What things are you a complete weirdo about?

[GordyMatthewson]

I'm really weird about laundry. I genuinely love it. In my glory hole, I have a liquor cupboard type arrangement but for laundry products. I get genuinely excited when there's a big spill or when its bed change day and I have to do laundry. DP and I watched a TV programme once about domestic labour which said women tend to do the 'dirty jobs' even when domestic labour is fairly equally split. DP started making a conscious effort to do the laundry. I warned him off on pain of death 😂

I'm also really weird about buying plants. I love browsing for plants but I get huge anxiety whenever it comes to actually making a decision and buying them. I get all overwhelmed with worries about them dying or looking shit. It's not at all about fear of wasting money on them, I have no idea what it is. Garden centres are like an out-of-body experience for me: I am so calm when browsing around all the lovely things and then a nervous wreck when it comes to actually picking some plants up.

I'm otherwise a completely normal, functioning, rational, professional woman. At work, I'm unflappable and I have a generally pretty relaxed outlook on life. But washing and plants send me a bit bonkers.

What are you weird about?

Ooh @Cruciblei do entirely the opposite of this! If I accidentally pick up the same coloured pegs for a sheet or something, I make sure I get a different one for the last one so that “people” (not sure who is paying any attention to my washing line mind) don’t think I’m being “anal” about peg colour. I have to mix and match them. Which is as weird as your thing in itself I think.

Yes I do this with days of the week and months of the year 😃…colours, not shapes though.

I have to use a straw when I drink, regardless of what I’m drinking. Except plain waiter. If it’s plain water I can’t bear to drink it using a straw, it makes me gag. I’ve inadvertently spread my weirdness to one of my DC as he is exactly the same!

I have to have mine on an even number and that's only if it's too quiet or loud on the 5 or 0, it's my happy medium ahh

Even with tea and coffee?!

Actually no, I should have prefaced that with non hot drinks. Now that would be weird!

I think taxis are unimaginably extravagant and wouldn’t take one even in a country where they are cheap. I’d always walk or get the bus. It isn’t financial, I can afford to take taxis, I’ve just been brought up to think it is decadent and can’t bring myself to do it.

DH is weird about cutlery. He has particular fork and spoon preferences, depending on what he is eating (so rice, soup, dessert and cereals all require specific spoons). He gets most upset if he has to use the wrong one - will go off and wash up the correct one.

Haha ok now I'm a bit more on board with that 🤣

My feet. Cannot cope with people touching them. My sister once tickled my feet and I kicked her in the face and knocked out two of her teeth. I was 7 and she was 17, I didn’t mean to hurt her but I did tell her to stop. It triggers visceral reaction. Weirdly I rub my feet together while I fall asleep as form of self soothing.

Also my seat at our dinner table. Do not sit in my seat, don’t even like it when my kids do it as a joke…

Yes I am autistic by the way.

Ooh I like that approach: there's something equally logical and methodical about non matching pegs. I get it!

Ohh might have to try them - I nearly never wear socks, I can’t bear them, the only time I will is with welly boots, as the insides of welly boots are even worse than socks 😂

If the end of the duvet, feet end is not completely smoothed out and I spot a slight rumple, I have to adjust it or I can't relax or go to sleep.
I didn't know other people shared my fear of holes, crazed earth, patterns and circles, tree bark, lizardy skin, barnacles etc until the internet started. I thought I was a right weirdo.

I can’t tolerate anything being put on the bed when I am in it. The extra weight of a teeshirt or even, say, a hanky, feels like being trapped under a rock. I flick my feet until any random (DH-placed) items have been flicked to the floor.

For this reason and this reason alone, I only have (matching)wooden pegs. Non matching plastic pegs used to freak me out. They have different “grabs” so things got rumpled if it was windy. Now everything has the same tension.

@TheRosesAreInBloom @Katkins17I do this too!! - for me it’s also days of the week, they each have a specific colour and a shape (for example Wednesday is a green triangle - don’t know why, it just is). It’s called synesthesia. I genuinely thought everyone had this and it was just completely normal until I was quite a decent age (like late 20s/30s - can’t quite remember).

I don't like leaving any type of cutlery on their own in the dishwasher amongst a group of other cutlery. I have this nagging feeling that they will be unkind to it. I also don't like accidentally leaving one of them behind when I put them away in case the others think it is somehow inferior or I hurt its feelings. Actually, it's not just cutlery, I have these feelings about lots of things.
Now I come to think of it, I'm completely crackers, aren't I!

Collecting vintage Pyrex

I like to empty my dishwasher really efficiently and I'm pleased when I do a "smooth" unload. 😊

I can’t eat crisps if the bag has been opened upside down.

@RepoTheGeriatricOpera Mines the car radio. Going to work it has to be set to 30 until I get on the motorway when it has to go up to 40. If there's a lot of traffic and I can't really hear the radio then it stays at 40 because anything above 40 is wrong.

Full English. The bacon must be eaten in a sandwich with the toast. The sausage must be eaten with the beans. The fried eggs must each be eaten with a corresponding hash brown. This is the way.

I can't drink tea out of anything but china. I can't drink anything out of a novelty cup, i.e. one of those clumsy mugs shaped like a house/animal/fruit etc.

My mum was obsessed with matching clothes pegs. She would have to use the same colour pegs for each item and the colour of the pegs had to tone with the garment. Because of this I have to have mismatched pegs (I did get on with her so no idea why I feel so strongly about it).

I never walk under a ladder, always touch wood and say Good morning/afternoon/evening your majesty to a lone magpie, even though I know it's nonsense.

Reading this back makes me realise what a weirdo I am.

What is MOD?

We are kindred spirits.

I mark my calendar for the annual.local library sale and usually come home with 20-30 previously loved paperbacks priced at 50c apiece.

I tend to feel as if plants are conscious- not as much as a human but maybe somewhere between a prawn (grass) and a dog (tree). I talk to plants and trees and feel a connection with them. On the downside, I find it impossible to eg thin out seedlings- monstrous.