I’ve been nursing a broken leg this summer and anlong with that, the scars and road rash that came along with the fracture. (I crashed my motorcycle - but that’s another thread…)
The other day, I was doing something that only little kids should do. I found myself mindlessly picking at the scabs on my knees!:smack:
Then I thought about it further - I still chew my fingernails. I still tend to want to watch Saturday morning cartoons instead of work in the yard (OK, meybe that’s just a guy thing;) )
What are your old childhood habits that you just can’t break? My bet is that everyone’s got at least one.
I slouch. My mother’s been yelling at me about it since I was able to walk upright, and she even took me to see a doctor to make sure there was nothing wrong with my spine when I was eight.
I kept up the ridiculous advice my father gave me when I was a kid til I was about 35. He told me, “Always tie your shoes as tight as you can so they don’t slip off.”, and then he would proceed to virtually cut the circulation off in my feet by giving huge tugs on the laces.
My feet, especially the tops of them, hurt for many years. Another stupid lesson he taught me was, "You don’t need a doctor (under any circumstances other than a puncture would or a visibly broken bone). So I just kind of assumed near constant foot pain was normal.
One day I had a sudden flash of inspiration. It really was as if a voice spoke in my ear, “Try not tying them so tight”. Problem solved! I had never rethought the most basic of things I learned as a kid until then.
Very strange. I became an atheist at about age 12, but it took me to age 30 to learn to tie my shoes properly. I am one wierd puppy.
I kept up the ridiculous advice my father gave me when I was a kid til I was about 30. He told me, “Always tie your shoes as tight as you can so they don’t slip off.”, and then he would proceed to virtually cut the circulation off in my feet by giving huge tugs on the laces.
My feet, especially the tops of them, hurt for many years. Another stupid lesson he taught me was, "You don’t need a doctor (under any circumstances other than a puncture would or a visibly broken bone). So I just kind of assumed near constant foot pain was normal.
One day I had a sudden flash of inspiration. It really was as if a voice spoke in my ear, “Try not tying them so tight”. Problem solved! I had never rethought the most basic of things I learned as a kid until then.
Very strange. I became an atheist at about age 12, but it took me to age 30 to learn to tie my shoes properly. I am one wierd puppy.
Somehow, as a kid, I picked up the idea that the following items are insanely expensive: [ul]
[li]Paper towels;[/li][li]Paper napkins;[/li][li]Ziplock bags;[/li][li]bars of soap.[/li][/ul] We were pretty poor, obviously. Anyway, even though I’ve been on my own for something over ten years now, and making a decent living, I am still totally unable to use any of the above without a little twinge of guilt/thrill, like I’m getting away with something. Go figure.
(And no, this is not an invitation to make jokes about my personal hygiene; it’s only opening a new bar of soap that it gets me. :rolleyes: )
I rip the corners off of paper all the time. I handle legal documents all the time, so this can be problematic. So, I keep extra scrap paper around at work to safely satisfy this urge.
My sister and I both do what the family calls “the Happy Clap,” which when you’re excited or pleased about something and you clap your hands several times quickly, close into your chest – like a little kid does. Bouncing up and down is optional. My brother-in-law (sister’s hubby) says it makes us look like we rode the short bus to school.
TVGuy, I think we were separated at birth.
I bite my nails. I have to fight with myselt to not scratch skeeter bites until they bleed. I veg out in front of Saturday morning cartoons for as long as my son will let me.
My dumbest kid habit that’s carried over into adulthood though would have to be pack-ratting. I’ve never liked throwing things away, because they might feel abandoned, you know? So usually it takes me having to move something to five or six new locations before I realize I haven’t actually used it in years and finally pitch it.
Oh my GOD! I think you’re on to something here. I’ve still got stuff sitting in boxes in my basement that I haven’t taken OUT of the boxes since 1996 - and the boxes have gone through four moves…
When we were growing up, my brother and I shared a bathroom. The policy was that he would get either a red or a blue toothbrush, and I would get a toothbrush of any other color. That way, we would never get our toothbrushes mixed up. This worked admirably, except…
To this day, I can’t use a red or a blue toothbrush without having this voice in my head say: “THAT’S NOT YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!” I’m 31 years old!
My husband recently bought me a blue toothbrush. I actually threw it out and bought a new one because I felt weird using the blue one. Come to think of it, when I was buying the new one, the ones I like were in buy-one-get-one-free packages. I spent 10 minutes frantically searching through the bin looking for a package that had neither a red nor a blue one.
I can’t get into an elevator without looking up at the ceiling first. It comes from watching movies like “Die Hard” when I was younger. I keep waiting for someone to drop in the elevator and attack me.
I also bite my nails. My mom said the doctor had to take my hand out of my mouth to suction all the baby goop out when I was born. So, even toothless, I was still trying to bite them.
I had a tendency to divide numbers, letter, and colors into “boys” and “girls.” A was a girl, B was a boy, C was a girl, D, E, and F were boys, but G was a girl, and so on.
So today my husband has to have a blue or green toothbrush, because those are boy colors. Mine must be pink, purple, or red.
When I was little, I was deathly afraid to go into our darkened basement alone. Because obviously, in such a dark and gloomy place there was something waiting to get me. I would often convince my younger sister to go downstairs first and turn on the lights, using her as a sacrifice. If the something had to eat, it wasn’t going to eat me!
To this day, I have a thing about going down a dark staircase. I have to give myself a little peptalk before I can walk down. Or else get my boyfriend to go first.
When I was little, I was deathly afraid to go into our darkened basement alone. Because obviously, in such a dark and gloomy place there was something waiting to get me. I would often convince my younger sister to go downstairs first and turn on the lights, using her as a sacrifice. If the something had to eat, it wasn’t going to eat me!
To this day, I have a thing about going down a dark staircase. I have to give myself a little peptalk before I can walk down. Or else get my boyfriend to go first.
