Some things you might not know.

I was a synchronized swimmer. That's right. And I am sort of proud of that. But how often does that come up in day to day conversation? Especially in my circles of friends, where if we do discuss sports, it's merely a passing reference to a college football game. It's not like I can say "Hey! So speaking of college football, the only organized sports I have ever participated in were baton twirling and synchronized swimming."

Yeah, that will stop a conversation dead in its track. Besides, the baton twirling was as a 7 year old (my team was called the Bonnie Blue Bells) and I'm not sure that it counts. But the synchronized swimming, I was on the team at Northview Junior High, and I would have continued with it had we not moved to a town that not only lacked a synchronized swimming team, it lacked a pool entirely. The routines I performed included (among others) something to the theme of Top Gun (it was very big in 1988) and Wipeout and for the grand finale, we turned off the lights in the aquatic center and did "Candle on the Water" with candles. Lit candles, that we had to keep lit. You know the song, don't pretend that you don't. It was the "romantic" song that the lady on Pete's Dragon sang as she maintained the lighthouse for her lost at sea boyfriend.

I was in a lot of dance as a kid. There was tap and ballet as well. We did the classic "Good Ship Lollipop" routine (shuffle step, shuffle hop, flap flap flap flap) and we did a ballet number to the song "Maybe" from Annie. It was only natural that I continue my dance experience with cheerleading camp (including a routine to "Ghostbusters"- I ain't afraid of no ghost) and with it then came the ribbon dancing (Hey, it's an olympic sport that is just never shown on American TV because the Chinese dominate it.) And you might not know it, but dance comes in handy in synchronized swimming as well since every routine must begin with a "deck portion" before the swimmers come up with a creative way to enter the water. If only we could incorporate ribbons and batons.

So yes, folks, I do have rhythm. Enough so that when I decided to start doing theatre again, a few years back, I nailed the dance section of the audition, and I enjoyed seeing the utter shock on the directors face when I did it. They were not expecting that. I am by no means skilled enough to put it on a resume, but teach me a routine and I can remember it and keep up with the team and even tteach it to newcomers. I even know what a "pas de bouree" is. Do you know what a "pas de bouree" is?

Unfortunately there are a lot of useful things that we don't get to put on our resumes. Things that we really might want to share with people, or at least that might come in handy in a job interview. Even for the most serious jobs, we might benefit from putting a few of the seemingly useless skills and experiences we aquire through the years. If nothing else, they serve to introduce you to the boss as a real human being. Not to mention, I have worked in corporate America, and I know that there are alot of "team building" activities and "synergy driven" gimmicks which require such unusual skills. Let's face it, some of those stimulus package funds are probably going to be shuffled to HR, where a well meaning corporate positivity coordinator is going to use them to provide their under-employed and generally blase employees with a contest for remembering the customer service points. And every supervisor is going to hope and pray that somewhere in their pool of underpaid operations specialists they have hired at least one individual who knows how to do a "pas de bouree". Or who can turn a Backstreet Boys song into a cusomer service jingle. I got employee of the month for that one.

So in the spirit of touching up my resume, here are a few things that I can't include, but I would like to:

• Synchronized Swimming- My candle was still lit at the end of that number.
• Pets-My dad is allergic to house cats, so we had a bird and some fish, and for a very brief time we cared for a baby African Lion on loan from the Great Cats zoo- it was dying and the keeper who was a friend of my dad's was caring for the rest of the litter. He let us have it to try to help save it. I held it, and I petted it. But it died.
• I would love to volunteer at the company blood drive. I will hand out cookies and juice to the faint, but I can't give blood. If you read the fine print, it says that anyone who lived in Western Europe for more than 6 months between 1996 and 2000 was exposed to un-regulated beef and mad cow disease. So I'm keeping a close eye on that.
• I am fascinated by the Krebs cycle. I don't remember a whole lot of Microbiology, and I am lousy at chemistry, but I could recite the mitochondrial process to you and talk for hours about the miracle of starting with 3 molecules of Adenosine Tri-Phosphate and ending up with 17.
• I am incapable of wearing fingernail polish. I smudge it and then pick at it and eventually peel it all off. Maybe it's a sensory issue, because I can't even stand the feeling of wearing the clear stuff.
• I own tap shoes, jazz shoes, character shoes, organ shoes, and ballet slippers. No toe shoes though, I never quite got that far. If you would like a demonstration of a routine fitted to any of these shoes, please let me know before the interview and I will come prepared with the shoes and appropriate clothing. (no unitards, I promise)
• I can still play my high school fight song on the flute. I can also play the high school fight songs for every school in the Northern Minnesota Section. Most high schools don't vary from a select 8 tunes, so I can probably play your high school fight song on the flute. Would you like to hear it? You'll have to sing it for me so I know which one...
• I am in fact ticklish in one spot. It's not hard to find or weird in any way, but only two friends have ever dared approach me in that manner, and they have me under their power when they choose to use it against me. They are good friends, they won't tell you where it is. Now that I know it can be discovered and used against me, I have much more self-control.

Don't you see how much more fun a resume could be if we filled them with the things that really matter? It really is just like the Little Prince taught me:

Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" "Does he collect butterflies?". They ask: "How old is he?" "How many brothers does he have?" "How much does he weigh?" "How much money does his father make?" Only then do they think they know him If you tell grown-ups, "I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof...," they won't be able to imagine such a house. You have to tell them, "I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs." Then they exclaim, "What a pretty house!"

~Antoine de Saint Exupery, The Little Prince