The password to my soul!!

I recently found a piece of paper taped to my front door, which asked my daughter to introduce one of the incoming Beehives at New Beginnings. A list of questions was provided to help my daughter get to know the girl better.

I did a double take at question number six:

What are her five worst qualities?

Como say what?

My daughter and I brainstormed about the possible objectives of revealing each new Beehive's worst qualities.

"Maybe it's so we can all help them strengthen their weaknesses," my daughter suggested.

"I'm sure that's it," I replied. I mean what better way to motivate improvement than give a bunch of teenage girls and their parents the password to your soul?

"Maybe it's one of those trick questions!" I said. "Like they ask at job interviews."

Everyone knows that if you want a job you must disguise your best qualities as your worst qualities, right? It's an easy skill to learn. Alls you have to do is take one of your strengths and add the word "too" in front of it. I'm too organized, too dedicated, too efficient and I work too hard. I give compliments too easily and I care too much about customer satisfaction.

Those kind of weaknesses will land you a job every time.

I taught my hub this during the early days of our marriage by laying awake at night asking him to list things I could improve on in order to make him love me more.

"I don't know," he'd say. "Maybe, stop picking me up late from work. Or get me a drink of water while you're up. Or maybe peel the potatoes before you mash them."

He soon discovered that if he wanted to fall asleep any time soon, alls he had to say was, "you are too pretty, it's distracting. And you keep the house too clean. Plus you're too frugal. I'd love you more if you spent more money."

See what I mean?

I just read through my college journals over the weekend and if you asked the guy I was kinda dating to introduce me at New Beginnings he would have said:

1. She's a stubborn little cus.

2. She can't read my mind worth beans.

3. She overreacts when I burp at the dinner table.

4. She thinks her opinion trumps my opinion.

5. She's in love with a missionary.

I had totally forgotten that he was the one who revealed these particular weaknesses to me. (You have no idea how close I was to sending him a thank you note on Facebook.)

While we're on the subject of my 1987 weaknesses, after reading my journals, I could reveal more.

May I?

1. She's dumb.

2. Her eyeballs sweat A LOT!

3. She abuses the exclamation point MAJOR!! Not to mention the underline and the Capital.

4. She uses the words Marvelous and Neat out of context.

5. She has Alzheimer's.

I could also reveal the trick answers:

She's too gutsy, too determined, too curious and too optimistic. Her testimony is too strong. She has too many friends and too many dreams. She worries too much about her family, and is too in love with her missionary.

I speak in the third person because I don't know this girl from Adam.

I did see the seeds of the Crash Test Dummy in her, however. For example one night I went into New York City with four friends to watch an Air Supply concert at Radio City Music Hall. On the way home we got silly and started singing Even the Nights are Better at the top of our lungs down Broadway. My comment in my journal?

"I'm surprised we didn't get Raped or Shot!!"

Can you see the headlines now?

Small town girls get Raped and Shot while singing Air Supply down the streets of New York City!! Shoulda known bettah girls! Fo' Reals!!

In another entry I was at Hanes Point in Washington D.C. expressing my desire to be a person of color: (Btw, the following is an exact translation, word for word, capital for capital, exclamation point for exclamation point)

"Sometimes I wish I was black. It would be so fun!! They have so much style. They just Jive and groove!! They have personality. They have Soul!!"

Like I said before, I don't know this girl from Adam.

I do however know her from Adam-ondi-Ahmen. This girl was into church history MAJOR!! And during a trip to Palmyra she was quite star struck to be walking where Joseph smith had walked:

"Wow!! I couldn't believe I was actually standing in the home where Joseph Smith received revelation from the Angel Moroni, and where he translated the Golden Plates, and where he ate breakfast even!! WOW!!"

As you can see, my comedic timing was quite well developed, even at the tender age of 20.

Okay, now that I've spilled my guts I can see the benefits of publicly disclosing your worst qualities. It actually feels kinda . . . liberating exposing my weaknesses.

Okay, you now have the password to my soul. Go easy.

I mean, Go easy!!

P.S. I just found out that question six was a typo. Oops. Never mind. You can forget that password now.