It’s Not a Contest

But I’m Winning

I say, as neither boast nor lament, but rather simple observation, that I have lived (am living) one of the most bizarre lives of anyone I know. I have survived some of life’s darker events—malignant tumor, domestic violence, extreme childhood trauma, PTSD, poverty. I have also been on the receiving end of such abundance—love, friends, money, published books, a FREAKING RANCH—that I feel I am the personification of An Embarrassment of Riches.

But not all of the freaky things I’ve experienced fall into the categories of Very Good or Very Bad. Many are just so random and wild and one-of-a-kind that when I describe them later, I realize I sound like I am making up every single detail. 

Back before electronic receipts, I kept mounds of crumpled paper receipts in shoeboxes, all to be sorted frantically each March in preparation of getting my numbers to my accountant. As a freelancer, I had hundreds of these scraps of paper and the task was always daunting. I can’t remember when I started filing Happy Ephemera in with the receipts, but at some point this became a habit. This way, concert tickets, postcards, photos and other happy mementos would pop up now and again as I sorted, punctuating the drudgery, a cheerful bit surfacing just in time to distract me from getting enraged not at having to pay taxes but at having to be organized in order to pay taxes. 

When it comes to memories, my PTSD likes to do the driving. That means the main genre of movies that plays in my mental theater is horror. Fortunately, like those welcomed postcards and concert tickets, once in a while a kooky memory will float up from nowhere and prompt such giddiness that it is a guaranteed relief from the more typical negative onslaught. 

This happened just yesterday when I was meeting with a couple whose wedding I will soon perform. As we talked about their venue I suddenly recalled a long ago wedding I’d performed at the same place, an event at which occurred one of the funniest things—possibly the funniest—that has happened in my sixteen years as an officiant. 

I don’t usually stay for receptions, but as this long ago wedding was for friends, I did stick around for dinner. Afterwards, I went to find the couple to thank them for the honor of performing their wedding. They were nowhere to be found, but I did locate the mother of the bride, also a friend. She was over the moon with joy and emitted a palpable buzz. I asked her to thank her daughter and new son-in-law for me, then bid her farewell. 

“Wait!” she said. “I have something for you.”

She reached into her bag and told me to put out my hand. Though I never expect to be tipped, these context clues strongly suggested she was about to press a Benjamin into my hand. She reached out. I reached out back.

Then she tipped some of the powdery contents of a baggie into the palm of my hand, explaining to me she wanted me to have some of the ashes of her recently deceased husband. Most likely because I had, by that point in my life, had so many other weird encounters, I neither flinched nor recoiled. Oh no. I thanked her. Profusely.

I then made a beeline back to my table, glad to see the friends I had been seated with remained. I held out my hand.

“You guys!! Look! It’s J__’s dad! How am I going to get him home?”

My friends, swift thinkers, gestured to the centerpieces, which included shiny geode halves. 

“Put him in a geode!” one suggested.

“I can’t steal a centerpiece,” I protested. 

On second thought, and having no better options, I loaded J’s father into the crystally cradle of a geode. I set this on the dashboard of my car. I failed to bring it in the house. One day shortly after, I turned on the heater and got to have my own mini Big Lebowski moment as the swirling air pushing through the dash vents sent my friend’s father up in a cloud of dust in my face. 

Not bragging or anything, but I do not know one other person who has ever been blasted by dashboard geode ashes. Also not bragging, but I assure you this is but the iceberg’s tip when it comes to my tales of lived weirdness.

And now I have questions for you. Are you a magnet for weirdness? If so, please explain with an example. Even if you aren’t pummeled by weirdness on the regular, will you please tell me the weirdest thing that ever happened to you? Thank you.

NOTES:

Guys, I’m not gonna lie. I need help. As I mentioned last week, a drunken psycho crashed through an antique window in the Tiny Chapel of Kindness. It’s going to set me back about $1000 to replace it. Hundreds of you are free subscribers—and I am not complaining. I’m grateful for ALL subscribers. But if you aren’t a paid subscriber, now would be a great time to sign up for $5 per month or $50 per year. Or, if everyone who is not a paid subscriber would kick in a one-time gift of $3, that would take care of the window. Venmo: @spike-gillespie. OR…if you’re a two-birds-one-stone type, I have some fun merch that I usually forget to mention. You can get all your Festivus shopping out of the way in one fell swoop. I’ve got Tiny T Ranch t-shirts and Tiny Chapel of Kindness t-shirts and journals. T-shirts are $25 and journals are $15, that includes shipping. Email me and let me know what you want and your t-shirt size and I’ll check inventory.

It also helps if you share this with folks you think will dig it. Thanks so much for reading y’all.