Post #172906 by TikiMaxton on Mon, Jul 18, 2005 4:36 PM

I try not to be too much of a one-trick-pony about anything. I've found that anybody who is so "into" something that they talk about it every chance they get is boring and one dimensional, even if I care about their obsession.

I sometimes find that I'm a weirdo in the eyes of other weirdos. I hang out with people who like to dress and talk and sing like pirates. They think I'm a little odd because I'm also into tiki. At work I don't talk about it much, but it's an open secret, especially since I have a couple of pals working with me who are also part of our tiki Ohana. Sometimes when the three of us are talking (about anything), other coworkers will walk by and say things like, "Are you guys talking about tiki again?". Still, some of the folks here, though they're not into our obsession, helped us learn how to make mugs for the NW Tiki Crawl, and some of them discovered that we shared their passion because we happened to mention it at work.

Sometimes I think we need a secret handshake or saying to recognize one another ("For the sake of a widow's son") or something...

My family gets it, though. We are all black sheep, and I'm the darkest of them all. I had expected my mom to poo-poo my hobby the first time she saw my bar. She was an early proto-hippie, and part of the generation that shunned PolyPop culture. She loved my bar, and now she lives in Mexico, right next to (what she calls) a tiki bar, and she can't wait for me to see it.