Things I Prolly Won't Do

Whenever I say "I would never _____," I do that thing within two or three months.
"I would never _____" is my life's classroom.
There are some things though that I must go ahead and risk it and pronounce that I would never do.

I would never be a woman sportscaster. I think I'm safe with this one though. It just isn't gonna happen. I do hesitate to say this because it probably sounds so anti-something or other, which I am not, but I just cannot get into women sportscasters! Maybe it's because I don't think I could ever like sports enough to stand there with a microphone and bark terms like, um, see I don't even know any terms. Touchdown, say, or RBI. Or maybe it's because of the one I saw the other day wearing a men's suit two sizes too big for her and bad flat hair that made her look like she was trying to look like a man. Or maybe it's the opposite, the ones who look all sexy and pretty and I gotta wonder if men watching and listening to them are listening to them. I don't know, I just have disharmony with the whole women sportscaster thing and then I have shame and disharmony for feeling that way.

Along this same vein, it'll be a cold day - combined with a really bad laundry week - combined with a mental breakdown of some sort (and that's not entirely out of the question) before I'll be wearing a professional sports team jersey. Especially on the day of the "big game." What is the matter with me? Contrariness? Rebellion? Major disinterest? We know it's not fashion sense.

Now that I've insulted tried and true sports fans, men and women alike, I shall get humble and admit that I will never be a person who cleans my floors in a responsible regular fashion. I heard someone say once, "I vacuum once a month whether it needs it or not," and, yeah. I hear ya sister, I feel your pain. I don't have many rugs, I have 100 year old hardwood floors. I fool myself into thinking that they hide a multitude of sins. But washing them and seeing them shiny spic and span topples that illusion every time, so...in the interest in illusionment...

I probably won't be a person who dyes her hair. I know, I'm 45 and treading on very thin ice right now, graying at the temples. It may not be a few months, but perhaps several years when I eat those words waving a silver flag, but today I'll say no to hair dye. To me, there's nothing worse than 1) spending hundreds of dollars on hair. Ugh, I don't even get it cut! And 2) using the wrong hair color, either too dark or too light, for your skin tone. I'd be afraid of not getting it right. 3) Spending any time whatsoever in a salon. I do not find salons comforting or interesting, but usually a place where I feel like I want to jump out from under my hair and run out screaming.

I probably won't wear a bikini ever again. Don't bother passing the tissues. If you ever see me in a bikini it will be a person who looks a lot like me but isn't. Or it will be me after going through an amazing transformation and, unable to contain my new abs a minute longer, I ran around some foreign island frolicking in a bikini. In which case, it wouldn't look like me at all. And no, it'll be someone else.

I will never overdecorate my house for a holiday. To my children's' chagrin. There won't be headstones on the lawn, Santas on the rooftops, shamrocks in the windows, giant eggs hanging from trees, hugging heart bears on the porch or big paper turkeys on my dining room table. I do not even own an American flag or a flag pole or holder to put it on. Who am I and what do I stand for?

I will probably not ever stop buying disinfecting wipes unless the economy crashes and I am shamed and shocked into realizing how cost ineffective, wasteful and unhealthy they are. But as long as we have an income and I own this Bernese mountain dog with long black hair who likes to lay at the door of my bathroom with the white vinyl flooring and white porcelain toilet...growl...I am using disinfecting wipes and I'm using them to my heart's delight.

I won't be the guy eating that gigantic steak in that "restaurant" where people gather to watch and cheer for someone eating a gigantic amount of food in an hour's time. I do that in the privacy of my own home, thank you.

I will not sail around the world alone or with someone else. I will not sail around a harbor either. I find it skeery.

Mechanical stuff. I won't build a motorcycle from scratch or try and fix my toaster. I remember sixth grade and building a thing with batteries that was supposed to do something or other. I remember the pile of wires, batteries...um, wires and stuff on my light beige desk and Mr. Matthews walking around barking some instructions and yeah, no. No satisfaction or even mild interest in mechanical, electronic, wire stuff.

Parade organizer. Oh, that's funny to imagine. Any parade I designed would be devoid of girls (or boys) waving from convertibles. I mean, I don't even understand that phenomenon. Nine fire trucks in a row or scattered throughout. And then ones from other towns? Again, I have no idea. Clowns. Why the stumbling, painted faces, flowers pulled from guns? Somersaults. For some reason I find it hard to believe that even clowns are having fun being clowns. Bands passing by on flatbed trucks, another funny thing. Here's 3/4s of a song on wheels - enjoy! Then there are the people walking excitedly handing pens and papers to those watching along the sides. This pen works really well, I'll go to this place on this pen! I don't know. ;)

Any parade I'm designing would have to have....well it would have to be....it would be.....I'm not designing no parade.