How Well Do You Know Master Fob?

As I'm sure you often wonder how good a Friend of Ben you are, I provide this unique opportunity to measure your fobby knowledge. Count how many of the following 100 Essential Facts About Master Fob you know, then score yourself out of 100. Report your score in the comments section in order to win the grand prize: a romantic evening with yours truly*.

1. Before I was Master Fob, I was Slappy White.
2. AKA White-White Boy.
3. AKA Whitey.
4. The guy who named me Slappy White referred to himself as Chief Little Nuts.
5. Chief, myself, and my friend Dandypratt were also known respectively as Crazy, Sexy, and Cool. Mostly by ourselves.
6. I started out college wanting to be a psychologist/psychiatrist/counselor of some sort. Then I served a mission and decided I didn't want to spend my life dealing with other people's problems.
7. Off and on over several years I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but then I spent a year teaching and decided I wanted to have a job that was done when I went home.
8. After some kind of career fair in middle school I decided I wanted to be a landscape architect. This desire didn't last long.
9. I took a career aptitude test in middle school that told me that I was best suited to be a gas station attendant. No joke.
10. I never actually went to anything called middle school. In Hawai'i it's called intermediate school.
11. I spent my first semester of seventh grade at Niu Valley Intermediate, then transferred to Stevenson Intermediate. We had moved to downtown Honolulu from a suburb, but I could have kept going to Niu Valley if I wanted to, as my sister did not switch high schools. After a month or two of commuting, though, I realized that I pretty much hated everything about the school I was going to so there was no reason to stay.
12. The new school wasn't any better.
13. I spent large chunks of my childhood staying home from school because of a mysterious condition we referred to only as "my legs." For weeks at a time I would have intense pain in my leg muscles that only got worse if I tried to walk on them. The only thing doctors found after a series of painful tests was that my white blood cell count rose dramatically when this happened. Or maybe it was red blood cells. Or blue--I don't remember.
14. I hate hate hate blood tests.
    
15. I get queasy just talking about blood.
16. The aforementioned blood tests suggest that "my legs" was not completely made up, but I do recall specifically that I knew when another bout was coming on because this always corresponded with an intense desire to not go to school or otherwise deal with life.
17. Once, after spending a couple weeks at home because of "my legs," I really wanted to catch the bus to the comic shop, so I decided that I was better and went.
18. During all this time spent home from school, I got addicted to my sisters' favorite soap opera, Days of Our Lives. Every once in a while now I read blurbs about what's going on on Days and I'm always amused to find that it's basically the same plots they were using fifteen years ago.
19. Soap operas were strictly prohibited in my home.
20. My first exposure to comic books, even before Batman, was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the cartoon and the action figures, so when I came across the comics in the library I had to have them.
    
21. My mom bought me a tracing pad so I'd have something to do with all that time lying on the couch, and I used it to trace all my favorite Ninja Turtle poses. Thus began my interest in art.
22. My true first exposure to comic books was actually G.I.Joe, which my brother and I bought from the local Waldenbooks with money we made delivering newspapers.
    
23. My brother and I had a G.I.Joe club when we were kids. We were the only members.
24. I always thought General Hawk was sexy.
25. And Flint.
26. My sister gave me a BB gun for my tenth (ninth?) birthday, but I used it only once or twice because I was politically opposed to guns.
27. I am still politically opposed to guns.
28. And they scare me.
29. I am also terrified of heights.
30. And the dark, wherein I imagine all sorts of hidden evils, both worldly and otherworldly.
31. When I was very little I had a recurring nightmare wherein I was taken to some dark, underground haunted house.
32. I had a related (in my mind, at least) recurring nightmare wherein I was in trouble for doing something bad and hiding from my dad, who was punching through a wall to get me. My mom finds this odd because it was not my dad who punched through walls but her first husband, who I never lived with or knew, really.
33. Perhaps my earliest memory is of staying home from church with my sister because I had chicken pox, then hiding when everyone came home.
34. I read a study recently reporting that the smell of male sweat triggers arousal in straight women and gay men, but I am grossed out by the smell of either gender's sweat.
35. I don't tend to sweat a lot myself, or have very strong body odor.
    
