The Tally
(I didn’t mean to advertise medication–that pen is stolen a souvenir from my pharmacy job)
1) Do you think I wear glasses? contacts? neither? About a fourth of you guessed correctly that I wear glasses; I wore them part-time until my early 20s, when I had to start wearing them all the time and switched to contacts. I wore contacts until my first pregnancy, when I kept falling asleep with the contacts in. After the baby was born, I appreciated the way glasses could be put on in one second and didn’t require enzyme treatments. I’ve never gone back to contacts, and now I feel weird without glasses on: glasses are part of “what I look like” and my face would be “wrong” if I went back to contacts. I have a restriction on my driver’s license and must wear them to drive: the tester said, “Read line 4” and I said, “There isn’t a line 4.” There was a line 4.
2) What color do you think my hair is? How long do you think is it? Bonus point to Bethany for being freakishly correct with this description: “Mousy brown, used to be chin length, but now it’s grown out to a little past shoulder length and you keep meaning to get a haircut.”
I gave one point to about 40% of you for any of these answers: dark blonde, sandy blonde, brownish blonde, dirty blonde, honey blonde, mousy brown, light brown–but I awarded an unofficial secret bonus half-point for words such as “honey,” and deducted an unofficial secret half-point for words such as “dirty.” About 30% of you thought I was a brunette. About 20% of you thought I was a blonde. The rest of you guessed redhead, or tried to cheat with double guesses.
My hair is a color my mother calls “wheat” and my mother-in-law calls “dishwater.” I myself prefer “amber waves of grain.” It is somewhere in the murky area between blonde and brown and couldn’t correctly be called either blonde or brown. I like to color it lighter and/or redder, but it is not currently dyed. I don’t have any grey hairs yet, though surely with five children it is only a matter of time.
About 70% of you guessed correctly that it is shoulder-length, and you each got an additional point. About 20% of you thought it was longer, and about 10% of you thought it was short. If I could figure out how to get to the salon it would be jawline-length and I would wear it tucked behind my ears. Since it’s longer, I wear it in a sloppy french twist.
3) Do you think I have bangs? 60% of you correctly guessed no and got another point. I had bangs for 30 years. I grew them out (is “growing out bangs” in one of the nine circles of hell? if it isn’t, we need ten circles) when I was pregnant with the twins, because I have a huge double cowlick and need to gel/blowdry/curl/hairspray bangs to keep them them from sticking up, and I thought I might not be up to that after a night with two newborns.
4) What color do you think my eyes are? Nearly 40% of you guessed green or hazel and got another point. They’re hazel, like an army green. About 25% of you thought I had blue eyes; about 30% of you thought I had brown eyes. Three of you got an unofficial secret bonus half-point for guessing grey, just because I like the sound of that.
5) How many times do you think my ears are pierced? Not even one single person guessed correctly that I have four piercings in each earlobe. I used to use all four, then just two, now just one. I wear earrings every day unless I’m, say, in the maternity ward. More than half of you thought I had one piercing in each ear; about a third of you thought two piercings in each ear; and the rest of you thought zero, three, seven (!), or an uneven number such as two in one ear and three in the other.
6) Do you think I have any non-ear piercings, or any tattoos? Over 55% of you guessed correctly that I have no other piercings and no tattoos. 35% of you thought I had a tattoo; I want a tattoo badly, but don’t know what to get or where to put it. Not even 1% thought I had other piercings; I’d like to get my eyebrow pierced now that I’ve grown out my bangs, but I’m not sure I want to gross out my mom.
7) How tall do you think I am? 15% of you guessed correctly that I’m 5 feet 9 inches tall. According to Wikipedia, the average U.S. female is 5 feet 4 inches tall, so over 90% of you guessed that I was taller than average–but only those of you who were on the exact inch get a point.
