I was thinking about some of the weird habits I have or ways I like things done...quirks, if you will. I know we all have 'em and I thought it would be fun to share 'em.
I'll go first.
We iron our jeans. Yes, let the entire world gasp. I don't sit around on laundry day staring at or listening for the song so I can run down, pull out the jeans, still see wrinkles, shrug and say "good enough" and hang them on the hanger. I've got other things to do. I will be ironing them anyway so I'm not going to babysit the machine and I don't hang them up anyway. The Mr is less stringent about his ironing habits but if he looks like a hobo that has just rolled out of bed and I catch it, I make him go down and iron the offending article of clothing again. He speed irons and therefore misses basically the entire shirt or pant. Shirts fair better but jeans are notoriously wrinkled on him. You make an impression when you go out like that. I have tried to loosen up about this, it will never change so no need for tips or denim iron shaming.
I won't breathe over roadkill in the road. Like if we're driving and I see roadkill, I will hold my breath as we drive over it and until I can't see it in the side mirror. It is both because I am pausing to remember the poor nugget that got flattened on our roads and more importantly, I don't want to breathe in the scent of death. Don't judge me.
Muting people who go batchit crazy making fools of themselves on The Price is Right. This includes screaming "oh my God" about 20x in a row, bum rushing and/or picking up Drew (I've seen him get dropped and recoiled in horror- he's had shoulder surgery for God's sake), showboating for their friends like they're mac daddies/mamas (I don't even know what that is, besides dated, but you know what I mean), some guy screamed like a caveman the whole time and then yelled cowabunga during his showcase and I wanted to punch him in the throat. One woman in particular would bid like this "five hundred fifty dollars, baby." I'm not talking in a cute slang way, she would say baby in a creepy, wanna be seductive manor that made me want to shower and I had to end up muting her as well as looking away because she grossed me out. I have a good ability to tune out things in the background but screechy, repetitive or loud, ongoing noises catch my attention and start the twitch meter running.
Buffets. We don't go to buffets often but there are times we will imbibe if we're in the town of one of the last few Ponderosa's left in the country. I have a few rules though. We have to go as soon as the food for lunch is set up so it's all fresh. Fresh ice under lettuce, piping hot anything, etc. I have to scrape off the top where anyone may have coughed or sneezed over it so I can get to food relatively untouched. Like if I'm going to get a little scoop of mashed potatoes, I will go to the untouched side, scrape off the top layer and dig into the bottom of it. Same with lettuce, dressing, etc. I've seen too many people hack over buffets and they can truly be one of the most unsafe food atmospheres to subject yourself to but Ponderosa is my childhood so when given the chance, I'll take the risk...within my own warped reason.
Finally, this one I consider a lifestyle choice but others will call it a quirk or downright crazy.
I don't use a cell phone. Seriously.
I have one. We keep it charged in case I go out for something but I usually forgot to grab it but it's basically only for vacations. The Mr has one for work that they pay for and has it on him pretty much at all times so if we need it for an emergency, we have it. I don't see a need to pay $40-100/mo for a brick that will sit on my coffee table. Instead we throw $50 a YEAR in a "pay as you go" account before vacations and activate the internet so we have it because the work phone is a no no on vacations. I view cell phones as an electronic leash. People think they have the right to infringe on your time, expect instantaneous answers to their texts and if you don't they get all pissy or think you've been kidnapped. Wouldn't really know how to send a text if I wanted to...I can barely use the damn thing to dial out. If I'm out and about, I want to enjoy my time living my life, not spend it with my face buried in my phone ignoring the people I'm with. Over the holidays, I left my cell wifi on so that I could hear my Etsy app notification go off when a sale was made. The constant noises and vibrations coming off that thing made me incredibly jumpy. I hated the way it felt and I hated by the end of the month it made me feel like I HAD to grab it. I will not live that way. If I want to check email, Facebook, etc, I get on the laptop. Period. (I'm on that way more than I'd like to be.) People say "what if there's an emergency!?" Well then I guess I'll find out about it when I get home like I did before I got married. I mean obviously if someone was in the hospital or something, I'd carry it but other than that, I quite enjoy being "unleashed." Call it quirky, call it crazy, call it old fashioned...just don't call me because I won't pick up. ;-)
Your turn. What are 2-3 of your biggest quirks?
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I don't watch Price is Right (or any other game show) just for that reason. Those people make my eye twitch, so I don't watch unless I'm somewhere that it's on the tv and I can't avoid it. So I guess that's one quirk - no voluntary game show or talk show watching.
ReplyDeleteI don't like to iron - but I will if I have to. I don't chain myself to the dryer to pull stuff out immediately, and I do iron my work clothes if they're wrinkled, but I try really hard to buy clothes that don't need to be ironed. My college room-mate had her jeans & tee-shirts dry cleaned - so ironing them doesn't seem all that quirky to me.
