Examples of your weirdness. Now or when you were a kid.

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Describe what you do/did or something about you now/then that fits very comfortably into the category of ‘weird’.

Me:
When I was a kid I didn’t like music.

I didn’t like music of any kind. I am ashamed to say it but I felt like I was somehow above liking music. I felt like people who listened to music and had musical taste were idiots. I would over-hear my brothers listening to their favourite music and feel confused that they did so.

When I heard music I didn’t feel any pleasure of any kind. No music could muster an ounce of warmth in me.

I think I must have been like this until at least the beginning of my two-digit years.

One day I discovered a liking for music. It’s such a long time ago that I don’t know what triggered it, but I stuck one of my brother’s tapes into my brother’s tape player, stuck his good headphones in, pressed play, and fell in love with music.

It was the lost boys sound track. My favourite track was cry little sister. It remains to this day a track I like to hear.

The rest is history. And today, if you were to analyse my taste in music you may consider it lame, but, boy do I love the right music!

In short - Weird kid - doesn’t like music of any kind.
ETA: In the classical genre (I like music from most genres) the track that gives me the most listening pleasure is ‘Lark Ascending’.

#2

When I was about eight or nine, on long family road trips I would read all the road signs along the way. I would then spell the word backwards in my head. I did it so often, that after awhile it felt like a compulsion, and I thought I couldn’t stop. It took me a long time to grow out of, but I eventually avoided looking at road signs in order to break the habit.

#3

I was pretty much grown, but I came across a message board full of goat-felching weirdos…

#4

and?

#5

Ok, so when I was kid I loved the American Museum of Natural History, and growing up in NYC, went there often. A favored hall was the “Hall of Fishes” (now called the Hall of Marine Life) which is famous for containing a life-sized model Blue Whale.

So, picture the Hall, which is on 2 decks. You enter from the upper, balcony deck, and can either peruse the exhibit on marine evolution, or else go down the stairs to the lower deck, containing the dioramas (incl but not limited to the famous “Squid vs. Whale”). You can see some photos of the Hall here

So I LOVED the dioramas downstairs. Problem? I had a pathological fear of the upstairs fish evolution exhibit. I would wait at the doorway of the hall until the stairs were clear and the BOLT to the stairs and down as fast as my little legs could carry me. Same thing in reverse in order to leave.

I’m not sure what my deal was with the upper deck exhibit. I absolutely would not set foot on it! They’ve refurbished it dramatically since that time, but the display of Sunfish still inspires vague distress.

#6

I didn’t like music at all until 7th grade except for classical music. This was in a very small town in Louisiana. If you think that wouldn’t be a selling point for me at the time, you would be correct. Nobody I knew including my family even listened to classical music.

I also loved to dig with a shovel…a lot. We lived on 100 acres of land very far away from the nearest neighbors on any public roads and the main thing I wanted to do when I got home from school every day was to pick up a shovel and dig something even at 7 - 10 years old. I built my own underground house with multiple rooms and I cleared this spring fed stream that fed into one of our ponds. My biggest project took two years. I dug a small pond by hand complete with large embankments using a design that I thought up. It was much bigger than a large swimming pool in surface area and about 6 feet deep. I wanted to raise crawfish in it and I transplanted a bunch of them into it that I caught from other places but the population would never take and they just disappeared.

I also built a log cabin by hand far out into the woods and had my own camp with a firepit, log furniture, and a primitive handmade bed that I slept in sometimes by myself when I wanted to get away from my family. I was a really strange child.

#7

When I was about 6, I knew I could fly.
I jumped off the garage roof not once, not twice but (I think) seven times. Each time I wore a different “cape,” (read dishtowel) thinking that the previous failure was due to not enough cape.
Each time I carefully placed a pillow at the spot I expected to land. Each time I landed six inches from the garage wall. Each time I was dumbfounded that I didn’t make my mark.
I’m still not completely sure I can’t. Now where is that damn bath sheet?

#8

Heh, I was the exact opposite, Lobsang. Ever since I was a baby, I loved music. When I was a baby, my mother would hang a musical mobile above my head, or play music, and I would be happy for hours.

From another thread:

When I was around 3 or 4, I had the complete inability to answer any sort of question. If you asked me what color the sky was, I’d be at a loss for about five minutes. The thing was, I was so afraid of getting the answer wrong that either I wouldn’t answer at all, or I’d give an answer I thought the asker wanted to hear. One time, my mother decided she wanted to test this. So she asked me “Maiira, do you want a spanking?”

I nodded eagerly and said “uh-huh!”

Well, what else could she do? She grabbed me and gave me a swat. She then said “now do you want a spanking?”

I looked at her, confused, and say “…yes?”

