inspired by this week's book: three time periods i am infinitely grateful i wasn't born into, because i'm fairly certain in them i'd fail

#1:  The Renaissance

Pros: 

Literary/Scientific/Artistic Boom

Jousting

Gallant Knights

Gorgeous Dresses

Beautiful Castles

Cons: 

Restrictive Corsets

Public Sewage (or lack thereof)

A Firmly Entrenched Caste System

Bear Baiting

The Bubonic Plague

Why I'd Most Certainly Fail: 

Hygiene would be my Achilles' Heel. Amazingly enough, water was believed to be bad for one's health, so people didn't drink it or bathe in it.  On the up side, this belief ensured that everyone spent the better part of their day sporting a healthy wine/ale buzz. On the down side, they stank.  My gag reflex is far too healthy and sense of smell much too heightened to live in an era where changing one's shirt once a week suffices for bathing.  And I don't even want to think about oral hygiene.  Honest to goodness, every time Gwyneth Paltrow and what's his name got down and dirty in Shakespeare in Love I couldn't help but imagine how rank their breath would be if all things were historically accurate.  My stomach turns just thinking about it.

#2: The American Old West

Pros:

Little to No Local Law Enforcement

The Romance of Charting the Unknown

Fresh Air

Adventure

Cowboys

Cons:

Little to No Local Law Enforcement

Small Pox

Indian Warfare

The Near-Extinction of the American Buffalo

Dying of Dysentery on the Oregon Trail

Why I'd Most Certainly Fail:

I've watched enough Deadwood to know that as a woman in the Wild West I'm either doomed to the brothels or the laudalin.  Probably both.  Thank you, no.

#3:  Colonial America

Pros:

Freedom from Religious Persecution (so long as you're Puritan, of course)

Mandatory Education for all Children, both Male and Female

and, um...Plenty of Cod....? 

(This is hard.  I'm pretty sure it would be fairly awful being a Puritan.)

Cons:

A God who Tests Us on Our Best Days and Loathes Us on Our Worst

A Dour, Black Wardrobe

Predestination

Three Hour-Long Fire and Brimstone Sermons on Hard Wooden Benches

A Constant, Oppressive Feeling of Paranoia

A Firm Belief in a Tangible Satan who Lives in the Woods, Possesses our Disenfranchised Brethren and Whose Hand Guides Our Every Misstep

Why I'd Most Certainly Fail:

Several aspects of my personality make me confident that I would have made a positively shite Puritan.  I laugh in church, regularly read "suspicious literature" (i.e. fiction), and, generally speaking, am a sassy, sassy lady.  Furthermore, I've always had a slight fascination with the occult.  No, I don't actually believe in fortune telling, but I have a working knowledge of palmistry and I know my way around a deck of Tarot cards.   Knowing me, I'd be dancing naked in the woods whilst conjuring spirits with my voodoo house servant.  Point me in the direction of the gallows, for lo, I be doomed.