Pinch-hitting: Uncomfortable truths by Rachel Callahan

Rachel -- home-schooling mom, founder of Alabama Bloggers, blogger at Grasping for Objectivity, part-time accountant, my personal cheerleader ... clearly she's an overachiever. That's why, when I asked my pinch-hitters for five Uncomfortable Truths, Rachel sent six. SIX. She couldn't help herself. 

She told me I could omit the weakest one, but after reading them, I decided they were all too good to keep any of them from you. So here they are, unedited, Rachel's Perfect Six:

1. No matter what time of day it is or the relative time that has passed since I last performed this action, I must brush my teeth every time I get out of the shower. Because in that moment, my teeth feel as dirty as Jiffy Lube’s inner chambers compared to the rest of my body. However, I absolutely cannot make it a habit to floss any time of day no matter how hard I try, yet I always lie to my dental hygienist and claim to be a legalistic flosser. (And she always makes it clear that she knows I’m lying.)

2. When I see a cop at a speed trap, I begin to judge every car coming the other way. Do they look worthy of a light-flashing warning? Or would I rather them be caught red-wheeled? Look at them in their convertible Lexus – they so deserve to be caught. Is that a Benz? I am SO not helping them. Oh – but look at that poor speeding Grandma in a Buick – I bet she’s trying to get home before she soils her Depends. I’ll flash her. 

(It should be noted here that my husband drives a convertible Mercedes (albeit old.) Clearly, if I saw him and didn’t know it was him, I would let him BURN.)

3. I am a picker and a plucker. Plucking my eyebrows is my therapeutic spa moment every evening, and I find zits extremely rewarding, especially if they have a good popping sound and a nice white or yellow filling. Scabs can also be fun, but not nearly as fun as zits. A bunch of my friend’s kids got a skin condition where they had all of these fantastic white bumps – and according to their doctors, the only way to free the kiddos of the bumps was to give them a good pinkie-nail pick-and-dig, where you extract the white “seed” from the bump. I was SO jealous of my friends, who sadly didn’t appreciate their luck. I also kinda wished my own kids would pick up the condition.

4. I clean my house with wet wipes. I have no “real” cleaning supplies residing at my house – I have a crew of cleaning angels that comes every other week, and all cleaning in between their visits happens with wet wipes. Because that’s how I roll – butts and floors deserve the same units of cleanliness.

5. Since I was a small child, I’ve always seen lbs. and pronounced it “labels” in my head. Or, on an especially British day, “lables.” Because of that, “labels” is a synonym for “pounds.” And when I talk to myself (whether aloud or not,) I always use “labels.” i.e….

“Hmmm…do I need two labels of sugar or five? Eh, I’ll go ahead and get five labels.”

“Oh look – another person on Facebook promoting their 20-label weight loss in a month’s time. What are they on – Advocare, Plexus, or Essential Oils? I wonder how many labels I’d drop if I used all three…”

6. My base skin color is blindingly white. However, I tan fairly well if exposed to direct sunlight. So when I do get a less frightening tone to my skin, I get narcissistically obsessed with it. I can be seen checking out my shoulders bi-minutely (because they get the darkest), and I love to wear shirts that “accidentally” show off my tan lines. Just to make sure that everyone knows how far I’ve come.


{Katherine again.} Please show Rachel some love in the Comments! When I post my own Uncomfortable Truths, it always makes me feel better when you tell me you identify with at least one of them. When you, you know, throw me a bone.

And if you want to read more Uncomfortable Truths? Just click here.