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STORYTELLERTop Six Things You Didn't Know About Me(Little-known facts, in no specific order.) 1) I always close the bathroom door when I go to the bathroom. Now, this isn't an oddity if there are other people in the house; that's standard procedure. However, I work from home. My office is in the basement. The upstairs front door's locked. No one is here during the day. And yet I always close the bathroom door when I go to the bathroom. Even when I'm alone. 2) I will not share milk. I won't do it, so don't ask. It's a hard and fast rule that doesn't get broken. If you want some milk, there's the fridge. You're welcome to have the rest of mine, but I ain't taking it back and I'll probably think less of you for drinking mine. Milk isn't a social drink, there's no need for the community to be sharing it. Soda, beer, alcohol, iced tea, lemonade: These are all social drinks. I'll pass these around the table without a second thought. But never, ever the milk. 3) I'm 6'4" but I don't "feel" tall. Growing up I played with my brother and his friends that were all his age, so I was always the smallest and weakest in the group. These days, most of the time in most groups I'm the tallest, but I don't feel that way. 4) I've forgotten how to shower. I've been bathing myself for the better part of 20-odd years and yet just in the past month, I've forgotten how; specifically, I keep getting shampoo in my eyes. How the heck can this happen? I've taken thousands of showers—why is it that now I'm getting shampoo in my eyes? Am I'm forgetting to close my eyes and keep them shut tight? I'm a idiot of the greatest magnitude. You may now point your fingers and mock the village idiot. 5) My drawers drawer has changed. In September 2003 I took the Pepsi challenge and found my boxers lacking in some very specific ways. I needed more from an underwear. I could never go back to briefs (not having worn those since high-school) ... which left me with a perplexing problem—that is, until a close friend suggested "boxer briefs." Ah yes, the hybrid underwear of the new millennium. Neither boxers nor briefs, they live in a world all their own, straddling the gap between the two all the while offering comfort and flexibility. I have worn them. I have exercised in them. I have slept in them. I have lounged in them. Friends: I have see the future and it is proudly wearing boxer briefs. 6) No one likes a quitter. In October 2002 I smoked my last cigarette. Smoking was neither something I was proud of nor ashamed of. It was a habit that I knew was bad for me, yet I did it anyway. We all have our vices don't we? Things that are self-destructive, yet we can't stop? Sometimes they're big things sometimes they're little, but I think we all have them to some greater or lesser degree. (I'm sure there's someone out there that is shocked, SHOCKED! to discover that I used to smoke. It doesn't quite fit with the image they have of "Brian Murphy." The fact of the matter is, that image is probably pretty flawed to begin with—smoking being only the first little surprise you'd "discover" about me.) I didn't quit for health reasons, though I know I should have. I quit for Kerri and for my, at that time, unborn child. I figured that they probably want me around a good long time and kicking the habit was a means to that end. I'm very proud of the fact that I quit cold-turkey. No patches, no gum, no 12-step programs. I picked up my first cigarette of my own free will, and I put down my last one the same way. But I'm not going to bullshit you, it was hard. Painfully hard. And even now, I can feel a tiny tug of addiction. It's a small voice that whispers, One Ring-like in the back of my mind, "Brian, you're only one really bad day away from going back to the old ways." Some days I believe that voice, while other days I tell it to shut the hell up. Back to Storyteller. |