If there is one overriding theme that this column attempts to have every week, it is that human beings are weird, funny, often messed-up little creatures, made by a God who obviously has one helluva sense of humor.
One of the things about humankind that makes like interesting is the fact that we all have strange little quirks or fetishes. These foibles, if you will, can be either charming or completely annoying to other people -- and give others the impression that, at least temporarily, we each belong in a home for people classified as "loony."
This fact was proven to me a few days ago, as I worked at my part-time job at a very large department store, which shall remain nameless -- although I will say the store has a "softer side," whatever the hell that means.
Anyway, I was ringing up a family which was making a small tools purchase. This family was ripped right out of Americana -- a mom, a dad, and 2.5 kids. (OK, there were only two kids, a boy and a girl. If there had been a half-kid running around the store, I surely would have wet my pants). As the mom reached for her wallet to pay for the tools, her daughter -- about 8 years old -- came up to her mom and asked a question.
"Mom!" she said. "Can you give me a dollar so I can see if it smells like money?"
At this point, the mom gave her daughter a look -- a very interesting look, as if to say, "I gave birth to you?" She told her daughter, "You are totally weird." She then forked over a dollar bill to the girl.
I figured at first this was a ploy, albeit a strange one, by the girl to extort a dollar from her mom. However, this was not the case; she gave the dollar a big whiff, pronounced that it indeed smelled like money, and handed it back to her mom. The poor woman took the dollar back, shaking her head, and stuffed it in her wallet.
Meanwhile, I was standing at the cash register, trying to keep a straight face without very much success.
Another example of someone's weird quirk that comes to mind is a little less voluntarily, and has nothing to do with snorting cash. A friend of mine -- who will remain nameless, because if I identified this friend he would certainly be mortified -- can't go to McDonald's anymore, because his face starts to sweat.
I am not making this up; I've seen it with my own eyes. He goes into a McDonald's, and even before he orders his food, little beads of sweat start to form on his face. If he gets a meal, then his face is practically gushing by the time he is finished. For some reason, this does not happen during breakfast. His face is dry if he's there in the morning to chow down on an Egg McMuffin or something -- but when they start serving lunch, it begins to pour.
It does not matter how warm or cold it is; it does not matter where the McDonald's is located (although some stores are worse than others, he says), as this has happened in at least four states.
I'll tell you, it's the damnedest thing I have ever seen. He has no idea why this happens; it is just a quirk of his.
Heck, even I have my little quirks, as we all do. I have been known to engage in often heated discussions during televisions while I watch Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games or Stanford Cardinal basketball games. I will shout at players, umpires, referees, as if the entire weight of the world rested on the game, and as if I actually had anything to do with its outcome.
Why is this?
It is because I am a little weird. Just like my friend the McDonald's face-sweater, and just like the cash-snorting little girl. Just like you, too; what are some of your little quirks?
If you don't think you have any, just ask someone close to you. I guarantee they'll easily point out your areas of strangeness. And I doubt they'll have a straight face while they do.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who tries not to smell cash, at least in public. His column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.