do?” they asked in unison.
“Yes. I do,” he said solemnly.
16) I like most foods (see number 10), but I have a deep,
abiding hatred for cantaloupe. If bacon is a 10, cantaloupe is a negative 3000.
17) I love to travel and I love to stay home, but I don’t
want an RV. Go figure.
18) My absolute favorite thing that has ever happened on
this earth – and I am including my marriage and the birth of my children in
that – was when the Oregon State Highway Division tried to disintegrate a dead
whale with a half-ton of dynamite in 1970. I wasn’t around yet, but thankfully
they had video cameras back then. (Just Google “Oregon Exploding Whale.”)
19) Coincidently, my favorite thing ever said on television
– and I am including anything ever uttered on The Newlywed Game – came from
KATU Channel 2 newsman Paul Linnman in 1970 after the whale dynamite was
detonated. When large chunks of whale rained down on people and cars over a
quarter-mile away, Paul noted, completely deadpan, “The blast blasted blubber
beyond all believable bounds.”
20) My wife is still laughing right now about number 1.
So, there you have it, folks. You now know everything you
need to know about me. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming
next week.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen
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