Unique

A dear friend of mine sent me a whole bunch of these pictures today in an email and I laughed so hard I almost blew yogurt out of my nose.

I love this one because I have tried many times in my life to be unique. I know, I'll spell my name Cyndi instead of Cindy - wait - that is the stripper spelling. Oh, I know - I'll go by Thea instead of Cynthia.

Every time I try to be "unique" I end up the same. Dude - I'm a soccer mom living in the suburbs. How much less unique can a human being get? The closest I come to being unique is that I'm a woman in a technical field. There aren't actually very many women in my field of employment. And even fewer soccer-mom technical women - so I'm unique in that way. There are a couple of soccer dads.

Oddly - I relate much more with my male techno-geeky co-workers than I do with the other suburban soccer moms outside of my chosen profession. Actually, the people that I get along with most are people at work that are male-super-techy-geeky childless or techy-fashionista or home improvement gurus or comic book enjoying gay men and woman (and if you are reading this blog you totally know who you are - and I love you for just continuing to read this trash). Actually, I get along with those that are the most "different" from my suburban soccer mom self.

Wait - I get along with the more cool-unique people in my field.

I have met the few incredibly weird ones that are unique and not so useful. For a while, I had a guy working for me that absolutely could not show up to work on time. He would come up with the most creative excuses. Here is just a sample:

• It was raining and I was afraid my car would hydroplane.
• I couldn't find my toothbrush.
• My friend needs to be tested for hepetitis and I need to take him to the doctor.
• I fell asleep on my keyboard and when I woke up I had weird key impressions on my face.
• I was at my parents house and I got confused about where I was when I woke up.
• My girlfriend broke up with me.

I SWEAR that these were real excuses that this guy made. He had one for almost every day, but these were some of his best.

How sad - what do you think? Is unique a good thing or a bad thing?