As most of you know I like to learn about different peoples habits and ways of doing things that might be different from what is perceived as normal. So my question of the week is:
Do you have any daily/weekly/monthly ritual that might be viewed as different or abnormal by others?
I’ll go first. I have this thing after taking a shower that my wife laughs about but I never realized was strange or abnormal from what others do. After getting out of the shower, I always dry myself off with my hands. I will stand there for a couple of minutes and start from top down and wipe the water off of my skin until I have no visible water left. I don’t want to get my towel wet, I guess.
Another one that might not seem strange to many that others laugh at me about: I ALWAYS talk with my hands. It seems that people know what I am saying from many yards away without actually hearing my words or reading my lips.
My whole family talks with their hands, I have always chalked it up to being an Italian thing. So, I never thought of it as an idiosyncrasy.
I buy and read a lot of books, but I also keep almost every book. I have book shelves in almost every room. My wife has forbid me from putting bookshelves in the Kitchen and Dining Room.
I can be very quick to anger and then just as quick to forget about it and move on. Again, I have always attributed this to being Italian, but as I get older, I find myself trying hard to control it as I seem to be a bad influence on my son. I realize it is not being Italian, but being fairly immature in my anger management.
[QUOTE=What Exit?I can be very quick to anger and then just as quick to forget about it and move on. Again, I have always attributed this to being Italian, but as I get older, I find myself trying hard to control it as I seem to be a bad influence on my son. I realize it is not being Italian, but being fairly immature in my anger management. [/QUOTE]
On the contrary. I envy you. I boil for a long time, then explode at a time that is no good either for me or the person annoying me. Trust me, you don’t want to swap.
If you only talk with your forearms and hands you’re Hispanic. If you talk with your whole arms, from the point where the shoulder meets the neck to the end of your nails, then you’re Italian.
Being from Spain and having worked with people from, as well as in, Italy and several Latin American countries, I can tell the difference.
Dad once saw me tying my shoelaces (something which as far as I can tell I learned to do on my own) and made some remark about “doing it the opposite way” but he never explained how was I supposed to do it.
When I’m doing something I need to document, I document as I go. This is something I was taught in Chem Lab in college (experiments could last as long as 6 weeks, so if you left the note-taking for the end you would have writing Night 1002); it’s an absolute time-saver over doing things once and then having to redo them just in order to document… and, apparently, it’s something other people don’t do. Some people have insisted on looking at how I do it when I mentioned I do it this way, because they couldn’t believe it.
I use Apple computers.
I own a parrot.
I am an American, but I never live there.
I overtip.
I pronounce the ‘t’ in ‘often.’
I pronounce the the ‘t’ in ‘battery.’
I peel bananas upside down. In class, I make sure my notes for the day are in a different color ink than the last two days. I always go inside of a fast food restaurant rather than going through the drive thru. Same with the bank.
I have a whole lot of superstitions and routines regarding my hair that really aren’t very interesting.
This is the kind of topic where I’m constantly thinking about all the strange rituals I have, but when put on the spot to make a list, I immediately forget all of them. I’m sure I’ll be back later.
That is, I turn on the shower and hop in. I shampoo my hair and rinse. Then I put the drain in the tub and let it fill up. I relax in the tub with the shower going while I condition my hair, shave my legs, exfoliate, use a masque, etc, etc.
I do this every day.
I know for a fact this makes me a total water hogg. Apparently it also makes me a weirdo.
If I ever live with someone again or get married we’re gonna have to have 2 bathrooms, 'cus the poor guy would never get in.
I do that too! I don’t know about you, but in my case there’s a perfectly rational reason: drive-throughs invariably take longer than going inside, and a lot of them are constructed in such a way that once you’re in line, you’re stuck.
Let’s see, odd habits I have…my SO would be the better one to ask; I’m sure he could go on for hours. The only one I can think of offhand is that I bite the end of my left pinky when I’m angry or otherwise emotionally wound up. For example, during exciting or tense parts of movies, I sit there and chew my finger. Not my fingernail, mind you – my finger.
Like AwSnappity, I’m sure I’ll think of more and be back later.
I use my hands and forearms, but I’m not Hispanic or Italian - I’m of Scottish and Irish descent.
My husband makes fun of me when I talk with my hands, especially when I’m on the phone. Once I was giving someone directions over the phone, and was pointing ‘left’ and ‘right’ and talking about an odd intersection where they’d have to cross over and bear right and he just shook his head and said, “You know they can’t see you.”
Other things:
When I hang up clothes after they’ve been washed and dried, shirts must all face left.
I only like using pens with blue ink. I hate using black ink pens.
Breath mints must be eaten in pairs.
How many books do you have? Does anyone come in your home and comment on the amount of books you have?