I guess my biggest one is that I don't like my food to touch. I know most people grow out of that, but I never did. They say you should use a smaller plate to make it look fuller, but I hate that because then there's no room to spread out my food.
I hae to clear my desk before i leave work. Other teachers leave papers to grade, lesson plans in progress, etc. on their desks for easy access the next day. I have to have the surface totally clear when I leave for the day - even if I'm not done with something it goes into a drawer/file/shelf. It makes me absolutely crazy to know there is anything on the surface of my desk that shouldn't be there.
I don't know if you'd call it a quirk, but I don't swim in water I can't see the bottom in. The closest I will get to a big body of water is a swimming pool. No idea why. It just spooks me. I do the 'no breathing when driving over roadkill' thing too. LOL! Oh, and I don't watch reality shows of any kind. They really annoy me.
ReplyDeleteHi Anele! I've recently discovered your blog and have been enjoying reading.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if these are my biggest quirks, but one is that I need to make sure the sheets are tucked in before I go to sleep. I can't stand when the covers don't line up. Another is that I get creeped out really really easily - I even creep myself out accidentally - but I love reading mystery novels.
Holy crap, Ponderosa! I used to work there many, many moons ago and (I hate to break this to you) the "fresh" food you think you're getting when they first set up the buffet is usually the re-heated leftovers from the night before. Especially if they have BBQ wings. Those are the previous nights wings heated up in the oven and tossed in BBQ.
ReplyDeleteIf you want the freshest food you really should go when it's busy. That food gets rolled over fast and as long as a customer isn't actively befouling it (by sneezing on it or eating off the serving spoon--yes, I've seen that happen) you can get the best food.
My quirks?
I like to know if my foods are even or odd. Small stuff like m&ms or shelled peanuts. I don't really care if it's even or odd (though I like even better) I just like to know. And with shelled peanuts, I like to eat the halves first then the wholes. (it drives me crazy when my hubby just grabs some from me and won't tell me if he took even or odd)
I'm militant about the office ice cube trays. I go batty when someone fills empty cells on a tray that is not completely empty. It's so inefficient to have some cells frozen and ready and others freezing. We have three trays so with proper rotation you should never be without ice.
I don't like to drive. I will forego events if I have to drive myself to them or go out of my way to figure out how I can avoid driving.
I'm with you there on about the cell phone. While I have one, it's never on and I only recently put voicemail on it and that was only because of back and forth conversations with a doctor. It's a flip phone and up until recently I had the kind that still had an antenna! (Big Brother will never find me!) People make fun of us for still having a landline and I'm quick to remind them of the tornado that ripped through here in 2003 where the cell towers were down for a week and we had no power for 3 days during the 4th of July, but our landline still worked so I could call my mom and let her know we were ok. 'Nuff said.'
ReplyDeleteI'm calling this a quirk while others may view it as OCD, but my word sounds less demented. I have to check the stove knobs before I leave the house. Doesn't matter if the stove hasn't been used in a few days, I still have to go up to the stove and check each and every knob. I think this harkens back to the house fire we had when I was in 6th grade, but again, I'm going with quirk.
I have to turn pen caps so the little part that is used for hooking on a shirt, pad of paper, etc, is facing the name of the pen (such as Bic, Papermate). Done it for years.
I straighten the shelves at grocery stores. If I see a can is upside down, I'll fix it. Magazines in disarray...I'll fix 'em right up. Ironically, I'm not a terribly neat person and our house is in a constant state of clutter, so it doesn't come from a neat freak mentality...maybe just the freak part.
I fix carts at grocery stores and go bananas when I see people put the cart at the end of the rack and don't push it forward into the other carts. I just think it's rude, rude, rude to leave that for the store workers...and yet they'll be mad if a cart goes rolling into their cars.
I mute any kissing scene that is on tv. I can't stand to hear that annoying sound that sounds like somebody sucking on a peach. Can't watch it and really can't stand to hear it.
I am so glad to hear I'm not the only one who organizes the cart corral. It drives me crazy when people don't push their cart all the way in and keep them lined up. I think I inherited it because my mom does the same thing!!!
DeleteI change the channel when someone on TV is embarrassing themselves. I feel so bad and can't watch... Or if they get hurt. No "Funniest Home Videos" on TV here! I have to check 3 times to make sure that the front door is locked, flat iron is off, garage door is closed, etc. And I have to tell myself out loud! Even where I work, when I leave if I don't yank on the door and tell myself 3 times that "The door is locked" I might drive back to double check.... I'm just a little OCD ;). The TV volume must be on an even number - other than that "3" thing I don't like odd numbers, haha!
ReplyDelete