Odd Neuroses

[Hucklebubba]

(Please, oh please, don't let me be the only one posting here.)

I've already forgotten the title of the MRFH article that gave me the inspiration for this thread, but it had something to do with Justin counting down from 10 as he gets out of the shower. No, really, it exists.

Anybody out there who wants to share their strange quirks, and thereby make me look like less of an insane fool; this is the place to do it.

My quirk of the day is as follows: Whenever I drink anything from any sort of container, I always try to take exactly 4 glugs per chug. I know, it's weird. I think I've got it narrowed down to either Asperger's syndrome or OCD. Seeing as how I'm never quite sure if I remembered to lock the front door or not, I'm guessing number two.

[Uber]

I have a tendancy to count/find patterns/snap fingers in the pattern 1,3,2,4,4,2,3,1 a lot. I don't know why, and don't really care. And if anyone comes at me with a pill to cure it, I would probably laugh at them.

[dajaymann]

I talk to myself. But not really say anything, I just mouth words to myself like I'm in some sort of one-sided conversation. I catch myself doing that all the time, though it's much more embarrassing when my wife catches me.

[Head Mutant]

It was one of the MRFHlines, and yeah, I still do that. Sure, there are people who are OC, but I think of other people (like myself) just come up with little traditions, habits and superstitions and keep to them because they're uniquely ours, and sometimes routine in daily tasks is comforting.

I also never, NEVER look at a fan coming to a complete stop, because I've long held a superstition that if you see a fan stop, you'll die that day.

[PoolMan]

After Justin counts down from ten out of the shower, he counts UP to sixty, during which he empties a can of Axe body spray into his armpits. Little known fact.

I eat my breakfast in quarters. Two pieces of toast cut in half (soldiers, Rich, soldiers!), and a glass of juice/milk/whatever. Eat a half a toast, drink a quarter glass. Repeat until done. I get quite annoyed with myself if I overdrink my quarter-glass ration on any one turn. Best done while reading webcomics.

[BDC]

I have compulsion of checking email before I go to class.

Does that count?

[mutantclare]

I knock wood a lot. Doesn't matter if I've said the thing out loud that I don't want to come true or someone else does. Any time I hear someone say something that would be terrible if it actually happened I knock wood. The only thing about it is that I feel compelled to. It's not just a habit or something I do without thinking. It's like I consciously think it's going to make a difference and get panicky if I don't knock wood to make sure.

In my book, that's quirky bordering on neurotic. But hey, everyone's got their own little weirdnesses.

Druidgirl for example is the strangest eater I've ever hung out with.

[Lissa]

I always eat the fries before the burger, although I'm trying to change that habit for health reasons (less likely to finish the fries). I also talk to myself- constantly. And let's not even talk about pre-scale rituals.

[PoolMan]

mutantclare said:

Druidgirl for example is the strangest eater I've ever hung out with.

Oh, that just BEGS for clarification.

[Hucklebubba]

Here are a couple more quirks from me. I got a million of 'em. A-cha cha cha!!

If ever any of you should ever talk to me in person, look closely at my hands, and you might see my fingers twitching almost imperceptibly. This is because I've latched on to some word you said, or maybe just a word I happened to be thinking of, and am "air-guitaring" the typing sequence for that word. The reason I put "might" in italics is that, although this habit was practically a chronic thing during high school, it's tapered off considerably over time.

Second, and related, quirk: I've just recently invented a grammatical term for something I've been coming up with ever since I learned to type. The term is "Gerukial Words" or just "Gerukials," and what it describes is words or phrases which are typed using an equal number of letters for each hand. (There may already be an established term for this, but I haven't heard of it.) "X-Men" is a good example, as is "Campbell." So are "Olivetti" and "Head Mutant." Hmmm.

If there aren't any alternatives, finding gerukials is a fairly good antidote for brain boredom.

I'm sure you've already noticed, but the word "gerukial" is one of itself. Yeah.