36. I do tend to make other unpleasant odors, though, such as the rancid gas I frequently pass, particularly in the morning. Sorry to those who have to suffer through it.
    
37. I often cut my own hair because I hate to waste the money paying someone else to do it. I don't do a very good job.
38. I currently have a faux hawk. Sort of.
39. I have a large mole right below my sternum, making a great bullseye.
40. I have had two spots of skin cancer removed--one from my forehead and one from my right nostril.
41. I have a birthmark on my right buttock, just below the Speedo line, to the amusement of the girls on my high school swim team.
42. I have very dry skin that cracks and bleeds even in Washington.
43. Once when my mom slapped me because I was being a brat, I slapped her back. I still feel bad about this.
    
44. In second grade I attempted to pull the trick wherein you take another's hand, announce that you are about to kiss the hand of the person you love most, then pull the other person's hand toward your lips, only to flip it around at the last second and kiss your own hand. Except somehow I forgot to do the flip and really did kiss her hand. The embarrassment has only faded away in the last few years.
45. The first boy I fell in love with was named Kevin and he was my best friend in fourth grade.
46. The first man I fell in love with was named Mr. Spinney and he was my principal in second grade.
47. I was 5'6" and otherwise prepubescent through my sophomore year of high school. I spent the summer between sophomore and junior years in Wisconsin with my dad and brother and came home about 5'11" and otherwise postpubescent.
48. I came home from my freshman-to-sophomore summer in Wisconsin with a new wardrobe of baggy skater clothes to replace my previous nerd attire. The cool upperclassmen in my French class looked at me the first day of school and said, "Whoa, Jean Luc, what's up?!" but other than that I was still a nerd.
49. My name in French class was Jean Luc.
    
50. I am not nor have I ever been a Trekkie.
51. My senior year of high school I graduated from nerd status to somewhat-respected crazy guy status by miming a murder in my drama class.
    
52. In sixth grade I graduated from nerd status to somewhat-concerning crazy guy status by writing my "How To" paper on "How to Commit Suicide."
53. For a year or two during elementary school I had special meetings with Mrs. Young, the school counselor (I think), because I was socially inept. She gave me M.U.S.C.L.E. Men for making small steps to overcome shyness. She knew how to motivate a kid.
    
54. I have worked in public service for most of my adult life. The part I enjoy most is when I don't have to interact with people. This is why I'm considering a switch to cataloguing.
55. I have a half-brother in Germany who's a bodybuilder. I've never met him.
56. My two oldest sisters (actually half-sisters, but only technically speaking) are half Seneca. Besides making great apple juice, they're also good at sitting crosslegged and giving things, then taking them back.
57. FoxyJ and I own a set of nice silverware we got as a wedding gift, plus a few odds and ends we brought from our previous lives. I always choose the nice silverware over the old stuff except when I am packing a meal to take to school or work.
58. When I was a kid we stayed in a motel for a night or two while our house was sprayed for termites. My mom brought one of the good knives and left it in the motel trashcan. I learned my lesson.
59. When my best friend across the street's house was sprayed for termites, a couple of his favorite spongy toys were accidentally left and had to be destroyed. I was not supposed to tell him this but of course I did.
    
60. My best friend across the street and his sister and I were part of a detective club, not unlike Scooby Doo's Mystery, Inc. We spent most of our time trying to figure out who the invisible man hiding in their tree was. Turns out he was a glare caught by our binoculars.
61. I am suspicious of any dessert not bearing chocolate.
    
62. The first superhero I created was a black-cloak-wearing (as opposed to a Black cloak-wearing) mystery man called the Shadow. I had no idea at the time that there existed a similar pulp hero of the same name. Mine was based on Darkwing Duck.
63. I spent much of my childhood watching Disney Afternoon and TGIF.
    
64. I spent a good half a year confused because when Sledge Hammer was caught in that explosion it said "to be continued next season" but, living in Hawai'i where we don't have seasons, I wasn't too clear on when I could expect to find out poor Sledge's fate.
65. I argued in the fourth grade that yes, you can get pregnant by kissing, because that's what I saw on Look Who's Talking.
    
