Your unique and surprisingly not behavior

[digs]

I was just saying the other day that the 'Dope' is the most concentrated collection of smart people I've ever found. This thread proves it's the most concentrated collection of interesting people, too.

I listen to audiobooks most of the day. Don't need stereo, so I clean and cook and work with one earbud in.

One reason I do that is without it I'm narrating -- it was driving my family crazy. Because I don't talk, I sing. Like a "sung through" light opera (think "Les Miz"). Even the most boring tasks are redeemed if they're part of a stirring, funny musical... imagine cleaning the bathroom while singing like Jack Skellington when he sees Christmas for the first time, but all the lyrics are about an epic battle between the toilet brush and the Swiffer.

Why, yes, the whole thing rhymes. Of course.

So I wait til no one else is home, and sing to the dogs. At least they understand the value of a free musical-in-the-round.

[myskepticsight]

Originally Posted by notfrommensa

I don't think I am the only one that does this but I always get weird looks when I do it.

When taking a pill, I always get my mouth half full of water first, tilt my head, open mouth, drop pills, and gulp.

When I was a kid, Mom gave me an aspirin, and the dang thing dissolved on my tongue before I could drink water and swallow and it seemed like it was hours before I got rid of that nasty taste.

I do the same thing, because the exact same aspirin thing happened to me as a kid when I started getting headaches and I was just like 'hell no' and figured out the other way.

I look at people funny when they lay pills on their tongue and then go for their drink - it doesn't make sense! Those pills are sitting there DISSOLVING why are you doing that?

[NIKI50]

This thread is exactly why I read the Dope. Love you guys!

[TruCelt]

When I see something bright yellow, I'll stare hard at it for a second and then look away. The purpose of this is to create the impression of a certain bright and lovely purple which is left in my eyeballs, and which I almost never see in real life. The best are yellow traffic lights.

As a kid I read a book about a girl who got sent to Siberia with her family. Often when I'm walkign around the dollar store I'll note gadgets and gizmos and just "stuff" which I'd want to take with me if I ever had to go. "Those pocket hand warmers coudl save me from frostbite in an emergency" Those cheap thin blankets would make great long underwear, and I coud quilt them together to keep warm at night. . ."

[jayrey]

Originally Posted by NIKI50

This thread is exactly why I read the Dope. Love you guys!

What he/she said.

[Becky2844]

I caught this thread a little late but it's interesting. So I was sitting here wondering what I do that nobody else does. I couldn't think of anything and felt deflated. Then my husband walked by and I asked him if he knew of any....blah blah blah. In my Deliverence voice.

Whenever I mention things to people that mean a lot to me but I figure they don't care anything about, I say it in a low, raspy "come here to me ya purty little thing, and squeel like a pig" kind of voice, thereby denigrating my stupid little need.

*happy dance* I AM weird! I always knew I was.



I should amend this to say "...to family." If I talked like that out in public I doubt that the produce guy at Winn Dixie would keep pointing out the good melons to me.

[salinqmind]

I walk through the Dollar Tree and plan a wedding! Really, everything is there - food, drink, decorations, invitations, flower arrangements. I'm on the fence about the wedding gown. I suppose I could whip one up out of tablecloths, shower curtains, jewelry bits, duct tape, and such (and I have seen such things, just stunning, online somewhere). Same for the bridesmaids. Maybe make some dresses out of the thousands of scarves... They have tiaras in the toy aisle, and wedding favors galore (and baskets to put them in). Even shoes, I could paint and decorate imitation crocs or flip flops white. Oh, and the wedding party will all get makeovers and hairstyles...The groom? Well....I'm not much of one for tailoring. I could make him a tunic and palazzo pants out of the tablecloths...maybe the groom will have to be on his own.

[Asimovian]

Whenever I grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator at work, I walk back to my office tossing/flipping it. I never think it's weird until someone comments on it. I also tend to grab either a pen or a rubber band whenever I'm getting up to walk around the office so I have something to fidget with. Pens get flipped in the same manner as the water bottles.

[phouka]

Sometimes, I put myself in charge of supplying a real world expedition to Middle Earth or other pre-Industrial fantasy realm. I give myself a budget - anywhere from $100,000 to $10,000,000 - and line up stuff my party will need and can't get there (antibiotics, ball point pens) as well as things to trade with the natives (hair bands, paper clips, zippers). It fills the time when I'm waiting for an appointment.

