Five idiosyncrasies

Jennifer gave me one of those question and answer things that I usually forget to answer (is it performance anxiety? do they have meme viagra?) but since she is my STEND, I will do my best. It's still raining, by the way. I love the rain for many reasons, but to be perfectly honest ... the best thing about the rain? I get to wear the UGLIEST yet MOST COMFORTABLE shoes on the planet:

The topic for the tagging thing ("List five of your personal idiosyncrasies") was hard for me because as all ya'll know by now, I AM COMPLETELY IDIOSYNCRASY FREE.

Yup.

So I strained and I pondered and I looked back over the many months and years and also, minutes, and here is what I have to tell you:

There might be maybe one idiosyncrasy.

So, idiosyncrasy #1:
I cannot poop at work.

I know that Freud had many theories about people and their potty habits and he would need a sturdy couch and about twelve years with me and my inner child before finally unravelling my nueroses to the core. But let me save you and Freud the trouble and we'll just blame all this on my parents. Because isn't that what parents are for? To love us and comfort us and also to be the prime source of blame in our lives? (Just kidding ya'll. Your parenting skills were awesome. Look how GREAT I turned out. Love you!)

And that is all I have to say about pooping.

Which brings me to a maybe rather insignificant but still worth-mentioning idiosyncrasy #2:

I am bad at small talk. When I talk to you, it's like I have had a conversation going in my head for ten minutes before opening my mouth, and so when I do finally say something to you? We have moved beyond small talk and right into Very Large Talk. Or Inappropriate Talk, for example "poop" or "divorce." It's best if I just remain quiet and do not speak at all. Yeah. Like that will ever happen.

Oh. OK. There may be one more. Idiosyncrasy #3:
I have a routine in the mornings, before going to work, and if I do not follow the routine and accidentally skip a step, the DAY IS RUINED. Well, not ruined for me so much as those who have to be around The Girl Who Skipped A Step And Then Forgot Deodorant.

The Routine is crucial to the day, because if I don't do The Routine, the chain of command will be broken and the world may stop spinning on its axis. Because of my little insomnia issue, I tend to wake up veerrrry early sometimes and I can lay in bed and snuggle with the Roy or lay on the sofa and watch TV as long as I want, but upon standing upright I have to commence with The Routine.

Which is: feed cats, water cats, scoop catboxes, wash hands. Put in contacts, brush teeth, take shower. (There's also a shower sub-routine but I won't bore you with that.) (Like this isn't boring enough.) Then: dry off, moisturize, DEODORANT, get dressed except shoes, comb hair. Turn off all lights, fans, appliances, stuff, check the oven AGAIN like the OCD freakazoid I am, check back door is locked, put on shoes, get purse and knitting bag and stuff, leave and lock door.

If any part of this goes awry, I will inevitably forget something and someone will either be without Meow Mix, or without deodorant, or without socks. The worst case is always when I forget to check the stove or some appliance, like curling inplements*, and then I have to return to the house. Even if I am already at the park 'n ride and standing in line for the bus, I must return. If not I will spend ALL DAY worrying that the house is on fire or all the doors are flapping open because I forgot to lock them.

But not in a weird way. Geez.

* curling implements... ah, that is perhaps idiosyncrasy #4. I STILL USE HOT CURLERS ON OCCASION. I am Southern and it is MY BIRTHRIGHT, DAMMIT. In my defense, I have VERY straight hair. No natural wave AT ALL. And a little hot roller never hurt no one!

I am so ready for the big hair and hot roller heaven of the 80s to come back. One day I will tell ya'll exactly how long it used to take me every morning to get ready to attend my high school. My country ass high school full of farm kids and stoners. You can safely assume it was HOURS. There was so much hairspray that flies were stuck in mid-flight in my bathroom. It was an EVENT.

But I digress.

Because there may also be a little issue I have with time, hours and minutes and so on, which could be considered idiosyncrasy #5.

If it is 2 p.m., and I have to be somewhere at 6 p.m., to figure out how much time I have to fart around between now and then I will count the hours up. Only I do it in the following manner:

"Two-to-three o'clock, three-to-four o'clock, four-to-five o'clock, five-to-six o'clock." And I tick them out on my fingers. I COUNT WITH MY FINGERS. Because although I can compose a full five paragraph theme in my head, with footnotes, I cannot add up the amount of hours between two and six. I am possibly slightly retarded.

I also set the alarm clock for odd intervals ... 5:37 a.m. Or 6:12 a.m. Why do I do this? It's not like I'm superstitious about the hour and minute numbers, it's ... just a thing I do. When using the microwave oven (which I still refer to as "the microwave oven" because as previously mentioned, I am slightly retarded) I set the heating timer for weird numbers, too. Like two minutes and two seconds. Or one minute, twenty-one seconds. WHY DO I DO THIS? Is anyone out there a therapist? Can you please lie to me and tell me this is all my parents' fault?

So, aside from those things listed above and maybe six or fourteen or thirty-seven other things, I am totally idiosyncrasy free. As I am sure you suspected.