Weird Anamolies

Stand By Me

I suffer from a disease called Can’tstandsharpthingspointedatmyface or CSSTPAMF. I don’t know when it started or what its origins are but it a disease that everyone around me, who knows about it, gets a great laugh at my expense. The best example of when CSSTPAMF occurs is when my wife and I are eating out at a restaurant and the straw in my sweet tea glass (always tea and always sweet) is pointing at my face causing my left eye to twitch and squint uncontrollably. Whenever I am finished taking an awesome sip of tea through my straw, I always have to point the straw towards the other side of the table so that it does not cause me to go into eye convulsions.

I have a theory of why I have been afflicted with CSSTPAMF. It is a stretch, but it is the only thing I can come up with to explain my condition. Back when I was in college at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, I played just about every intramural sport that was offered; basketball, softball, flag football, volleyball, with a great group of guys. Even though we played everything that time allowed, we were only able to win one of the coveted Carolina Intramural T-shirts, but that is another story.

One day in Fetzer Gym, I was playing intramural basketball with the same group of guys that always comprised some part of our team in each different sport: Izzy, Paul, Blank, and Blank. I can’t remember the last two guys names, but they had perfected the best pick-and-roll move I have ever seen. Paul was 6’2” or 6’3” and had a sweet shot that went in from anywhere. Izzy was a bruiser; a wide body that got rebounds and knocked people around. I was the point guard/throw-up-a-prayer-3-pointer-every-now-and-again-and-hope-it-goes-in guy. Blank and Blank did it all. They played together in high school and you could tell they knew what the other was thinking. The only thing they were missing was a purple monkey following them around. They were awesome. Anyway, on one particular play, there was a loose ball in the middle of the floor. Anyone who has played organized basketball knows that all coaches engrain in you at a young age to always dive on a loose ball. If my description of our team didn’t tell you already, I was the weak link that had to bring something to the table other than dribbling the ball to half court and passing it to the Wonder Twins (now the purple monkey reference makes sense) or Paul. Izzy was not a shooter, but he rebounded like Dennis Rodman in the 1980s. The ball is still loose, so I dive on it. Seconds afterward, the fat kid from “Stand By Me” (not young Jerry O’Connell, but a point of reference for the size of this kid) falls on the back of my head, driving my nose into the hardwood. I got up immediately and was ready to keep playing because, for some reason, my nose did not hurt. Paul took one look at me and said, “I can see your face bruising in slow motion.” Apparently, the bridge of my nose and under both eyes was slowly morphing into a spectacle of purple and red. I left immediately and went to Student Health. They x-rayed it, said it wasn’t broken and sent me on my merry way with an ice pack and an unrealized fear of objects coming towards my face.

Another weird phenomenon that occurs within me is: I sneeze when I am hungry. Most people, when I tell them this, look at me as if I have uttered something in the style of “Father Time” after ordering a beer and taking his first swig (you’ll meet him in another one of my hubs). It is true. When I get really hungry, I begin to sneeze.  If I am out with friends and I sneeze, it is usually followed by one of them telling a waitress that I need food ASAP or I am going to die.

Both of the aforementioned phenomenon, I believe, can be traced back to an accident, involving a kid who shared the build of the actor who posed the question, “Who would win in a fight, Superman or Mighty Mouse?” I love that movie.