My Six-Word Life Story

About a year ago I discovered a book in Barnes and Noble called "The Six-Word Memoir". It challenged famous, infamous, and unfamous writers to sum up their life in six words, no more, no less, no abbreviations. As I read through the book, some made me laugh, like "I should have married his brother." Others were tragic, like Ernest Hemingway's "Baby shoes for sale; never worn." Never being one to shy away from a challenge, I immediately started contemplating mine. I reflected upon all of the wonderful things that had happened to me and after 20 seconds of stumbling down memory lane, I began to come into the reality of myself: I was neither incredibly funny nor incredibly tragic. I was kind of middle of the road, however my life was marked by an awful lot of good ideas gone bad, failed attempts to be cool, clever, or more than I was intended to be. Things that seemed like really good ideas at the time.
And thus, my six word memoir was born: It SEEMED like a good idea... I have the credentials to back it up.

• When I decided to convert our bedroom into an office which involved painting over a hideous shade of pepto-bismal/blood cocktail pink I didn't use primer because I just wanted to get DONE. After about five coats of paint I had blisters and painters elbow so I went to the hardware store and bought an industrial strength Wagner Power Painter. It seemed like a GOOD idea except for the fact that there was no ventilation, the device was so heavy I couldn't control it and somewhere along the line, after I passed out the first time, the fumes got the better of me and I ended up spray painting my name on all the doors.
• Born of Scotch Irish/Irish Scotch background, I was in a constant state of ghoulish whiteness. Two summers ago, the first day of my vacation I decided that Canned Tan wasn't enough, plus I had a coupon for a local salon who would do airbrushing. It SEEMED like a good idea, until I found out that you had to be completely naked except for these paper string panties they give you...and we all know how I feel about cutesy undies and a complete stranger basically fires up one of those contraptions that resembled sprayers used by exterminators and makes you strike all kinds of completely humiliating poses while she blasts the bejeezes out of you with Tropical Sienna henna dye. I went from CarrotTop to Beyonce in five minutes...well parts of me did. When I was naked, I looked like a Cooper Tire skidmark.
• The latest example would have to be a device I found as I ran into Walgreen's today. It was in their "As Seen On TV" section and they were playing a DVD demonstration. It's called an Emjoi Tweeze and it's for those of us who have so many hormonal imbalances that our next career move could involve a bright pink Airstream and the words "bearded lady." The women on the DVD looked so happy and smooth. And the lady sitting on the gorgeous silk sectional assured me it was dermatologist approved and completely painless. It seemed like a good IDEA...she looked directly at me and explained that this device would keep me from looking like Mustapha the Lion King with backlighting in every photograph and I was SOLD. I read the instructions and fired up the Emjoi Tweeze. I didn't listen to the DVD long enough; I didn't read the instructions in depth enough...okay I just put the batteries in and looked at the pictures. This thing is a facial epilator which is French for UNIMAGINABLE, GRANNY-PANTY SATURATING PAIN AND AGONY. This little device, which all of the happy and smooth women on the DVD were using while they smiled, cooked supper and did pole dances, literally RIPS the hair out of your sensitive facial areas by the root. There's a small, small, tiny, teeny sentence explaining that there may be some mild stinging the first time but it would get better. Yeah it will get better, my skin is terrified to allow the hair to push through now. My whole dermal system in trying to get Dr. Phil on Blackberry for a consel/convo. It SEEMED like a good idea. And so now, I'm sitting here with an ace bandage wrapped around my head holding lunch bag ice packs all around my chin area because let's just say there is some swelling (picture Jay Leno with a third degree sunburn). It seemed like a GOOD idea. That's the story of my life.