8) Do you think I have siblings? Where do you think I am in the birth order? The only way to get a point for this question was to correctly guess that I am an oldest child, as nearly half of you did: for scoring purposes, I ignored information about how many siblings and whether they were sisters or brothers. I have one brother. He’s two years younger than I am. I was very interested to see that a third of you thought I was a middle child; just under 10% thought I was the youngest, and just under 10% thought I was an only. Let’s talk later about why you thought so, because birth order is a favorite topic of mine.
Jen gets a bonus point for thinking I’m British. I’m not, but I liked her thinking that I was.
Not including bonus and unofficial/secret points, there was a maximum score of nine points: one point for guessing glasses, one point for guessing hair color, one point for guessing hair length, one point for guessing no bangs, one point for guessing eye color, one point for guessing number of ear piercings, one point for guessing that I had no other piercings or tattoos, one point for guessing height, and one point for guessing I was an oldest child. Most people got three or four points.
Man, I got 6 points, which is almost twice the average, yet still vaguely…disappointing. I’m the most thrilled with my correct answer on the height, and LEAST thrilled with my incorrect answer on the hair color.
What was the high score? Anyone perfect? I mean, don’t we have a WINNER here?
Also, I have a restriction on my drivers license too: it says “extra seat cushion”, and I am so serious.
Ummm…excuse me…I couldn’t help but notice that there was no picture with this entry…please fix.
:)
Ummm…excuse me…I couldn’t help but notice that there was no picture with this entry…please fix.
:)
Ummm…excuse me…I couldn’t help but notice that there was no picture with this entry…please fix.
:)
Tessie– High score was a little difficult to determine, with all the double-guessing (“green or blue”) and my inconsistent system of half-points if an answer was “close.” But the highest score is, I THINK, Kathi, with a score of 7. Also, that is very funny that you need a booster seat in your car.
Wow – that’s a lot of tallying. I don’t think I was all that close, but I did get some right. Go me. :)
I got five points, I think. Which I am reasonably proud of myself over, since it’s higher than average, but also somewhat disappointed with myself over, since it’s still kind of a crappy score.
And I have two things to say about these results. One is that the reason that over 90% of us knew that you were taller than average is because you said something about being tall when you were talking about the length of Old Navy shirts. At least, that’s how I knew. I guessed 5’9″ because I myself am 5’8″ and usually describe myself as “fairly tall.” You described yourself as just plain “tall,” so I figured you were probably at least an inch taller than me.
The other thing is that the reason I guessed that you were an only child is because you have five kids, and in my experience, only children are often the ones who want their own kids to have lots of siblings, since they themselves did not get to experience that.
Well heck, I don’t even think I got one point, but it was a fun quiz to take!
….
(that’s me giving you a blank stare. My mind refuses to start tallying up my points.)
What, no picture!? I was patiently reading hoping you saved it for last :)
I’d do that, but my picture is right up there in my profile. I’m alway curious what mental picture people get of me.
So, there will be no prizes?
Before this entry I picture you looking like Samantha Bee from The Daily Show. It’s funny how your mind always has to conjure up a physical image. I do that for books all the time, and then I see the movie and realize how very off I was.
Picture! Picture! Picture!
Nah, more like: Pic-ture! Pic-ture! Pic-ture! Like a chant, see? It made sense it my head… so often it doesn’t on paper. Oh well.
“Wheat” (and or “amber waves of grain”) is a perfect description of the shoulder-length hair I imagined you having!
(I really think you should get bangs again, just to complete my mental picture.)
“Dishwater”?!? God I hate MILs!
Amber waves of grain sounds lovely!
Who cares about points! I got mentioned by name!
I didn’t have a chance to do the quiz, and it’ll sound like I’m faking it now since Jen said so, but I’d often wondered if you were British also. :) There are things like “thusly” and “spot on” in your blog sometimes, and your kids have really good classic British names.
If not British, I’d guess somewhere like Iowa or Indiana- one of those states in the middle. I have no idea why though.
I have arrived. I got listed in one of Swistle’s blog posts.
Um, so are you going to post a picture of yourself now?
