PCS Blog
What’s Your Achilles Heel?
Posted by cynpdx | 05 October 2010 | Comments (26)
So the story goes that Achilles' mother, Thetis, in an attempt to make him invincible, dipped him in the River Styx as a baby, making every part that touched the water invulnerable to harm at mortal hands. The fatal flaw in this plan? She held him by his heel for the dipping, and that one teensy spot was left vulnerable.
Fast forward to the Trojan war and this tiny flaw in an otherwise invincible hero is exploited by Paris, who aims a poisoned arrow straight for Achilles' heel, felling one of the great Greek heroes with a single prick.
Nowadays any secret minor flaw that could be your downfall is called an Achilles Heel.
Which makes us WILDLY curious- what's YOURS? Tell us in the comments below and you'll be entered to win a pair of tickets to An Iliad. We'll draw the lucky winner on Monday, October 18th. Check back then to see if you managed to turn a metaphorical weak tendon into a wonderful evening out!
UPDATE: Congratulations to Heather Wyse, the winner of our Achilles Heel contest! Heather, we'll contact you directly to arrange your tickets. Thanks to everyone for sharing their deepest darkest secrets... except for "blt" who, perhaps wisely, neglected to share anything Samson wouldn't share!
Comments (26)
Stuck on an elevator with 2 liberals still talking about the wonders of Obama. I would have to wack myself
The way a woman draws a drink from a Martini Glass, the way she holds and twirls it before the moment of enjoyment or the way she holds a Cigar and reclines as she releases the smoke from between two nice pursed lips. I could watch that Ballet until the until Poetry falls from the sky…needless to say my weakness has me buying drinks all night.
for the charming few.
My Achilles heel is that, deep down, I somehow believe I’m going to get a do-over on my life, that time doesn’t just run forward.
The first entrance wondering if I know my lines.
All of the cute actors in Portland. I have usually one or two that I have a crush on at any given moment. My husband knows this and understands. Current crush boy - Spencer Conway!
My metaphorical “Achilles’ Heel” is my children. They are the drive behind almost everything that I do and everything I have accomplished. They not only have the power to have made my life better for the past 23 years but they have the power to make this world a better place to live. They are my strength and my weakness. I would do anything for them and could not love them more.
My Achilles heel is my daughter. All reason goes out the window as I try to be the “perfect mother”. Once I screamed at some old man in a grocery store because he knocked her down by walking in the automatic door that wasn’t stopped by her light weight. I was so mortified I couldn’t go to that grocery store for a year!
I am a sucker for an accent - I LOVE to talk to or simply listen to people with different accents - Southern, Irish, Arabic, African, Latin, you name it. A person with an accent can hold me aurally captive for as long as they like!
My Achilles’ Heel would have to be freebies! Can’t pass ‘em up - free food, free fabric (I sew), free vacations - if there’s a chance to win a free SOMETHING I like, I enter to win!
And sometimes, I even do!
Not thinking something through before I act or speak—But, I’m working on it and getting better every day!
Definitely a good glass of wine ... can’t refuse it!
Look what good it did Achilles and Samson to tell their secrets.
And there aren’t even any nubile women involved here!
My Achilles heal is my cat!
Friends…and they know it! My husband most of all…
The allure of an intelligent woman…
Two words…Dark Chocolate. Especially with a big red wine!
I’m a runner, just finished my first marathon here in P-town. Eating right and regular training is the life. My weakness is bacon. I had some waiting for me at the finish line!
Fire is my heel. I’ll stop anything I’m doing if I can huddle up to a roaring fire. I prefer them in an open pit, so people can gather around, outside, but a fireplace or stove is just as distracting.
My Achilles heel? Simple. Women of color with great smiles and lively eyes melt me on the spot. I become a simple puddle of admiration and subservience, malleable as butter. EVERY
TIME. Yes, my wife does notice this!
Shyness, I have to force myself to get in to conversations.
My weakness that leaves me most vulnerable is close to Achilles’ tendon (in area that is). The bottom of my feet are so ticklish I can’t scratch my own feet. It’s not a secret I tell to just anyone, as some people can be devilish when it comes to tickling.
I have more than one fatal flaw, but I keep them under wraps, for once I expose them on the internet, well that could be the cyber end of me! Truth be known, most people’s Achilles heels are at a five to six foot distance from their feet…housed somewhere inside the confines of their skull.
My biggest flaw is time management! Hands down, do not pass go, do not collect $200, home run, and batting a thousand…. See I am a wife, mom, grandma, fur baby mom, full time employee, full time law student, family chick who also likes to volunteer at a local animal shelter and a haunted house. Managing my time wisely is a really good idea. I cram lots and lots of stuff into my free time. I could really use an “evening out” just to slow it down for a few hours!
There is always tomorrow.
If I think of all my downfalls, big and small, they often come down to my idea that I could always do it tomorrow. Whether it is calling my parents, sending a thank you, finishing a project, or just going grocery shopping.. I always figure I could just do it tomorrow. Eventually I realize that its been 2 weeks since I’ve called home, and they are furious, I have now waited 3 months to send a thank you note and it is no longer within the realm of appropriate timing, the project never gets done and it remains an idea, and when I go home to dinner, there will be nothing but an old block of cheese in the refrigerator.
It would be really easy to catalogue all of my weaknesses, minor and major. My bordering on unhealthy relationship with cheese, my chronic lateness to appointments, the fact that as an adult I’m still a nail biter… But a true Achilles Hell? A secret weakness that I don’t talk about that threatens to undo me? That would have to be my own memory. My memory that plays tricks on me and manages to convince me that a horrible relationship wasn’t really *that* awful and hey, maybe I could fix it and him if I went back! My memory that recalls the few happy times and allows those small instances to override all sense and reason. It’s pretty much a daily battle against the revisionist history going on in my head.
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