It It Live, Or Is It Meme-orex?

Pam from Blogmeister USA is the perfect solution for blogger's block: she tagged me with a meme. Unlike most of my blog friends, I relish memes, because they pretty much write themselves, and they make you think a little bit: something a lot of bloggers don't do during a post. Of course, since it's me, most of these will not look favorably on your blog host, but what are ya gonna do? Here we go . . .

Five Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Me

1. I never scored a lacrosse goal in college. I played for four years, was a co-captain for two, and have coached high school teams since 1992, but I never put one in the net on the playing field. Thankfully, I scored a bunch of assists, and as Wayne Gretzky always said, "Goals are boring; besides, they're fascist."

2. I have had some pretty bad jobs. In the three years between college graduation and my entrance into the police academy, I worked at a car wash, a Jiffy Lube, and an advertising agency proofreading copy. Unfortunately, the agency didn't care if something was misspelled; they just wanted to make sure the pictures of the houses were correct. Ugh.

3. I once almost accidentally burned down my best friend's home. (This one will make Denny shake his head.) When I was in high school, my friend Mike and I were huge James Bond fans. We were screwing around with a lighter, trying to scare each other with a big flame, when a hanging plant went up like a Roman Candle. I, of course, panicked, and ran around in circles. Mike grabbed the flaming plant and stomped it out. The carpet was torched in a three-foot circle, and we ran out of the house to avoid getting into trouble. When we got enough courage to go back, his mother was (thankfully) forgiving. I worked my ass off to pay for the new carpet.

4. I was very popular with the ladies in high school. Believe it or not, I had many girlfriends. For some reason, bone-skinny track stars were all the rage at my alma mater. One of my friends' funniest moments was after high school when my friend Rob's mother said to me (in front of everyone): "Wyatt, I remember when you had a different girl every week." It was meant as a compliment, but it didn't come out that way.

5. My wife almost died during her first pregnancy. Kyle was six weeks premature - Erik was four - and the missus' water broke while sitting on the couch. Eww! I took her to the hospital, and the doctor's got her set up. A few hours later, her blood pressure went through the roof - it was 140 over 100 - and the nurses rushed in. I got out of the way, and the missus asked the nurse for some ice chips. She replied, "We're trying to save your baby right now!" Another nurse ran to the wall and pushed a blue button. I heard over the loudspeaker, "Code Blue: Room six!" I thought, "Hey, we're in room six." A team of doctors and nurses rushed in, and pushed me out. I went in the hallway and freaked out for the half hour it took for them to find Kyle's heartbeat and get the missus back to normal. It was the worst moment of my life.

Well, there you have it. I know many of you hate to be tagged, but your wishes mean nothing to me. HA! I therefore tag Big White Hat, Captain Den, Deathlok, GroovyVic, and Sssteve.