Off the top of my head, the time I COMPLETELY shaved off my eyebrows when I couldn't find the tweezers (don't judge! You try being a teenage girl with bushy eyebrows, no patience, and being called "Chewbacca" one too many times, and see how long your eyebrows last!) was definitely a RULES moment. I learned from that experience that eyebrows do NOT grow back as fast as top-of- the-head hair, and being called "Chewbacca" is better than being called E.T. (at least Chewbacca had shiny highlights).
A Rhonda classic GOOFS moment was the time I got the bright idea (I get those often, I'm finding) to hoist a 50 pound TV set up onto a piddly wall-mount shelf that was being held up with only thumb tacks and duct tape. I no sooner got that monstrosity up there when I bent down to plug the fucker in when I heard the sickening rip and it came crashing down on my head (maybe that's what happened to me!?!?). My parents came running to my bedroom when they heard the commotion where they found me bleeding profusely and in a confused state (well, that part wasn't out of the ordinary). Although I was all of fourteen-years-old, I held out my arms because I wanted my mommy to hold me one more time before I bled out in the middle of the Hitachi rubble. But hell no, my parents were much more concerned about the precious black and white, 3-channel-getting, no remote control waste of tubes that was laying in a scattered heap around my broken, bloodied body (maybe that's what happened to me). In their defense, however, they did turn to ask how I was after they yelled at me and once they realized the TV had gone to that big screen in the sky (my head won that battle - besides being strangely large, it is also extremely hard). I came away from that experience with the knowledge that duct tape is not as strong as they advertise it to be, and that my mom (who can't even sew a button onto a shirt) knows how to stitch up head wounds so they don't leave a scar (well, there might be a scar, but thank goodness its under my Chewbacca mop of hair). I also found out just how strong my parents were, since holding me down while sewing my scalp back together with no Novacaine (for them or me) and just a couple of shots of whiskey (for them and me) had to be no easy task. They saved the emergency room co-pay (and surely, a child protective services visit) and only had to endure a couple of black eyes (them) and another wrestling match during stitches removal.
Perhaps one of my more shining plain old fuckup moments, but, by far, not the shiniest (gotta save the really good stuff for the book), was the time I singlehandedly shut down an entire ski slope at Mt. Holly for a couple of hours. It was a cold, crisp January night and I was feeling on top of the world (no, I was not drinking - it was a really big hill). I started to speed down the brightly lit slope, when to my left I spotted the enchanted forest. Seriously, who puts an enchanted forest in the middle of a ski slope anyway? (Probably some perverse person who gets their jollies off of watching impulsive, bad decision-makers like myself turn themselves into a pine tree porcupine). I'd breezed by it several times before and never really paid it any mind, but tonight it looked especially alluring - all dark and ominous and such. I probably should have paid closer attention to the numerous gargantuan skull and crossbones illuminated signs surrounding the trees (I thought they were leftover from halloween), or even the flashing neon signs that read, "Do Not Ski Amongst the Trees or Risk of Serious Injury - Even Death May Occur." Tell me, how is one supposed to read with snow flying in your face and travelling at breakneck (literally) speeds?!?!? Anyhow, as soon as I flew into the enchanted evergreens, my common sense (I DO have a little -at times) kicked in (albeit, a tad late) and told me this was a bad idea. After all, since I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face, how the hell was I supposed to see a friggin' tree (or two, or three)?!?! Needless to say, my body found a nice big tree before my eyes did (not good). The little snowmobile-ambulance came and had to make a HUGE production about getting me out of there in one piece, too. I tried to insist that I could slide down the rest of the slope on my ass on one ski (never did find the other one - miss my K2's), but they refused. It might have been because my head was backwards (I could just turn my eyes straight down and see my ass), or quite possibly because a human arm is not supposed to bend in ten places. Either way, they insisted on strapping me in their little cripple cradle sleigh and parading me (sirens blazing and all) down the hill in a humiliating fashion. The whole incident just screamed, "Look at me!" and I am so not like that (shut up). Thus, from that experience I learned that enchanted forests aren't always a good thing (unless it's daytime and you are NOT on skis), and that ski resort paramedics can be cruel when you interrupt their poker game.
As I have said before, I like to learn from my experiences so that I can grow wiser with each passing day. I think this concept is working since I have never again shaved my eyebrows off, tried to hoist a 50 pound TV onto a piddly shelf, or skied into a dark enchanted forest. Also, now that I am older, if I start to be forgetful, I have moments of aches and pains to remind me of those hairbrained GOOFS, RULES, and plain old fuckups. Like when my ribs hurt, I'm reminded of flailing for my life the time I fell through the ice and that just because there is ice on a Michigan lake in April, does NOT mean that it is safe to walk on it. Or when my hip flares up, I can't forget how painful it is to jump from a moving rail car (those trains move deceptively fast, and BTW a grassy hill hurts a hell of a lot when you hurtle yourself down it). Own your past. Realize and learn from it and move on with the wisdom you have gained to become a better person. At least look back and laugh (make fun of it), because you can...
