germphobic

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Five Weird Things for Friday

Listen, we are all super weird in our own way. Here are five weird things about me.

  • I cannot stand smelling cold food, if that food is supposed to be served hot. A cold peach, fine. Cold milk, fine. Ice cream, well, I’m not sure ice cream has a scent? But cold spaghetti sauce? Cold soup? Cold hamburger? No thank you. Sometimes my husband will ask me to give a container of leftovers a sniff, to make sure it’s still good to eat. In which case I say, you’re on your own, buddy. It should not surprise you that I will not eat supposed-to-be-hot-food when it is cold, either. 
    • Getting into an unmade bed squicks me out. Once upon a time, I did not make my bed every day. But that time is now in my distant past. And I cannot fathom how I got into rumpled sheets every night. No. I need my sheets to be smooth and tight. The only exception to this if I get out of bed in the middle of the night to pee. 

      • Relatedly: I refuse to turn on the lights after I’ve gone to sleep. As you are well aware, sleep is already not my friend. Why would I increase my chances of staying awake by turning on the light? No. If I need the bathroom or to check on my kid or to get a glass of water or to deter the cat from doing whatever it is that is making that noise, I leave the lights off. We do have plentiful nightlights throughout our house, which helps. If I’m in an unfamiliar place, I may be pressed to turn on a light out of necessity, but then I use the pirate trick of keeping one eye tightly closed so that I can return to darkness as swiftly as possible. 

        • The inside of a kitchen sink is a No Touch Zone. Some people will swipe, say, vegetable scraps into the drain with their hands. I know someone who will wash her hands, and then tap her clean hands against the wall of the sink closest to her. I do not understand this. The sink is where all the yuck goes. That’s where I scrape all the dishes, that’s where I rinse off forks that have touched raw chicken, or where I wash bowls that have contained raw eggs. I clean the inside of my sink every night, but I don’t necessarily scour it every time I rinse a dish, you know? There are particles of countless foods and meals and cat food in there. WHY would I ever touch it with my hands? Especially if I do not then wash my hands? 
          • After I’ve finished a good book, I don’t like to put it away. We have lots of bookshelves in our house, and they are organized by a few rough categories (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel, language), so it would be super easy to simply file a finished book in its spot. But when I’ve really enjoyed a book, I like to keep it near me. My husband even bought me a special bookshelf to keep in our bedroom so that I can keep a selection of books – both to-be-read and already-read – nearby. Some books stay on my nightstand or in this special bookshelf for months or years until I feel ready to part with them. 

            Now tell me something weird about you. 

            by

            Two Kinds of People

            For so many, many areas of life, there seem to be clear divisions into two separate factions. Things about which people feel SO STRONGLY, so fanatical, there is no middle ground. I love coming across these moments of schism. Here are a few I’ve come across recently.

            Butter Storage: You either store your butter on the counter, or you store it in the fridge. I am Team Counter Butter all the way. It’s soft and spreadable when you need it, and if you go through butter at the rate my family does, it never has a chance to go rancid.

            Shower Time: I used to be a Morning Shower person, but now I tend to shower at night for purposes of convenience. However, I HATE IT. No way am I going to take the time to dry and style my hair when all I want to do is go to bed. But I also hate sleeping on wet hair! It’s a nightmare! Showering in the morning is the better option. (I suppose there is a secret third category here, of people who shower after they exercise, or people who shower multiple times per day.) 

            Hair Washing: I wash my hair as infrequently as I can get away with it, which is usually every three to four days – although I can squeeze in a fifth day if go for a bun or a ponytail. Daily Hair Washers are aghast at this, though. They cannot comprehend having “dirty” hair. But oh, how wonderful it is to not have to dry my hair every day! (I cannot wash and wear my hair; it’s wavy/curly but more so on one side than the other; it looks awful if I let it dry by itself.) Also, I am convinced that Day 3 Hair is the best hair day of them all.

            Drinking Vessel Material: My husband prefers to drink water etc. out of a plastic cup. I cannot STAND this. I need a glass glass every time. There is something revolting to me about the feel of a plastic rim between my lips or something. Yuck.

            Pillow Quantity: While I like the aesthetic of a nice big pile of pillows on my bed, I cannot sleep with more than one. It gives me a crick in my neck just thinking about it! My husband needs three pillows though, and my daughter likes FOUR. I swear that their necks fold into a 90-degree angle from their bodies when they sleep, and it looks so uncomfortable. There is a secret third faction, though: the people who sleep with no pillows at all. I knew one of them in college and it was fascinating to me; he didn’t even own a pillow.

            Thinking: I think in words. There is a constant stream of words running through my head, like the inner monologues you hear as voiceovers on TV. That’s how my brain works. It’s not really like hearing and it’s definitely not seeing words appear on a tickertape inside my head. But it’s words. My husband thinks in pictures. There is no flow of verbiage in his brain. Just images. If you ask him to visualize something, he can close his eyes and SEE THAT THING. I cannot do this. I just see blackness. 

            Gifting: My husband’s family are Gift Listers. You send a list of things you’d be interested in receiving for birthdays/holidays, and then the gift givers choose something from that list. (It is understood that you might get something that is not on the list, and it is also understood that you can suggest categories of things – i.e., “coffee mug” – which allow the gift giver some freedom/leeway to make their own choices.) My family sometimes gives loose suggestsions, i.e. “books” or “things for entertaining.” But there are no lists. The gift is to be a surprise.

            Snack Procurement: Picture, if you will (or, if you can), a tin of nuts or a bag of chips. You are about to procure some for your snacking purposes. Do you a) reach your hand into the tin/bag and grab a handful? Or do you b) pour the desired amount into a bowl/napkin/hand? I am a Snack Pourer all the way! I don’t want your hand – or mine! – rooting around in the entire container of food! I want to keep the food pure, and untouched until the last possible moment. Likewise, I am always going to close the container and put it back. If I desire more of the snack, I will get it out of the pantry and pour some more. Some people in my family prefer to keep the open box/tin/bag on the counter, just in case. UGH. I do not like this! 

            Bathing: This is a late addition after Elisabeth’s post this morning reminded me how much I loathe baths. And yet some people LOVE them! They are supposed to be decadent and soothing, and yet… I find myself getting restless and itchy about two minutes in. And then I feel like I still have to shower to get all the bubbles off me anyway, so what’s the point? I grew up in a home with no bathtubs (although my parents renovated my bathroom when I was in… high school? and put in a bath), so maybe that has something to do with why I have no use for baths at all.

            All right. That’s enough controversy for today. Do you feel particularly strongly about any of these topics? What else have you found is A Great Divider? (Besides politics, of course.)