Probably not really blog appropriate

Apologies to those who have been impressed by the consistency of theme in this blog, but this post is now necessary.

In my high school, the yearbook staff would conduct a survey of seniors each year to name the "most-____"/"best-____"/"etc.-_____" students in the class. For example, my older brother won the "best-sideburns" award. I've got friends who were named "biggest brown noser" or "most-smartest." Other categories included "most likely to multiply and replenish the earth" or "best polished gun." I can't be certain that I didn't just make up that last one, but I'm 99% sure that I did.

When I was a senior, I had a certain reputation. "Diffident with the ladies" is how one friend put it at the time. More recently, another friend described it as "not an avid dater." I figure anyone who is reading this probably recognizes that both of those statements are putting things mildly. Because of this, someone (my memory could be wrong on this one - and I'm not sure if I ever knew the entire story - but my feeling is that it was Mary Wollenzien) decided it would be funny if I won "biggest-flirt." And Mary, being on the yearbook staff, made sure to tell everyone to put me down for that category as they voted. Apparently, this was effective enough that I won. Either that or they lied and claimed I won any way.

You might think that I could have reacted negatively to this. You'd never vote for a self-conscious kid with a bad stutter for "best public speaker." But I couldn't have reacted negatively because I knew that this was all only done with the best on intentions. And, though I'm a little self-conscious about my speech (I went to a speech pathologist in elementary school because I couldn't pronounce my "s"s well [and though I've improved, I still wonder if I don't have a bit of a lisp that no one {out of kindness} mentions]), I don't stutter. So I just laughed at the biggest flirt thing as much as everyone else, if not more.

The sad part of this story is that for each category, they had a male winner and a female winner. And I had to go get my picture taken with my female counterpart for the yearbook, and she was in tears. She won because she really was a flirt, but felt really bad that people felt that way about her. (I think she also had a boyfriend, and she didn't think he'd be too happy with her receiving this honor.)

I was also told that I had received the most votes for "most-smartest" [sic] but that there was a rule that any individual could only win in one category, and the year book staff decided I should win the "biggest-flirt" award. I don't know if this is true (it could be, I had a reputation for more than just being really shy), it kind of has the feel of something someone might make up to make sure I didn't feel bad.

Anyway, this label is one that has brought me untold grief ever since. And all of it (100.00%) has come from my youngest brother. The same one who ate all the gumballs.

This is the explanation.