Ice Breaker/Ball Buster

Recently, I attended a day-long seminar at work. There were about 20 of us. As is customary in these situations the presenters had us do an ice-breaker. This particular exercise had a list of statements and you had to find a person for each of the statements. The person with the most names wins.

The statements were things like:

I have eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast.
I speak a language other than English.
I practice the traditions of my ancestors.
I have lived in a foreign county.

Participants scurry around to find names to fill-in next to their statements and their name next to a statement of the other participants.

The further along you get the harder it is to find additional people and the harder it is to find a statement that you fulfill since all the easy ones are taken.

I was standing with a group of 3 or 4 co-workers and we were hurriedly comparing lists and offering up our names to various statements.

I found a statement I thought I could fill, "A person who has overcome a major personal challenge". I told them, "Put me down for that".

One of my co-workers asked, "What personal challenge have you overcome?". Never mind that this was probably not a wise question. I mean, what if I had over come a meth habit, nose picking or habitually crapping myself on Fridays or something else that I would not like to talk about?

I instinctively and proudly rubbed my growing belly as evidence of overcoming a major personal challenge.

She exclaimed, "THAT'S not a challenge".

Over the buzz and chatter of a room full of excitedly talking people I paused, got very serious and said in a measured tone, "If you only knew what I have gone through to get here you would not say that. Not everyone can have a baby whenever and however they want." And there was stunned silence. I went on, "If you only knew. I'm glad for you that you don't."

And then a ran away to another group of people becasue I'm a competitive bitch and I wanted to win!