Apparently I’m not alone in my hatred of revolving doors. It’s totally irrational, since I’ve never gotten stuck in one or anything… but I’ll actually take a detour to avoid using one and will rush through as fast as I can when there’s no other choice.
I’m a delayed gratification person when eating so I’ll eat around the outside first and then get to the middle goodness. Same with hamburgers and sandwiches with crust.
I feel the same way about “Whoop! There It Is!”
If I’m cooking something in the microwave, and I have to stir it… or if I just want to re-heat something that I was already eating, I always happen to rinse off the utensil I’m using, each and every time I stir, or place something in the mic. For some reason said utensil becomes toxic in my subconscious mind once it has made contact with the open air while something is in the microwave, and only when something is in the microwave.
I always did this until I looked around and noticed the havoc it wreaks on grass and landscaping and decided it was actually pretty rude and self-centered.
When we were moving from one state to another, our rabbits were in the back of a U-haul. My daughter would get in the back to feed and water them and change the papers in their cages. She came into the motel room and told me that I should make an appearance because they seemed to be depressed and she thought that they missed me. I was resting so I gave her a walkie-talkie and sent her to the truck. I talked to them this way but she cut in and told me to shut up because they were jumping around and looking terrified. So I made a personal appearance and they calmed down. We figured out that they must have thought I was trapped inside the little black box and it upset them.
I have four cats and not only do I say goodbye to them, I leave one “in charge”. (“So long everybody. Molly, you’re in charge.”) I rotate who’s in charge every time, so no one feels left out.
I love this!
When eating small categorizable items, I eat to even their numbers. So if I’m eating skittles, and I have 8 red, 7 green, 5 yellow, 5 orange, and 4 purple, I’ll eat them in this order:
1 red
1 red 1 green
1 red 1 green
1 red 1 green 1 yellow 1 orange
1 red 1 green 1 yellow 1 orange 1 purple
1 red 1 green 1 yellow 1 orange 1 purple
1 red 1 green 1 yellow 1 orange 1 purple
1 red 1 green 1 yellow 1 orange 1 purple
It’s not a very strong compulsion, but more often then not this is how I do it.
You know those horrid foilish wrappers that come on chips or cereal bars?
No matter how you crumple them up, they uncrumple. I don’t care for that so much.
I fold them up, neatly, almost origami-like, until they’re the size of a quarter.
A tight little compact unit, that will not unfold!
I offer no explanation, yet I am compelled.
I do this, but it’s because the snooze button doesn’t have a duration of a multiple of 5, it’s usually 9 or (in my case) 7 minutes. So I figure I’m going to hit the snooze button four times and I want to get up at 6:00, so I set it for 5:32 or some such.
I read the Straight Dope. 
I do both of these exactly as described. In addition, when I have a digital alarm clock I must have it set twelve hours off exactly so that if the little dot lights up to indicate AM, it is in fact PM, etc. My husband doesn’t get it and it really bothers him. I always have to fight with myself to resist doing it in hotel rooms when I know I’ll forget to fix it and really screw with the next occupant’s morning.
I prefer to sleep on the couch. I like to sleep on my side and have something to lean against.
I didn’t think anyone else did that! My dad does it with his dogs whenever he leaves. He also assigns specific responsibilities: “Bart, you’re in charge of the window. Ramush, you’re in charge of the door.”
Hanging washing on the line is an exercise in colour co-ordination.
The peg bag comprises mainly blue and white plastic pegs, with several red ones and, I believe one yellow peg. And a few wooden pegs, but I don’t use those because I don’t like them, the design being too retro for my taste.
Anyway, black clothes must be attached to the washing line with white pegs. So must blue items. I like the pleasing contrast this offers. However, problems can arise when a large load of black and blue clothes is washed, because I don’t always have enough white pegs. In such cases, I tend to improvise by slipping a red peg into a row of three holding up a black item, and hoping nobody notices.
I hate to walk over street gratings. I can do it, but I have to steel myself. It’s not entirely unexplainable - once when I was a child I was looking into one and had a moment of vertigo - but seriously it happened ONCE and that was 25 years ago.
I have to use a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil for a standardized test. I will also use a Faber-Castell Mongol, but they’re hard to find anymore.
Oh! when loading silverware in the dishwasher, there must be an equal number in each slot. If this is not possible, the distribution must be symmetrical.
Every time I leave the house I announce, ‘‘Merlin, be the best kitty there ever was. Which is the only kitty you ever are!’’ My cat’s general superiority was confirmed when my professional cat sitter friended me on Facebook just to tell me he is her favorite.
When I wear pants, I deliberately wear socks that don’t match. I don’t mean a black sock and a white sock, I mean a Halloween sock with a Christmas sock, or a pig sock with a butterfly sock.
My best friend insists that I ‘‘giraffe’’ my food, which apparently means I stick out my tongue as a grasping tool first before pulling the food into my mouth. She is the only one who has ever noticed this, but when she pointed it out, my husband admitted he could see it too. This is apparently such an enduring image that I am represented in her cell phone address book by an icon of a giraffe.
I do this same thing.
I’m the same way except only even numbers.
I chew gum constantly. I get the stuff in the blister packs. The gum MUST be removed from the pack in the correct order from one end to the other. You can’t just take one out of the middle and ruin the pattern. My friends do this just to annoy me.
When I put my socks and shoes on it’s always left sock, right sock, left shoe, right shoe. If I accidentally slip my right foot into something like a flip-flop first, I must take it off and put the left one on before putting the right one back on.
There are more.
I am constantly playing with something in my hand. At work, I’ll often walk over to somebody’s cubicle to ask them a question, and then notice that I’m idly playing with a pen or whiteboard marker that I apparently picked up at some point when I was at my desk. Sometimes I’ll end up putting the object in my pocket – I’ve stolen the same pen at least 20 times from work. At home it’s my nail clippers that I often walk off with. I can never find the stupid things so I’m making a concerted effort to always return them to the bathroom.
Before you ask: no, I’ve never smoked in my life.