Can you give an example in every day life that you might do this? For some reason, I am seeing it as simple note taking, but Monk style.
Always? From the bottom up?
**alice_in_wonderland That is, I turn on the shower and hop in. I shampoo my hair and rinse. Then I put the drain in the tub and let it fill up. I relax in the tub with the shower going while I condition my hair, shave my legs, exfoliate, use a masque, etc, etc. **
For some reason you always make me laugh.
If I knew you, these would definitely make me thing you were ‘different’. Breath mints in pairs, always? So, if you offer someone a breath mint, do you make them take two?
I keep all my books too. I’ve tried checking books out of the library, but I hate returning them and I pine over them, so I’ve pretty much stopped. I want my books in the house with me.
I have weird napkin rituals. I’m nearly incapable of eating or drinking anything unless I have a napkin, and it must be folded a certain way.
I like subtitles or closed captioning turned on for every movie or TV show I watch, even though my hearing is normal.
I use the same cup for my tea every day. I just rinse it out and put it in its own special place for the next day.
I talk with my hands too and am of English-Scots-Irish descent. I guess I really get into it: I am completely unaware of how much I wave my arms/hands around until family and friends mock me by making similar gestures.
If I offer someone a mint, no, I don’t make them take two. That’d be weird.
The shirt thing… I don’t know. They just get hung up so the front of the shirt faces to the left. I always thought of it as a quirk.
Maybe a little OCD or something. Towels have to be folded a certain way, socks must be folded, not rolled, and clothes are hung according to what it is - pants are all together, shirts are all together, skirts and dresses are all together, and it’s all also grouped by style (work stuff, play stuff, t-shirts, whatever).
When I wash the dishes, I have to do the glasses first, then plates, then bowls, then pots and pans, then other stuff. Silverware is always last.
I think I have around 3000 at last estimate, there are many people on this board with more, but IRL, and I know, no one who keeps more. This board attracts some serious readers. I think around 1500 of the books are Sci-fi/fantasy novels and then around 800 reference books, a goodly number of computer books, lots of baseball books, my wife’s fiction, hundreds of kids books and more I am forgetting about.
I have had a lot of people comment on the amount of books and they are usually only seeing a portion of the overall collection. As I mentioned, it is spread out through the house.
I get a little crazy on tools also. I am always adding to the collection of tools. Not a huge amount yet, but in twenty years I will probably have a dream of a home shop. It is already good, but I need a good lathe and a better router and maybe a better belt sander and bench grinder, and maybe a new chain saw. Do you see what I mean?
I’m constantly picking my nailpolish off of my nails. I don’t know why I bother to paint them, really.
I can’t stand partially lit cigarettes. People who leave a “mostly put out” cigarette in the ashtray drive me crazy. I can often be found smooshing out bits of someone else’s cherry at the bar.
I order most of my alcoholic beverages by color. “I’d like something blue and if it’s got cherries in it, that’d be awesome.” This has resulted in quaffing a number of drinks that I’m pretty sure were little more than Windex on the rocks with a splash of grenadine. :dubious:
I will happily eat raw oysters, canned sardines and pickled ham, but beer, cucumbers and watermelon all gross me out.
I never go out in public without wearing footwear I can move well in: sneakers 99% of the time, and rubber soled shoes when I’m dressed up. NEVER sandals - I don’t own a pair.
You see, if something bad ever happens, I don’t want to be slowed down. I seriously believe there are people who have died in various disasters because they couldn’t move quickly in their high heels, flip-flops or whatever.
But here’s the weird part an ex noticed: I’m not a paranoid person. I don’t go around worrying that bad thing will happen to me. I understand my policy will probably never be tested in an actual emergency, yet I couldn’t dream of leaving the house in sandals.
I’ve been told I tie my shoelaces “backwards.” I think this is because the person who taught me how was in front of me. So, when you teach a child how to tie shoelaces, show her from behind or the side.
When I go to the doctor, I always swipe a couple of the hundreds of promotional pens the drug dealers give doctors. So, most of my pens advertise drugs I don’t know anything about. For example, here’s a fat, padded pen for Avalide®; I have no idea what Avalide is good for.
I know that my chances of winning the lottery are “about the same whether I buy a ticket or not” (Liebowitz), but I buy the tickets anyway.
I bought a new phone/answering machine a month ago. I haven’t yet discovered how to get my own voice on the greeting.
When a “reality” show begins on my television, I dive for the remote control to change channels. I get physical discomfort from being in the same room with Survivor or Fear Factor.
Heh, my reason is completely irrational to anyone except me. I don’t like talking to people I don’t know unless I can see their face. This goes for calling customer service, too. If I’m going to talk to a stranger, I prefer it to be in person so I can get a reading on their body language and such.
Always. And yes. It makes more sense to me because then I have the stem to hold on to.
