The Wackiest Person You Know and Love–Story Weekend
We all have at least one of them in our lives–that person who marches to the beat of a different drummer but whom we love to pieces. Who’s the wackiest-but-lovable person in your life?
If you’re new to Story Weekend, it’s an opportunity to share a tiny snippet of your life with my fellow blog readers. We’ve been having fun with it, but there are a few “rules”:
- The story must be true.
- Try to keep it under 100 words. That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge.
- Avoid offensive language.
Have fun, and as usual, I’ll kick it off with my own comment.
My mother qualified as both wacky and lovable. Dressing up as a bunch of grapes was one of her tamer get-ups. She loved being the center of attention. I get my brown thumb from her, although I haven’t gone as far as planting plastic flowers in the garden. Ours was the only house on the street where flowers poked their heads out of the snow! And I buy my jewelry in stores instead of making my own by wrapping contact paper around paperclips and stringing them together. Mom was definitely one of a kind and I miss her!
The tuning fork of my soul is set magnetically for wacky people. I am one and I love them all. Daring to be different. The first time I was ever interviewed on national radio I met my producer. He of the red jeans, several earrings, funky haircut and one yellow and one purple sneaker clan. I sent him a thank you note for the interview and he sent me back a thank you for the thank you note:} It came in an envelope in the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He could spot a man walking down the street and say Hey look at that dreamboat and then turn to me in my charity shop mended navy blue leather biker jacket and man’s shirt and say , you look especially beautiful today. He followed Nick Lowe around the world because he could:} He was a creative genius who never would or could fit any mold and he gave me the gift of confidence and taught me how to do an 8 minute interview without saying ‘ and um’ every 3 seconds’:} His watch was a replica of The Scream. We understood each other. Wacky is as wacky does. We were each others teachers.
My Mom is both brilliant (fluent in 4 languages) and hilariously wacky. Once, after being served clams on the half-shell, she asked the waiter where the other half were. She took me and my 2 sisters to NYC when we were kids and upon arriving at Penn Station, picked up a Playgirl at the newsstand, opened the centerfold, and said, “No, don’t know him.” After her first mastectomy, she told my Dad she was going to put her falsie in his lunchbox so he could “have some fun” on his lunch break! At a Renaissance Festival, she said, “Who does she think is, the Queen?” in front of the Queen, and the Queen turned on her heels and said, “Off with her head!” and you can only imagine how embarrassed my Dad was. She is all the more amusing because she doesn’t try to be, and of course, I love her very much.
I have really given this one a lot of thought, but I am at a loss to pinpoint just one of my wacky friends since several of them fit that bill in one way or another. But one of my best friends is my “show and tell” (and she knows it!) as I used to take her with me to gatherings and announce that she was there and then ask her to tell on herself (at my prodding) and she would never disappoint me or the others. She would just go ahead and tell something about some wacky thing she had done and we would all just laugh and so would she. Gotta love a person who can laugh at themselves!
Hopefully those that have passed qualify too 😉
My Dad was by far the wackiest but best person I knew! While there are a multitude of stories I could tell one of my favorites was the story of the Tooth Guy. My Mom was dying when I lost my final molar around the age of 13 or so. Fully knowing that the tooth fairy was a bunch of hooey I wrote the “fairy” a sentimental note about how this would be our last visit together, how much I would miss her and also notated that the final tooth was much more valuable than the last one. In the morning I awoke to a note from the “Tooth GUY” informing me that he was *not* a fairy and if I referred to him as a fairy again I would loose the $20 he left. I called him the tooth guy for years after that.
Corey, I love this story about your Dad.
The first time I met the wife of my husband’s battalion commander, I counted 27 pieces of jewelry on the parts of her body I could see. This included six rings in each ear! Maybe a few of them were studs, not rings — I digress — anyway. Not too long afterward, the battalion had a “toga party” at the post golf club. Most of us showed up in sheets (one adventurous wife had fashioned her toga out of her living room sheers), but the BC’s wife was late in arriving.” Where could she be? Wait — an unforgettable grand entrance was in order! Around the corner of the club came a draped “Cleopatra” lounging on a “couch” hoisted aloft by six Army lieutenants, and accompanied by what I could only describe as “snake dancing” music! We collapsed in laughter! I loved that woman, and I wish I knew where she was now! No one was ever kinder or gentler or more fun! JJ, if you’re out there, Facebook me! You know who you are!
These are so wonderful!
86 years young and she walks to a different beat. Her paintings would never be considered famous, but they definitely illuminate ‘different’…never one to follow, she is a leader of many obsurd talents. Painting her bathroom not yellow but gold…and her furniture is abstract and bright, just like her paintings! Very independent and still flying all over the world wearing her flowing bright gowns and bright jewelry. I love ‘Flo’ because she’s not afraid to travel an unusual path.
Tooling around on an upright bicycle, his middle-age belly straining against tighter-than-sin biking shorts, his head encased in an aerodynamic biking helmet and orange goggles, my husband qualifies. Superfly with a beer belly. He makes Superfly runs to the library, the grocery store, the foodshelf where he volunteers. They all grant him entrance. Because, by the time he leaves, he knows the librarian’s favorite author, the teller’s name, the cook’s recipe of the day. Superfly is no slouch. He runs his own consulting practice, takes meetings with corporate executives. And the guy behind the mahogany desk is the same to him as the guy in the soup line. Our teenagers cringe. I secretly hope they turn out whacky, too.
Thanks for sharing, everyone. I wish I could meet these people!
My college chaplain, Fred, is one of the most wonderful and loving people I have ever known with a great balance of wackiness. Fred and his wife, Mary, used to (before caller ID) call local pastors. Mary would play the role of Roseann and ask them to baptize her in the nude. Some said yes.