[jackdavinci]

Originally Posted by ducati

I like my tea cold. Ice cold.
Since most restaurants brew it, it's warm when they put it in the urn/dispenser and cools to room temperature eventually.

I like my tea hot. But I don't like to burn my tongue or wait for it to cool. So I always scoop an ice cube or two from the water glass into the tea.

I take pictures of things I want so I don't have to buy them. I take pictures of things I have an attachment to so I can get rid of them.

I mimic my turtles' exact swimming motions so they will think they are controlling me or I am some kind of extension of their own bodies.

When someone tries to hold a shouting conversation with me from another room I passive aggressively speak to them at a normal level do they can barely hear me and give up.

Whenever I meet someone new I imagine what it would be like to marry them and spend the rest of my life with them.

I practice being kind (or at least gentle) with inanimate objects so that it might carry over into my real social interactions.

[raventhief]

I always swallow pills by taking a sip of water first, and then kind of inserting the pill into my mouth. I dont remember any traumatic pill incident as a child but I have done it for ages and ages. Sip of water, pill, swallow.

When I am all happy and warm and just about to fall asleep, I tend to rub my face against my pillow like a cat scent marking or something. I do not notice doing it usually, I more notice when I havent done it , and as soon as the thought occurs, I have to rub my face against the pillow.

When i was young, I was fanatical about food not touching other food on my plate. When told it would all mix in my stomach, I said I had individual pockets in my tummy for different foods.

I narrate my activities and also have big elaborate imaginary arguments with people. i say this, so they respond with that, so i will say this other thing. It gets quite heated upon occasion.

I am sure I do a lot of other weird things that just arent coming to mind now.

[carnut]

My brother claims I am the only woman he knows who keeps a Dremel tool in the bathroom. I use it to sand away callused skin on my feet. Mind you, using a carpentry tool for this purpose is not for the faint of heart nor the heavy of hand. But it is a much better value than other callus removers - and I can use it for carpentry purposes as well!

[Shakes]

Sometimes when I see my cats napping, I'll clap my hands twice like I'm the Sultan of Arabia and say really loudly: "Come cats, I wish to be entertained!!"

I must be a feckless sultan as they have yet responded to my demands.

[chizzuk]

I have visually inspected the walls and ceiling of every bedroom I've slept in for the last 3 years, every night, to make sure there are no insects or crawlies. One experience with a house centipede dropping down onto my bare leg in the dark was all it took. I do it right before I turn out the lights and if I get into bed and realize I forgot, I have to get up and turn the lights back on again.

[Locrian]

When I see anything cute/adorable (baby, cute girl, cute cartoon character, etc.), I say, "Eeeeee!" When I'm talking to a cute girl and her story is about a bad time or event, I say the "eeeee" at a lower pitch. On emails, I'll type the "sad eeee" as "...eeeee...".

Example: "Eeeeee! Hi, cute female person! How are you?"
Girl: "Just got a parking ticket. Sucks ass."
Me: "....eeee... yes, it does.

[Mississippienne]

I went through a period where I needed to have my legs tugged on. My hips felt weird and if I laid in bed and had my then-bf tug on my leg, the hip would feel better.

New Yorkers eat with huge friggin' forks. No one understands what I'm talking about, but the forks here are like giganto-sized. I keep trying to eat everything with a smaller salad fork when I'm at a restaurant.

I practice swimming with only my legs or only my arms, in case I'm in some odd situation where I'm paralyzed below the waist or have to grasp something in my hands and at the same time swim to safety.

[TruCelt]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

. . .

New Yorkers eat with huge friggin' forks. No one understands what I'm talking about, but the forks here are like giganto-sized. I keep trying to eat everything with a smaller salad fork when I'm at a restaurant.

. . .

My Grandmother, visiting New York from Atlanta, raising the fork she found beside her plate in a restaurant: "It must be the serving fork, no lady could possibly fit this thing into her mouth."

My brother, being 13 years old at the time, and wellyouknowhowboysthink was reduced to a heaving crimson mass of guffaws.

[TruCelt]

Originally Posted by salinqmind

. . . I'm on the fence about the wedding gown. I suppose I could whip one up out of tablecloths, shower curtains, jewelry bits, duct tape, and such . . .

Toilet paper my dear - it's the only way to go.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/allt...ng-dress-.html

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by olivesmarch4th

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few adults who enjoys pretending to be a slug or an octopus. I would say I do this 4-5 times a week. I would love to meet my kindred spirits, though.

Here's one.

I honestly don't think I have any 'unique' habits. Some weird ones, yes, but I can't think of any that are unique to me.