She swatted me again. Asked me the same question. Now almost in tears, I choke “…yes??”

This repeats for another few minutes. Finally, when my mother couldn’t take it anymore, she grabbed me by the arms and shouted “MAIIRA, YOU DON’T WANT A SPANKING. JUST. SAY. NO.” She asked me again if I wanted a spanking, and I sobbed “NO!”

Kind of a strange few minutes, but ultimately I learned a pretty important lesson: don’t just give the answer you think someone wants to hear. Say “no” when you mean “no.”

Also, I was a bit afraid of the sound a flushing toilet made. Not the initial flush, but the sucking sound when the contents get pushed down the drain. I’d flush the toilet, and run out of the bathroom. Now I can’t leave the bathroom without hearing that sound–my toilet sometimes STARTS to flush, but then doesn’t complete it, no matter how long I hold down the handle.

#9

I developed a taste for strawberry soda pop because no one else in my family liked it. That meant I wouldn’t have to share.

#10

I asked my mom if I did anything weird. She said when I was about 5, I was enthralled with an old flour sifter. She could count on me sitting out in the yard or the sandbox, sifting dirt or sand, for hours. It seemed important that I build a big hill of fine, silky- feeling dirt without any pebbles, bugs, or sticks in it.

#11

I was probably a weird kid, and I’m probably still weird now.

Today at work, a colleague stated that I “should have come with a warning label”.

I don’t think she meant it to totally insult me.

She’d just never celebrated Prehistoric Creatures Day.

I’m not all that weird, I just spend a lot of time online.

#12

That is very, very cool. I am full of envy for your youth, actually.

#13

I was the only kid in my grade 4 class who wanted to grow up to become a cartographer. (I bet that I was the only one who knew what a cartographer was, at least until I enlightened them.)

Yes, I was always a geography geek. My classmates would take their parents’ National Geographics and read them under the covers with a flashlight to look at the pictures of naked African tribeswomen*. I’d take them under the covers and look at the maps (honest to Og, my parents caught me doing that a couple of times.)

  • I remember a comedian said “what does the African version of National Geographic have? Pictures of nude white women from Ohio?”
#14

My husband does have his own warning label. He once asked one of the chemical engineers for something to clean the shower drain at the fire station. He was told to dilute the stuff before using it. He’s an “if a little’s good a lot’s better” kinda guy. He melted the shower pan and part of the drain pipe.

Soon after something showed up with a label saying "Keep out of the reach of children and (picuhubby). The label was mistakenly (?) distributed to all the company’s plants. There are people in several other states wondering who the heck (picuhubby) is.

#15

I used to try to squeeze myself into strange places like shelves and stay there, content, until mom came and laughed at me.

I also hate sitting in chairs the “normal” way. I always sat with my feet under me until my knees got too old :frowning: then I started crossing them, or putting one foot under the opposite leg. If I sit normally I will scoot my butt right to the edge of the chair and lean way back and lounge. That was the only way I could tolerate school chairs with those hard desks that prohibited crossed legs.

Once I’ve got my qualifications I’m going to invest in a really wide desk chair that I can comfortably sit cross-legged in all day. I’ll be behind a desk so no one will know!

#16

I love weird creatures, especially things with tentacles and gelatinous bodies. This strange affinity began when I was 4 or 5 and used to pull a blanket over my head and crawl around pretending to be an amoeba. Naturally people assumed it was a childhood phase.

But I am in essence the same weird person. Chthulhu is pretty much the most adorable creature on the planet to me. Tubeworms (the ones that live on the ocean floor and survive without oxygen) are awesome. Octopuses and jellyfish and seaslugs will probably send me into conniptions–how cool is it that we actually HAVE these creatures in the world? I’m also regularly ‘‘sluggish’’ holds fingers up over head to make makeshift antennae. There really isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t, within the privacy of my own home, pretend to be some kind of strange creature.

My whole life I’ve really just perfected the art of appearing normal. To the external world I focus on projecting a picture of maturity, seriousness, and responsibility. But those precious few who truly know me… well, they know better.

#17

I do that!
In fact, if I’m doing something that’s going to mean me not leaving my chair for a while (or at least not walking more then a few feet to the filing cabinet), I take my shoes off to do it.

#18

I went through a phase where I always had to wear a cross, especially at night. I think I had watched too many vampire movies. It went on for a couple years and then I got an irrational fear of getting choked by my necklace so I stopped wearing it at night. I kept it under my pillow for quick access in case of vampires.

#19

The funny thing being that, in saying no, you gave her the answer she actually wanted to hear.

#20

I knew there must have been more than just me :stuck_out_tongue:

I also sit on couches sideways or pull my feet up, or hug a pillow. I cannot sit normally! Drives my mother nuts.