Stupid People Tricks

Happy New Year! May 2012 bring health, happiness and the best life has to offer. This is the moon grandly setting at midnight in Santa Fe. It was eerily gorgeous, so I take that as a promising omen.

Because KAK, our Calendar Whore, is didactic about not doing the usual thing, our theme this week is all about Useless Talents that Are Fun at Parties. Not a resolution post in site on THIS blog.

Frankly, I'm delighted.

Otherwise I'd have to post about why I think resolutions, like charity, should be private and anonymous or they mean nothing. And I'm sure I've ranted about that before.

None of you wants to hear that again. You want to hear about my personal Stupid People Tricks.

Remember that bit? It was on, like, Late Night with David Letterman or some such. (Those shows tend to blur together for me.) People would come on the show and demonstrate something they could do. It was hilarious.

Yes, I thought about doing it.

Not to demonstrate that I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue, which I totally can - if the stem is long enough - and, if I've had a drink or two, I'm sure you could get me to show you. Especially if you buy me said drink. I'm cheap like that.

And it's not that I can lace my toes together like most people lace their fingers together at rest. Though that feeds into it. In fact, that's when I discovered people like my Stupid People Trick.

I was at a sorority rush workshop (now they call it "recruitment," which sounds so... sanitized to me). If you never did the sorority thing, then you don't know how long and excruciating the preparation for rush could be. Days long for days on end, a full week before classes started. Plus this was St. Louis in late August, so it was hot, hot, hot. I sat on the floor of the soror suite in my sundress and bare feet, listening to something, with my legs stretched out, crossed at the ankle and my toes laced together.

One of my sorority sisters noticed and was amazed. I told her how, back at home, my stereo cassette deck (dating myself) was about a leg's reach from my bed. I'd perfected the knack of kicking my leg out from under the covers, hitting the eject button with my toe, grabbing the cassette between my toes, flipping it over, closing the door and hitting play.

I tell you: laziness is absolutely the first mother of invention. Screw necessity.

She wanted to know if I could tie shoelaces with my toes. I'd never tried, but she offered her own sneakers for practice.

So, we sat there, listened to our workshop (really!) and I learned to tie shoelaces with my toes.

Yes, I can do this at your party. But it has to be before the drinks.

After that, I'm only good for cherry stems.