Originally Posted by Asimovian

Whenever I grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator at work, I walk back to my office tossing/flipping it.

I do this with anything that's non-carbonated (water, iced tea, juice).

[salinqmind]

Originally Posted by TruCelt

Toilet paper my dear - it's the only way to go.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/allt...ng-dress-.html

Forgot all about the TP gowns! Gads, these are exquisite! For TP gowns, that is.

[jackdavinci]

Originally Posted by Kamino Neko

I honestly don't think I have any 'unique' habits. Some weird ones, yes, but I can't think of any that are unique to me.

Those might be covered under the "surprisingly not unique" part of the title.

[SCAdian]

Originally Posted by purplehorseshoe

Athena's post reminded me: I usually eat my burgers upside-down. That way, the thicker upper bun soaks up all the condiments. That's not weird, though. That's THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT.


Oh, and I put ketchup on my hotdogs.
(d&r)

I pick my hamburger up off the plate using my fingers, with my thumb on top to hold it; moving it up to my mouth automatically inverts it, so the top half of the bun is on the bottom.

And I don't put ketchup anywhere near anything that I intend to eat.

[SCAdian]

Originally Posted by myskepticsight

I do the same thing, because the exact same aspirin thing happened to me as a kid when I started getting headaches and I was just like 'hell no' and figured out the other way.

I look at people funny when they lay pills on their tongue and then go for their drink - it doesn't make sense! Those pills are sitting there DISSOLVING why are you doing that?

You'd probably look at me really funny, then - I usually just work up a mouthful of spit, toss the pills into my mouth, and swallow, without taking a drink afterward....

[~Olive~]

Originally Posted by olivesmarch4th

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few adults who enjoys pretending to be a slug or an octopus. I would say I do this 4-5 times a week. I would love to meet my kindred spirits, though.

I didn't realize until recently that ''Cat Mom'' is a pretty common expression among cat owners (as in, ''I'm trying to be a good Cat Mom!") Also surprisingly common: Mama's Baby Kitty. I think it's kind of funny that we all seem to have come up with it independently.

I pretend to be a slug when I get massaged. Which is going to happen today!

[phreesh]

I avoid deleting letters if I can avoid it to...save electrons? I don't know. For instance, if I type 'straght dope', I'll move the cursor to the middle and add an 'i' instead of deleting and writing it over.

It gives me a tiny measure of happiness when I can recycle a letter from an other word and use it for a correction. For instance, when a word ends in a 'd' and I type a 'g' or something and also the first letter of the next word, which might be 'devil'. Then I can just pull the d back a couple spaces and type a new one. Weird. I know.

[Seanette]

Originally Posted by Miss Woodhouse

I rarely eat the last bite of food on my plate. I don't know why I do it. When I really love the dish I'll clean my plate, however, I never finish the last bite of a sandwich. That one is more explainable. All you're down to in the last bite of sandwich is bread. No point in eating it anymore.

I don't narrate my life but I do have a bad habit of talking to myself out loud. People tell me that's a pretty common thing but I still get strange looks in the grocery store when I talk to myself about which canned tomato product I need to buy next.

Shopping always makes me talk to myself. Thinking out loud can be helpful.

[Seanette]

Originally Posted by digs

I was just saying the other day that the 'Dope' is the most concentrated collection of smart people I've ever found. This thread proves it's the most concentrated collection of interesting people, too.

I listen to audiobooks most of the day. Don't need stereo, so I clean and cook and work with one earbud in.

One reason I do that is without it I'm narrating -- it was driving my family crazy. Because I don't talk, I sing. Like a "sung through" light opera (think "Les Miz"). Even the most boring tasks are redeemed if they're part of a stirring, funny musical... imagine cleaning the bathroom while singing like Jack Skellington when he sees Christmas for the first time, but all the lyrics are about an epic battle between the toilet brush and the Swiffer.

Why, yes, the whole thing rhymes. Of course.

So I wait til no one else is home, and sing to the dogs. At least they understand the value of a free musical-in-the-round.

Any hope you can be talked into posting the lyrics to the bathroom cleaning song? I think that has some entertainment potential.

[Karen Lingel]

We have a sign outside the clean room listing all the items that are prohibited in the clean room (food, drink, paper, pencils, rust. Yes, there is a line item for "rust"). At the bottom of the sign it says "Read this sign every time you go into the clean room".

So I do.

[Doug K.]