We want pictures! We want pictures! (Come on, you have to, I gave in and did! Yield to the peer pressure!)
yaay! i didn’t even play, and this was so much fun! :-)
Notice how I’m pretending not to hear all of you asking for photos. This is a technique I have a lot of practice with, pretending not to hear my children while I’m on the computer.
Flibberty: If you said you’d pictured me as Pamela Anderson or Catherine Zeta-Jones or Queen Latifah, I’d be like, “OH, uh, NO.” But Samantha Bee is in the right CATEGORY of looks, as long as you make big wide categories.
MadMad: Yeah, the first time was more like “Pizza pizza!”
Kelli in the Mirror: Too many novels about British children in my formative years, probably.
So, we can round up on the 5’8 1/2″ and give me a point, right? Otherwise, I fear I have only one point.
OMG! Pizza-pizza! You crack me up!
MrsGrumpy: I have you down for 2.5 points: one point for green eyes, one point for no other piercings/tattoos, half a point for 5 foot 8-1/2. Plus an unofficial half-point for the remark about us ’80s girls and our bangs: you’re right, it IS hard not to have them!
I think I have 5 points. Which I think is pretty good considering that I’m a pretty new reader. Only a few weeks…
Personally I don’t want to see a picture of you. I like my fantasy head version, and I’ll stick with that.
I am in absolute AWE that you tallied all that up with percentages and whatnot. You have five children woman. Shouldn’t you be busy?
First of all – dishwater? Umm, I don’t think my dishwater resembles any sort of “blonde” color. I’ve been sitting here trying to think of where she got that from. “Amber waves of grain” is much nicer.
And then, are you sure you weren’t a math teacher before? Well, maybe in a previous life. I love all the statistics you came up with. They’re great! (Math teacher here – kinda)
I think “dishwater blonde” is like, if you washed your blonde hair in the dishwater. Same as “dirty blonde”: adding a dirty tint to blonde hair. Neither one is a Pretty Word.
So, who WON?? (I know it wasn’t me).
I think you’re the oldest in birth order because you blog about how clean your kitchen counters are and will even include a before and after photo of the kitchen table. THAT is a first child thing. I know because, I am one too. And, I am cooky about organization from time to time and too much disarray sends me into a tizzy and you seem to be the same! It is like our first born selves forever resented the disarray that our younger siblings wreaked on our childhoods or something.
Ummm….where is the photo????? What about a sketch at least?
damn looks like i got maybe 5ish…i decided that i get 6 though for saying your 26!!!
I’m a little sad, because I really thought your quiz answers would include a picture of yourself!
Also, do tell about your brother. You and he are similar to my own two kids in birth order/gender and all of that. Did you like just being two? Or do you now have five because you wished your parents had had more? So curious to know. A birth order/sibling post would be great, thanks. (Yes, I’m the youngest of three and very, very bossy).
How in Sam Hell did you find time to tally? Has someone told you yet that you need sleep? :)
You’re endless energy stuns me into naptime.
Didn’t get to play but reading the answers sure was fun.
“Dishwater” sounds exactly like something my MIL would say. When I last saw her in June I had just decided to grow my hair out from super short to chin length. When I mentioned this in passing, her response was “I know” in the cockiest of tones. I’m still wondering how she KNEW. Did my hair look that bad that soon? I’d only skipped one or two cuts at that point. Or does she just know everything? Silly me for even asking, huh?
so doesnt this mean we get to see a real picture of you?
I missed the quiz, but I’m glad to see I was right about some things. Wrong about height and bangs, though.
What fun!
I had the exact same experience with the contacts. The only downside is that I end up going running without my glasses, so everything and everyone is a little fuzzy. Evidently I passed one of my coworkers the other day and completely blew him off.
Except for some things, you could be me! I too wear glasses. I too am the eldest with a brother 2 years younger. I too had to grow out my bangs in order to finally tame the random cowlicks found there.
So mysterious is The Swistle
Wow-I got the most points? Cool! I guessed that you were 33 based a post I remembered where you said you thought you might be too young when you decided to start having kids and I figured a 25 year-old would think that, so that put you at 33 now.
Damnit I could have cheated!