Random 8: Things You Don't Want To Know

I've been tagged. My dear friend and colleague, Gerald, recently caught the blog bug, and has been so kind as to pull me down the rabbit hole with him. I was initially hesitant to perpetuate this blog "chain," but after reading Gerald's eight random things, I couldn't resist the call to self-pillory.

Here we go:

1. I don't eat seafood.
   
   This extends to all freshwater fish as well. I consider myself to be a "foodie," and have grand notions of my cooking abilities, but I just can't bring myself to eat and enjoy seafood. My brief stint as a cook in a fine dining restaurant cured me of many food aversions-- I even tried some very strange things… And the restaurant where I worked was on the coast-- had access to some of the best, freshest seafood available (mahi-mahi, yellow fin tuna, halibut, grouper, sole, etc.). But I never ate any of it. Hell, I spent six months living in Naples, Italy-- where you can buy fresh cozze (mussels) from the side of the road, where polpi (octopus) and calamari (squid) are standard players on antipasti platters. And while I did try these "delicacies," I didn't make a habit of eating them. When my wife ordered a big plate of fresh prawns on our honeymoon in Praiano, I took a picture of them, but didn't touch them!
   
   And so, I will never be a culinary maven, a master chef.
   
   All because I can't stand the smell and taste of seafood.
   
   And just for the record, I don't care how fresh it is, it still smells like fish…
   
   
2. When I was eleven or twelve, I ratted out some guys on my swim team for peaking over the wall into the women's locker room.
   
   This incident, though minor, was kind of pivotal in my personal growth: It reveals my self-consciousness and desire to be liked; it illustrates deep-seated guilt in regards to keeping secrets (or not keeping them).
   
   The first part is pretty easy to explain. I told on the guys because I wanted to impress the ladies. I was searching for favor. An awkward, butterball of a teen, I had no skills, and no chance in hell of ever dating any of the girls. In my mind, revealing this bit of information some how seemed like my way in. They would all love me for telling them-- and maybe, just maybe, they would let me look for free…
   
   It makes sense that this might simply have been a form of sabotage, but I don't think I thought of it that way back then.
   
   The other part is trickier. See, as much as I wanted the girls to want me, I knew, even then, that my lot in life was different from that of the other guys, the star swimmers. I was good, and I loved (still do love) the water, but I wasn't a jock. I wasn't going to get the cheerleader. I wasn't destined to perform keg stands at high school parties. And so, my deep desire to be liked probably had less to do with my revealing of the secret than it did my shame at not having the balls to look myself.
   
   And, believe me, I wanted to. Oh did I want to.
   
   But I never did.
   
   See, it worked like this. The locker rooms at the pool were pretty much like they are everywhere else-- with one exception. The cinder block wall separating the two rooms didn't go all the way to the ceiling. It was high enough to separate the two spaces. In fact, there was only about a foot of open space at the top. However, if you climbed up on the side wall (the one that separated the showers from the hallway leading to the pool), you could stick your head through that small gap and look down into the women's showers.
   
   When we finished practice, we would all shower off. The enterprising gentlemen who did the peeking would wait a few minutes and then hoist themselves up onto the wall, squeeze their heads through the gap, and enjoy the view.
   
   My fear of getting caught kept me from ever looking. I used to imagine what I would see, and I would long-- in my pervy adolescent mind-- to climb that wall. I'd seen Porky's. I knew the sight would be glorious. And, at various points, I had had crushes on damn near all of the girls on the team.
   
   But I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
   
   The more I think about it, dropping the dime was probably my way of punishing those guys for having bigger balls than me.
   
   Now, where does the guilt come in? Well, from the moment the words came out of my mouth, I regretted tattling to the girls. The repercussions of that admission reverberated far and long. Hell, the fact that I'm writing about this now shows that this still doesn't sit right with me.
   
   It doesn't feel good to be an informer. It might be the right thing to do, but it doesn't necessarily feel right… I know that from experience.
   
   
3. I'm afraid of cockroaches.
   
   My parents' house in Greensboro was backed up against some gnarly woods (we used to cut trails through them and cut the trails up with motorcycles), and so we always had problems with bugs. We would get those big ass flying cockroaches-- the kind that can carry off small children.
   
   I spent many a sleepless night imagining one flying into my mouth…
   
   
4. Continuing with the fear: I couldn't watch scary movies until I was in college.
   
   In keeping with the swim team memories, I'll relate this trivial story: We were at an out of town swim meet (can't remember where). After the first day's events, we all went out to eat and then went to see Pet Sematary. I didn't sleep at all that night-- kept imagining Gage walking around my bed with a scalpel. The next day I swam horribly from the lack of sleep…
   
   This isn't so much of an issue anymore, though I do get spooked pretty easily.
   
   
5. In the heyday of the hair band, I saw most of the "celebrated" acts.
   
   I distinctly remember going to see Whitesnake (Great White opened for them!) because I spent a portion of the show on some strange dude's shoulders. We had floor tickets (one of the first shows I went to where the floor was general admission) and I was (still am) too short to see over the sea of rednecks and metal heads in front of me. This guy standing next to me offered to lift me up so I could see.
   
   I have to admit that at many of the shows back then, people were usually good-natured and generous-- despite the hard-living aesthetics of the music. Years later Guns n' Roses incited fights in the crowd for making us wait two damn hours between the opening act and their performance…
   
   
6. I was a Boy Scout, but I never made Eagle.
   
   For years, I've claimed that by the time I was ready to do my community service project to make Eagle Scout, I'd had enough of scouts and didn't really see the need to finish. The truth is, I was lazy. And despite the fact that I was a model scout (fair number of merit badges; member of Order of the Arrow; patrol leader and senior patrol leader), I didn't quite get the whole civic duty part of the Eagle. Sure, I knew the scout motto-- and followed it as well as any teenage boy can. But the whole purpose of the community service project was lost on me.
   
   I'll say this, though: I guarantee that there are many, many Eagle Scouts out there who understood the whole community service thing less than I did…
   
   
7. I own a Kylie Minogue album.
   
   
8. I fell asleep watching the X-Files movie in the theater.
   
   To be fair, I wasn't really a fan of the show…