On the Subject of Me

"I was a caesarean birth because my mother always liked that hairstyle."

Some of you know me. Some of you have never met me. Some of you who haven’t met me would like to. Many of you who have met me would like to tell those folks that would like to meet me that they shouldn’t bother. Some of you drink. Some of you don’t care. Some of you don’t drink, or care. Some of you drink, but care.

In any case, I thought with the New Year in full swing, I would take the opportunity to get a few things off my chest. Even those of you that know me (or just pretend to, in order to soak up a few fleeting moments of my perpetual spotlight) will not know some of the things I am about to reveal. I’m not proud of these facts, not am I particularly ashamed. I just thought full disclosure would be a good way to start 2006.

Please, look upon these admissions with a kind and forgiving heart, that is all that I ask.

1. I’ve never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

It would seem that in order to reach the ripe old age of 25 having never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” all the way through, you’d have to be purposely avoiding it. I assure you this is not the case. In fact, I keep meaning to watch it, on account of Jimmy Stewart being one of my favorite actors.

Of course, Luke was 23 before he saw “Jaws,” or “Rocky.” Now that’s just sad.



2. I used to think the first day of the week was called Sunday because it never rained.

On this one you’ll have to cut me some slack, I was pretty young. Also, growing up in Louisiana, we get a lot of sunny days. I just made a logical leap. Unfortunately, I made quite a fool out of myself in Sunday school when I made reference to this “fact” and its obvious connection to god’s holy day.

It was then that they told me that at seventeen years old, I no longer had a place in Sunday school.

3. I’ve always wanted to collect something.

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that collected one type of thing. Decorative spoons, Civil War memorabilia, shrunken heads, anything really, just to have that singular reputation would be so liberating. To hear people say, “Oh, Scott? Yeah, he’s that guy with all those hippopotamus figurines, remember?”

I’ve tried numerous times over the years to become a collector of one thing or another, but have always lost interest in whatever it was I had. Inevitably, I end up with two pewter dragons, three animal bone horns, one prop from the set of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” six decorative thimbles from Niagara Falls, and no interest in any of them.

All I have now is a collection of Gideon Bibles I've pilfered from hotel rooms across the country, and frankly, even I think that's wierd.

4. My dad was a wannabe sheep rustler.

Some of you may know that I grew up on a farm-type thing in rural Louisiana. Well, we had this pen (as in a fenced-in area with a gate) but frankly I don’t remember why, because it was always empty. Sometimes, as we were leaving the house, we would see a single sheep hanging out in the pen, perhaps because my lazy-ass brother never mowed in there. My dad would command one of us to run as fast as we could to try and shut the gate and trap the sheep, but he always ran away before we could.

I have no idea where this sheep came from, or even why my dad wanted it. I even asked my dad about this a few years ago, and he feigned ignorance of the whole ordeal. Apparently, he's a liar as well as a thief.

5. I used to think there was a chance I might be Jesus.

Okay, now just bear with me on this one.

I attended Catholic school all my life, and was raised in a strict, lapsed-Catholic household. As a young boy, I was introduced to the story of Jesus, and took particular interest in the stories of Jesus’ younger years. According to the Bible (or at least how I interpreted it,) Jesus didn’t know he was the son of god until he was 30, after which he began his ministry and went around telling everyone how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other (and we all know how well that turned out).

Given the non-stop Catholic-style pulpit pounding about the inevitable return of Jesus, I logically thought that maybe one of us in the room might be him and just not know it. Maybe, I thought, he could even be me, or I could be him, or whatever.

This seemed especially feasible since, as far as I was concerned, the borders of the world were West Jennings and East Lafayette, and "Jerusalem" was as fictional a place as Castle Grayskull.

6. I really like Prince.

Granted, I was a little disillusioned when I discovered that Prince was not really a prince at all, but just some guy from Minnesota, but this did not reduce my enjoyment of that nancy-boy’s frilly, limp-wristed, falsetto, pillow-biting, but ultimately enjoyable tunes one bit. Except for the “Bat-Dance,” that was just fucking gay.



I hope these admissions and revelations have provided useful insight into the puzzle that is me, the President, CEO, CFO and Head Custodial Engineer here at the OTR Institute. I further hope that my own disclosures might compel some of you to share your own troubled pasts in this public forum.

I would also like to know if anyone else thought they might have been Jesus when they were young, because if so, that would make me feel a lot better.