By JIM CLAYTON/Staff Writer
Editor’s Note: This piece is the second in a new Patriot Talon column called “Gen-X Jim Presents.” We hope you like it! Let us know in the comments below.
Have you ever found yourself in a weird situation, completely unprepared for the weirdness of that situation, yet comfortable with being weird by association? Happens to me all the time.
Like so many things in this world, “weird” is subjective. What’s weird for me, isn’t necessarily weird for you, and might be terrifying for someone else. This is how you can find yourself unsuspecting and ill-equipped, improvising your way through an involuntary moment of weird.
For instance, I worked in the oil field for years. I look like I worked in the oil field. I sound like I worked in the oil field. Put a hard hat and steel toes on me, and I’m exactly what you would expect to find in that environment. However, my personality and social outlook do not match the typical oil field mentality.
Do.
Not.
Match.
Therefore, I would often find myself accidentally weird at work.
My last position in the business was in the fracking fields of New Mexico. As the name would imply, New Mexico is much like the old Mexico; particularly in the heritage, culture, and such. It’s a place of huge families, incredible music, and entire neighborhoods taking to the streets in celebration. Few people party like those at a good New Mexico party. It’s a beautiful addition to the American melting pot.
The local religion, for the most part, is Roman Catholic. I’ll spare you the explanation of how a Central American culture adopted the Church of Rome. It’s a history thing. Feel free to ask my wife about it. She has a Master’s Degree in History. Just be prepared for the 4.5-hour dissertation that will follow.
It does play an important factor in my story, though.
Working in the desert, I drink a lot of water. Water is crucial but it gets pretty boring. I like the squeeze bottle additives you can add to water for flavor. Mio makes several that add caffeine and B vitamins. So, bonus! In this instance, I chose their “Black Cherry” Energy version. The bottle was sitting in my pickup most of the day.
In sunlight.
In the desert.
…It was 117 degrees at the time.
My chemistry-minded brain, when it works, could have warned me that heating an enclosed liquid causes expansion, creating pressure in the bottle. Unfortunately, my brain was taking a pee, or something, and not at its post. With my open water bottle in my hand, I pop the flip top on the Mio squeeze bottle and a huge squirt of crimson-colored, semi-gelatinous liquid goes full straight into my left eye.
It stings. A lot.
Immediately, my safety training kicks in, and my bottle of water becomes an eye wash container. I manage to get most of it out of my eye, but that crap is resilient and it’s designed to mix beautifully with less viscous fluids, like water, spit, or tears. Did I mention that it is crimson-colored? That’s kind of an understatement. Think vampire blood, rendered down to its base elements of sticky, and red. My face looked like the subject of an Edgar Allan Poe poem. The modern telling of the Masque of the Red Death.
“The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.”
I look up, and the entire well site has shut down. Everyone is staring at me in horror, trying to figure out why this particular Gen-X’er decided to remove his face.
My eye was better, but the irritation caused it to water for a couple of hours afterward. Oh, and the Mio? Only MOSTLY washed out.
Did I mention that I worked with a lot of Catholics? So the result of all this was terrified, former alter-boys watching a large redneck walk by them weeping tears of blood. Two of the men actually crossed themselves. I’m expecting a visit from the Vatican any day.
So…it was weird…
My life has often been like that. People would look at me, expecting one type of behavior, and feigning shock and awe when I give them something else. It’s the proverbial judgment of a book by its cover. It’s our basic need as humans to categorize and group everything around us. In our need to fit in, we have a penchant toward conformity; an unnatural desire for normalcy. When you look at someone who conforms to a trend, a clique, or a particular mindset, you don’t see who that person is. You can’t. They’re hiding from you because you’re different. You’re unique. You’re weird.
Weird has always been scary. They designated it the title of all things confusing, unusual, or different; a fear of the strange. It goes back to the creation of the word, itself. Weird was used to describe the supernatural. It was a passive-aggressive way to label something evil because the normal ones couldn’t understand it. Shakespeare used it to describe the Fates in Macbeth. They were The Weird Sisters. If you don’t know who the Fates are, it’s a Greek Mythology thing. Three goddesses who spin, measure, and sever life. When Pandora opened her little box of evil and woe, the Fates spun it into the lives of man and became known as the source of all misery.
Unfortunately for the “normal ones,” we are all weird. We are weird because we are unique. None of us are identical in form or fashion. All of this corrosion of conformity (nod to my metal heads out there) comes about due to the suppression of our natural uniqueness. Conformity sucks. It’s boring as all get-out and endlessly predictable. Granted, it’s hard to avoid completely. We all follow something. Even if that following is the pursuit of being different, and unique, and catering to the need to stick out, that’s still a type of allegiance.
At the end of the day, anarchy is a myth.
Ordinary isn’t what we think it is. Our uniqueness is our normalcy. Yes, our quirks, rarities, and inventiveness make us stand out to those hiding their own uncommonness; and, should they drop their conformity, and embrace their inner individual, then they have found the true normal. They become a self-fulfilling fate.
And, that’s kind of cool.
Robin Williams, one of my heroes, once said, “You’re only given one little spark of madness. You must never lose it.
That’s enough for today.
Until next time, remember the rules.
- Be good to each other.
- Take care of yourself.
- Don’t be a jerk.
