5/20/08 Ten on Tuesday (or Ten Ultimate Quirky Times in the Quirk’s Life)

I thought I would use the Ten on Tuesday to enlighten all you faithful readers on how the Quirk comes by her quirkiness naturally. She has shown Quirky Greatness since birth and who best to know this (and record it) than Momma Quirk. So, without further ado, a trip down memory lane:

1. When the Quirk was just a wee little Quirk, she was fairly quiet. She smiled a lot, laughed a lot, was very active and said Da-Da, Momma, Ball, Tipper (the dog) and Ethan (the little boy next door). Being our fist, we didn’t know if she was advanced, average or slow to talk…she was just our Wee Quirky. She was not quite two years old when we were visiting the paternal grandparents and all loading into the car to go eat. As I strapped her in her car seat in the middle of the back seat she announced, "I would like to sit in the front seat." All the adults froze and looked at each other to see who had spoken. We looked at the baby and said, "What?" to which she repeated, "I would like to sit in the front seat." And she has been talking in full sentences ever since!
   
2. When the Quirk was about 3 years old, her seester was born. My mother (the secretary for my dental technician dad) came to stay with us and brought Quirky up to the hospital to see her new sibling. There were about five newborns across the front of the nursery, four of them screaming their heads off and one sleeping peacefully. The Quirk stood on a chair so she could see through the glass and surveyed each baby carefully. Finally, she pointed to the sleeping baby boy and said, "I want that one." We smiled and pointed to the second screaming babe and said, "But, Quirky, that is your new baby sister. That is the one we have to take home." She looked at the little quivering chin, the wide open toothless mouth and the scrunched up eyes as her sister thoroughly exercised her lungs. She was quiet and thoughtful for several minutes. Then with a big sigh of resignation she said, "Well, okay. But, Pap-paw will have to make her some teeth!"


3. Since Quirk’s Dad and I both taught school, the Quirk and her sister went to nursery school. Quirky loved school and in the best Walton’s tradition, we always shared stories about our day during dinner. One day, Quirk was very excited about the trip her class took to the library. They had seen a movie there and I, with visions of the classics I loved-Snow White, Cinderella, etc.-running through my mind, asked what the movie was on. "Oh," she replied, "a big white screen down front."


4. When Quirky reached the second grade, she had a wonderful teacher named Ms. Whitaker. Her teacher was so impressed with Quirky the first six weeks of school that she requested Quirky be tested for the gifted program. We agreed and were very proud when she passed with flying colors. However, by the end of the second six weeks something was obviously wrong. Ms. Whitaker told us during a conference that Quirk had stopped turning in all her homework. Homework? We never saw any homework. The teacher said she knew Quirky was doing it because she had seen her doing it during free time. We called Quirky into the room and asked if she had done her homework. She assured us she had. We asked if she put it into the homework basket and she assured us she had not. When we inquired further, she went to her desk and pulled every piece of homework out for the whole six weeks and said if she had put it into the basket, she wouldn’t have it anymore.


5. Quirky was a fantastic big sister-if you occasionally overlooked her basic quirkiness. She told her sister we bought her at a flea market for a nickel and overpaid. But, she told her things with such conviction that her sister believed she was the fount of all great knowledge. One day, as we were driving down a shady lane, I pointed out a horse with rider clopping down the side of the road. I heard her sister ask Quirky why the girl was riding the horse. I thought of every girl’s love of horses, of the joy of riding, of the privilege of owning and caring for such a magnificent animal. In the backseat, however, was a very different answer. The Quirk told her, in a very solemn and confident voice, that the girl probably could not afford a bike.


6. We had a trampoline at our house which made the neighborhood kids hang out in our back yard most of the time. Surprisingly, Quirky and her sister were the only girls around. They were as athletic as any of the boys so everyone was just one big happy group. The peace in the group was shattered one day when Quirky got off the school bus and slowly moped her way inside. Was she sick? No. Had someone hurt her feelings? No. Well, what was wrong? She reached into her book bag and pulled out a red box of Valentine candy. Oh, I thought, my little girl has her first boyfriend, her first box of Valentine candy and she didn’t get anything for him. But when I hugged her and asked if that was the problem, Quirky burst into tears and said she didn’t want the candy, she didn’t want the neighborhood boy to feel "that way" about her-why couldn’t they all just be friends? At eleven years old, the Quirk already knew that friendships could be irreversibly changed by the ‘L’ word.



7. Our family has always been known as the "Hair Family." The Quirk, her sister and I had our hair to our waists at one time. The Quirk and I have naturally curly hair and wore it long so the weight of it would pull out some of the curl. However, the humidity often caused our hair to expand exponentially. When the Quirk was a freshman in high school, the guys around her desk used to play a game where they would see how many school supplies they could hide in Quirky’s hair without her knowing it. One day she stood up to change classes and four pencils, three pens, a slide rule and a graphing calculator fell out of her hair as she pulled it back. (I think she should have kept them!)




8. I had the joy and terror of teaching the Quirk to drive. I remembered how I terrorized my own mother while I was learning so I vowed that I would be cool, calm, and composed at all times. For the most part, the Quirk did very well. After all, who really wants to learn to drive in a Ford Aerostar XLT van? It is about as big and uncool a vehicle as one can get. But you use what you have and that’s what we had. One evening, we were headed up the interstate to a school function and Quirky was driving. All of a sudden she whipped the van to the right lane then immediately whipped it back to the left lane. Back and forth we went with her turning the steering wheel faster and faster. The van was rocking up on two wheels as we careened back and forth and I had visions of us flipping over into the deep ditch on the left if Quirky didn’t get a handle on things soon. Finally, I reached out and grabbed the steering wheel, effectively straightening us up and allowing Quirky to pull over to the side of the road. "How did that happen?!" exclaimed the Quirk. "How did all four tires blow out at once like that???" "Oh, Quirk," I replied, "the tires are fine. You just over-steered while changing lanes." She was astounded but after we both calmed down, we laughed until we cried about her "four blow-outs".


9. In the second half of Quirky’s junior year of college, she started talking about this guy she had met. She talked about how nice he was. She talked about how green and beautiful his eyes were. She talked about how she wanted us to meet him (so we knew it was serious). But did she ever tell us he shaved his head like many of the college guys were doing then??? NO! Just said he was reading at the dorm’s front desk and left us to wonder over and check him out for ourselves. He looked up, my eyes opened in surprise and he caught me being surprised. How embarrassing! I introduced myself and acted like it was the no big deal that it was but He. Caught. Me. You never let a future son-in-law get the upper hand in anything but Tony had it and he knew it. (By the way, Wonderful Wednesday will deal with setting the record straight regarding Tony! Stay tuned.) You would think the Quirk would mention a shaved head in a basic description. But, then, she IS the Quirk!




10. When Quirky was a little kid, she always said she wanted a "half-car" when she grew up. A Volkswagen? No, a half-car. A little sports car? No, a half-car. Finally, one day we passed a convertible with the top down and she cried, "There it is! There’s my half-car." And her last two cars have been just that-her half-cars.