"What a Moomin!"

[steepholm]

"I believe many of my readers will thoughtfully lift their snout from the pages of this book every once in a while to exclaim: 'What a Moomin!' or: 'This indeed is life!'" 

I've always loved that part of Moominpappa's introduction to his memoirs. What oft was thought but ne'er so unblushingly expressed!

I was reminded of it, because one of those memes where you get a point for every thing you have done from a given list (been in a limo, taken drugs, had a one-night stand, etc.) has been going round Facebook lately. I scored rather low, which got me - no doubt a mite defensively - wondering what the basis of selection was. After all, people do many things in their lives: which count as worthy of inclusion on such a list, and what does your score say about you, if anything? From the comments I saw, the general inference seemed to be that points=coolness.

Now, I'm neither cool nor ambitious to become so, but, simply by dint of having lived almost 58 years, I have accumulated a few experiences that, looked at squintways, make me look a much wilder child than I am or ever was. 

So, give yourself a point if you have ever:

Walked barefoot across red-hot coals

Eaten raw horse

Spent the night alone in a haunted house

Spent the night in the British Museum

Cut someone's umbilical cord

Held someone's hand as they died

Had gender-confirming surgery

Published a novel

Played in a pop group on national television

Drunk whisky in an Akihabara maid cafe 

Stood naked in a Welsh sea cave with half a dozen similarly skyclad acquaintances

Got close enough to the Queen to grab her fur coat - and done so

Some of you will no doubt have a respectable score, but I'll be amazed if anyone but me sweeps the board. Don't despair, though! It didn't take long to compile this highly selective itinerary, and if you're north of 40 I bet you could do something similar, just from the random incidents that inevitably occur at times in any life of moderate duration. 

I would love to read your lists, too.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Three of those.

I'll have to have a think about this! :o)

[cmcmck]

I've had a go!

See my latest!

[calimac]

I actually did this list a few years ago:

1. Had lunch made by Ursula K. Le Guin in her own kitchen. Dessert was a chunk of her Tiptree Award.
2. Worn a button at Worldcon reading "I know who won the Hugos, and you don't" - and it was true.
3. Circumnavigated an entire country, by foot. (And by that I mean, walked all the way around it outside its borders.)
4. Performed in a play using a live geyser as a prop.
5. Sat in Gerald R. Ford's office chair, in his office; and on the Woolsack, in the House of Lords.
6. Made the sound of one hand clapping.
7. Survived riding in a car that rolled over and played dead on the freeway.
8. Visited a roadless Alaskan fishing village 50 miles from, well, anywhere.
9. Eaten a haggis. Eaten another one.
10. Stood right next to my three brothers in four different states.

Some common things I've only done once:
1. Ridden a roller coaster.
2. Danced to a rock song.
3. Gotten married.
4. Visited Scotland.
5. Worn a tuxedo.
6. Eaten sushi.

[(Anonymous)]

Which country was it?

I have eaten haggis many times and don't think of it as strange in the slightest. And I have never worn a tuxedo.

[steepholm]

I too eat haggis regularly - that is to say, once a year on my birthday (which happens to be Burns Night).

[joyeuce]

I have eaten haggis many times and have never thought of this as unusual! Which country did you circumnavigate?

[calimac]

Haggis is very rare in the US, where it's generally considered against the health laws. Consequently Americans are reluctant to try it even in Scotland, but I thought I'd like it and did.

The country? Well, it has to be very small, and I didn't have to be a mountain climber or walk on water. Should be guessable.

[steepholm]

Vatican City, perhaps?

[calimac]

Of course. The circumnavigation occupied about 45 minutes, took place entirely on the streets of Rome, and was undertaken to pass my time while B. was attending Mass inside the country, conducted by its Head of State.

[steepholm]

That's an interesting list! Which state were you assigned?

[calimac]

Colorado. It was the first admitted of the four states, and I'm the eldest of the four brothers, so it seemed logical to line us up in comparable order.

Whose idea was it to figure all that out? Mine. I was a regular little factual trivia nerd even at 12, which was my age when this happened.

[larryhammer]

Hmm. My score on yours is a 1.

[redbird]

I have done exactly one of those.

[steepholm]

Some of those items are pretty niche, to be fair.

[ashlyme]

None of those, but your list is much cooler than the Facebook meme. I'll have a think about my own list.

[sovay]

I would love to read your lists, too.

I am never any good at even inventing my own lists because I have so little idea of things I have done that are outré vs. things that other people normally do. The Kuiper belt object is in my bio because I feel reasonably certain that one is uncommon.

What was your pop group?

[steepholm]

That happened when I was 15 or 16. A friend at school was a whizz with computers, and got onto "Young Scientist of the Year" (a BBC competition) with a homemade synthesizer. In order to demonstrate its abilities he organised a scratch band to play along with, including me (I was on flute, channelling Ian Anderson). Needless to say, we were pretty rubbish, but it was national television! He went on to be a Cambridge don for his pains.

[joyeuce]

I score zero on your list! I have sung in a choir on national TV though, and sung a (very brief) solo on national radio.

[steepholm]

Is it on BBC Sounds?

[joyeuce]

Sadly, no, or not that I can find. It was at the June 2016 Spitalfields Summer Music Festival, and it was the line at the beginning of Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars, which is sung by a group in almost every recording I can find!

[ethelmay]

The closest I've gotten to a haunted house was an extremely weird night in an AirBnB that said it was a converted girls' school, but turned out to actually have been the women's dormitory of the Idaho State Industrial School, which was a reform school for wayward youth. We did not see or hear anything supernatural - it just struck us as an odd place. Oh, and I wasn't alone, so haunted or not, it wouldn't count. There aren't many houses I have slept alone in, come to that. A couple of places where I was housesitting, and occasionally in our house when everyone else was away.

[steepholm]

Very strictly, you might say that I wasn't sleeping alone either, since my friend Miho was in an annexe on the ground floor. However, it wasn't part of the house proper, so I'm letting it slide. This is the incident: it's true that Hemingford Grey is more famous for its fictional ghosts than its real ones, but of course the former are based on Lucy Boston's experience of the latter, as I heard from her daughter-in-law Diana. Anyway, no house gets to be 800 years old without acquiring a few ghosts along the way.