Originally Posted by Karen Lingel

We have a sign outside the clean room listing all the items that are prohibited in the clean room (food, drink, paper, pencils, rust. Yes, there is a line item for "rust"). At the bottom of the sign it says "Read this sign every time you go into the clean room".

So I do.

Sounds like a variation of phone system menus. "Please read carefully, as list of prohibited items may have changed."

[rivulus]

I use my tongue to push the toothpaste a little more firmly onto the brush. Apparently this is weird and unusual enough that several roommates and friends have commented on it.

I think it stems from camping as a child... where my mom would put some toothpaste on my brush and then I had to walk a ways to the nearest water spigot or bathroom to get water and then be able to rinse, etc. I was worried that the toothpaste would fall off. (Not sure if it ever did.) Long story short, it turned into an ingrained habit that I do unconsciously to this day.

[Seanette]

Originally Posted by rivulus

I use my tongue to push the toothpaste a little more firmly onto the brush. Apparently this is weird and unusual enough that several roommates and friends have commented on it.

I think it stems from camping as a child... where my mom would put some toothpaste on my brush and then I had to walk a ways to the nearest water spigot or bathroom to get water and then be able to rinse, etc. I was worried that the toothpaste would fall off. (Not sure if it ever did.) Long story short, it turned into an ingrained habit that I do unconsciously to this day.

I do that too, and we weren't campers.

[california jobcase]

I squirt the toothpaste into the bristles from the top instead of just placing a bead of paste on the bristle ends.

[commasense]

I have been thinking about starting a thread like this just to mention the fact that I don't use shaving cream (or anything else, except a twin-blade razor) when I shave.

I wear a beard, but it is not very dense, and the individual hairs are rather thin, so it's easier to trim the beard line on my cheeks and neck with a dry blade and no shaving cream. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I've been doing it this way for decades. I've probably saved thousands of dollars.

If I didn't wear a beard, I would probably go back to an electric razor.

[jackdavinci]

I find shaving cream to be pretty wasteful and useless. As long as there's some cheap semblance of a lube strip on the razor I'm fine. Actually, even hot running water will do. I don't think cream is really needed unless you are using an old fashioned barber blade.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by MadTheSwine

I park my car in parking spaces that rarely get used because I feel sorry for them.

I'll do this with any gizmo that requires me to choose a number, but where the exact number isn't otherwise important. Like, the volume control on a TV remote, or the number of seconds you warm something up in the microwave. It's to the point where I've internalized it -- I just get this feeling that I haven't given "8" much love in a while, or whatever.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by phreesh

I avoid deleting letters if I can avoid it to...save electrons? I don't know. For instance, if I type 'straght dope', I'll move the cursor to the middle and add an 'i' instead of deleting and writing it over.

It gives me a tiny measure of happiness when I can recycle a letter from an other word and use it for a correction. For instance, when a word ends in a 'd' and I type a 'g' or something and also the first letter of the next word, which might be 'devil'. Then I can just pull the d back a couple spaces and type a new one. Weird. I know.

Nicholson Baker, is that you? (This sounds just like his kind of thing).

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by Asimovian

Whenever I grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator at work, I walk back to my office tossing/flipping it. I never think it's weird until someone comments on it. I also tend to grab either a pen or a rubber band whenever I'm getting up to walk around the office so I have something to fidget with. Pens get flipped in the same manner as the water bottles.

Were you a drummer in an '80s hair metal band?

[Crawlspace]

Originally Posted by HeyHomie

I thought I was the only person in the world who ate one thing at a time (used to give my mom fits).

But I took it a step further: I wouldn't let the different foods touch on my plate. At one point, I was so obsessive about it that I would have each food in its own bowl, but then Dr. Albracht put me on these little white pills...

I am/was the same way. LL Cool J agrees.

[Chef Troy]

Originally Posted by Miss Woodhouse

I rarely eat the last bite of food on my plate. I don't know why I do it. When I really love the dish I'll clean my plate, however, I never finish the last bite of a sandwich. That one is more explainable. All you're down to in the last bite of sandwich is bread. No point in eating it anymore.

I have to disagree here, Miss Woodhouse. If there's nothing on the last bite of your sandwich but bread, then you simply aren't constructing that sandwich properly. All fillings should be spread completely out to the edges of the bread -- condiments, meat, veggies, everything.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by phouka

I used to do that ages ago. How's Old Abe doing?

Not bad for a 203-year-old.

[~Olive~]

I put my toothpaste directly on my tongue. Then I squish it between my teeth.Then brush.