66. Though I do remember from watching the oh-so-touching tv movie Baby Em that if you want to have a boy you should do it standing up.
67. At some point in my formative years my mom checked out a molestation-prevention video from the library for us to watch during family home evening. I was rather embarrassed by the corny guitar-playing man singing about his private parts.
68. We were one of the first families on the block to have a VCR because my dad got us one. We had VHS, but to this day I associate Beta with my dad because that's what he had at his place. (I think.)
69. We were one of the last families on the block to have a computer. My mom finally got one my senior year of high school.
70. Our Mac had some kind of database program that I thought was ultracool. I used it to catalogue my comic books not just by publication date but by chronological order, no small feat considering that I was dealing with multiple characters across multiple titles.
71. When I told one of my sisters that I was gay, she expressed concern that the scantily-clad female superheroes in my comic books had desensitized me to the feminine form. I'd hardly noticed that there were females.
    
72. I am righthanded but I write like a lefthanded person (but with my right hand).
    
73. My lefthanded sister once had a mug that said, "Hire the lefthanded--it's fun to watch them write."
74. I have no idea what the difference between ravens and crows is.
75. I got a 34 on the ACT. I would score this on a college application as Exceptional.
76. I always score higher in math than language on standardized tests. Even on the GRE, which I took six years after my last math class. I never pursued math because I never liked it.
77. I am a slow reader.
78. I am also a slow writer.
79. I hated Heart of Darkness when I read it in high school and I hated it again when I read it in college.
80. Mr. Darcy is the first and only literary character I've ever fallen in love with.
81. Colin Firth is no Darcy.
82. My back is pretty much always sore.
83. My nose is pretty much always stuffed.
84. My eyes are pretty much always tired.
85. In my sophomore PE class I made the mistake of sitting in the wrong seat one day and for the rest of the year I was called La La Boy. I still have no idea where that came from. I hated it.
86. When I am driving in the carpool lane with no other adults but two small children in car seats, I have imaginary conversations wherein I defend myself boldly to any who would dare accuse me of violating lane restrictions.
87. I spend too much of my time thinking of all the self-righteously vindictive things I didn't say to the Angry Feminist but should have.
88. I have an underbite and a crooked smile.
89. I pick my nose when I think no one's looking.
90. I am thrilled every time another human being touches me. Particularly attractive ones, but I'm not horribly picky.
91. My idea of heaven is sitting alone in a comfortable place, perhaps wrapped in blankets and pillows, reading comic books. I spent much of my adolescence in just such a position.
92. I also spent much of my adolescence attempting to crack the code of comic book chronology--how many years of real time, for example, correspond to a year in comic book time? Is it directly proportional or on some kind of sliding scale as you move from 1938 to the present? I was convinced I would find the answer if I looked hard enough.
93. My hips are wide for a man. No matter how much I trim off fat and add muscle, my hip-to-waist proportion--dictated not by fat or muscle but by bone shape--will always be greater than I find attractive in men. This is a source of constant annoyance to me.
94. My favorite underwear is the Tommy Hilfiger briefs I bought in high school.
    
95. When I feel stressed or frustrated with life I listen to angry rap music because somehow it vindicates me even though generally the source of my stress or frustration is not racist white police officers who oppress me. One of my favorites lately is "Shock and Awe" by Chuck D.
96. I have large feet. Size 12.
97. I played Batman in a movie I made in high school called Batman: Twisted featuring Clueless and the Craft. If you haven't seen it then you are missing out.
98. I have never danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.
99. I am not above spending five hours on a single blog post.
    
100. I am an introvert. If anyone--wives, mothers, best friends, and therapists included--scores more than fifty on this I'll be surprised. Many of these things I've not told a single soul before this--even some of the things that were actually worth telling.
     

*Void where prohibited. Valid only in the case that you, the grand prize winner, are married to Master Fob. If the grand prize winner is not in fact married to Master Fob, "yours truly" will be replaced with whoever is truly yours.