[Al]

I have two that immediately come to mind. The first is my inability to walk down stairs. I don't know exactly when it started, but it's simply become a unconsious habit of mine to do a little shuck n' jive dance down a flight of stairs rather than simply walking. Usually, I only notice anymore when I hear a supressed giggle from behind me in public places (sort of like the kid singing to himself in About A Boy).

The other is a typing habit. Wenever I blank on a key or am interrupted while typing, I have to search for my place again. While doing this, I *always* spiral my finger around the keyboard until I locate the key in question and it is jabbed probably far harder than it needs to be. I know I'm not the only one who does this, but I've been informed that I do it far more often than most people.

Al
-actually did it twice while typing this post.

[mutantclare]

She'd probably explain it better herself since she's got elaborate reasons for every weird eating thing she does. All I know is that everything has to be prepared exactly the way she wants it and she has to be able to eat it in exactly the proportion and combination she's determined is the way something must be eaten. Beyond that I just don't know how else to explain it. And it doesn't matter what we're eating, she's got rules for it.

[PoolMan]

So in other words...

"You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance, but you THINK you're low maintenance."

[Baalek]

I eat my fries first, but there's a good reason: fries tend to get cold faster than the burger itself, and cold fries=sucky fries.
Let me see if I can think of some of my "real" quirks, though; I've got a ton:

Whenever I walk down the stairs to the bottom story of my house, I always slap the hang-down ceiling above me with my right hand.

I have an absolute OBSESSION with having everything arranged in a straight line, and also with having things in a specific order. For instance, I have every one of my DVDs in a specific order seguing from one genre to the next, for example: Sci-Fi (Star Wars) goes into Sci-Fi Action (Terminator) goes into regular action (the Professional) goes into Hong Kong action (M:I2), goes into unusual/foreign action (El Mariachi), goes into action-comedy (Kuffs), goes into regular comedy (Ghostbusters), etc. Yeah, I know, I am definitely OC.

I have specific routines for how I do nearly EVERYTHING at work, even the stuff you don't normally have a routine for. If these routines get broken, it messes me up and confuses me.

There's a lot more, but it's 2:30 in the a.m. and I'm too tired to think of any others right now.

[druidGirl]

All I know is that everything has to be prepared exactly the way she wants it and she has to be able to eat it in exactly the proportion and combination she's determined is the way something must be eaten. Beyond that I just don't know how else to explain it.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I do like dishes a certain way, but I don't freak out if they're not made the way I requested. I've maybe only sent back food 3 times the whole of my restaurant eating life. And usually it's because the dish is so totally wrong it's not remotely what I ordered.

But I do have specific things I eat with other specific things. Like steak. Potatoes must be served with steak. Baked or mashed, doesn't matter. I have to have potatoes.

With burgers, I must have potato chips. French fries I can handle, though I don't really like french fries with my burgers. French fries alone, or with fried fish, are fine. But with a burger, I prefer potato chips.

When I eat tacos, I alternate ends I bite off of. So I take one bite off of one end and then the next bite I take off the other end, and then switch back to the other end for the next bite, etc. So that when I get to my last bite of taco, I've reach the middle of the taco. Also, when eating tacos, I have to arrange the food inside the taco so that there's an even proportion of the food throughout the taco. I don't want stuff bunched up in the center. I want each bite to be a proportionately equal as possible.

But the proportionately equal bite is something I do with just about everything. Let's take Thanksgiving dinner. It's a bite of turkey, with some mashed potato and sweet potato, and green bean casserole and stuffing all together in my mouth at once. I like the way all the flavors mix. So I proportion it so that the amount of food I'm putting in my mouth of each dish served lasts the duration of my chewing. So if I notice that I've sallowed the green beans but still have some turkey and other sides in my mouth left to chew, I bite a little more green beans. That applies to everything else as well. So, a lot of the time, when I eat, it looks like I'm continuously shoving food in my mouth. Which I guess, is really what I'm doing.

And I dip my pizza in ranch dressing.