Weird Obsessions [NOT 22/5/24]

22/5/24 brightersideoflife 25

Hi, friends!

Did you know anyone with a truly weird obsession in their teens or twenties?

Like not normal obsessions (Star Wars guys, horse girls, etc), but the kind of thing where you go “why the hell would you choose that?”

I was reading an article on slate.com today about one of the Kennedy grandsons and his social media presence, and apparently there’s Kennedy girls. I’m guessing they just want to go to the beach house in Hyannis and dress in vintage clothes and be cheated on by their husbands?

That’s just a weird one to me, and that’s saying something because I went to Catholic school and Catholics are somewhat obsessed with the Kennedys.

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25 Comments

  1. I know nothing of the Kennedy girls, but it sounds like an extension of reality programs about the Kardashians, the Osbournes, the Simmonses, Desperate Housewives of [Gomorrah], etc. And any of those seem like weird obsessions to me.

  2. Weird is a stretch, but there were a few guys in my high school who were scary good at solving the Rubik’s Cube. I didn’t have enough interest to do more than turn it a few times and then give up. These guys could do it in well under a minute.

  3. Weird obsessions? My mother-in-law, source of the vast majority of weirdness in my life, buys things and takes them back. Lots of things. And she takes them all back. ALL. Shoes, clothes, appliances, anything.

    She also takes back food. She’ll buy some condiment, taste it, and decide she doesn’t like it. So back to the store it goes.

    This has been going on for decades, but now she seems to want my wife to participate in the bizarre ritual with her. So if we visit, then she wants my wife to drive her to whatever store so she can take whatever back. My wife finds the entire thing humiliating and mortifying, so she’s begun refusing. “No, I don’t have time for that today. You need to do it yourself.”

    • Appliances! Like, refrigerators and washing machines? Or, I don’t know, irons? “Hello, P.C. Richards? I’d like to return my refrigerator. Send your best men as soon as possible. Goodbye.”

       

      • She tried to return her washer and dryer. Eventually they convinced her to keep them, largely by telling her there would be a huge pickup and restocking fee. So instead she just bitches about them.

        She bought a new car and then decided she would take it back after a few weeks. Again, we had to explain that she was torching several thousand dollars that she couldn’t get back. She kept the car but bitches about it constantly.

        Microwaves, televisions, cell phones, pretty much anything she buys has to be returned unless the business is smart enough to have policies in place to prevent it.

        • Yes, I’ve heard about the new car thing: The moment you drive it off the lot it loses 1/3 of its value or something.

          That’s incredible that she would try to return a washer and dryer. Could she take out a warranty and maybe, if she has complaints, someone could come by and listen to her story(-ies) and maybe do a little fixer-upper? Maybe she’s just bored and lonely, which is the source of so much evil in this world. Does she have any hobbies? Or friend groups?

          If she’s buying new cars she can’t be that isolated. She should become a cinéaste. Get out of the Florida heat, see all the new movie releases, get the senior discounts, and blog. Podcast. Or go on TikTok. I would sign up for TikTok if your MiL had an occasional “Bryanlsplinter’s Mother-in-Law at the Movies” channel.

          • Warranties won’t work because her complaints aren’t legitimate or solvable. On the washer and dryer, she has, for decades, stood by the washer as it filled and bailed out cupfuls of water because it was getting “too full.” This was a critical task that made laundry a miserable chore that she could then bitch about. No amount of explaining how overflow valves work could alter this behavior.

            With the new washer (the old died after, I think, 40 years), the lid locks when the wash cycle starts. She can’t open it and dip out cupfuls of water. So she tried to send it back. But it’s not a bug, it’s a feature of the washer. They’re not going to replace it for doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Same with the car. There’s nothing wrong with it, she just wants to send it back and get something else.

            My father-in-law would cater to this behavior (she’s a narcissist, he was an enabler). He’d persuade merchants to take big-ticket items back, or failing that, he’d sell it to someone else at a loss and she’d start the cycle all over again. Which is one reason he was over a half-million dollars in debt when he died. As a used car dealer, he never bought a new car, and when she bitched about what he got for her he’d go get a replacement and put the current car on his lot for sale. So she doesn’t grasp how car sales work, even though she was married to a car salesman for 65 years or so.

            The big-ticket stuff bothers me less than the small things. She’ll buy a bottle of wine, take a few sips, and take it back. That’s what my wife refuses to participate in any more. It’s horribly embarrassing. And it costs her money. Recently she made a 20 mile round trip to a store and bought a $12 pair of sunglasses. Then she made the same trip to return them. That’s a net loss to her (using the current IRS mileage rate of 65.5 cents per mile). 

            In the small community where she lives, she’s very well-known, and when this shriveled-up 89-year-old mummy totters unsteadily into stores, you can watch the staff disappear. She typically has to wait for a manager to authorize the return anyway. But what else does she have to do?

            And we’ve tried to get her involved in anything else. She won’t do it. At all. Her whole life is buying and returning things and watching Fox News. That’s it.

            • You and your wife must have so many stories. A Florida used-car salesman. $12 sunglasses. Bailing out the washing machine as it fills. It’s like a Carl Hiaasen novel brought to life. Do the Everglades feature anywhere in all of this?

                • Do it. Do it for all of us.

                  When we had our place in South Beach I decided I should steep myself in the history and the various cultures to be found in the Sunshine State. I came up almost empty.

                  Carl Hiaasen. Joan Didion’s Miami but that was from the ’80s and tried to equate the Nicaraguan meddling with the Bay of Pigs 25 years earlier. Fascinating, to learn how Cuban ex-pats got a stranglehold over Miami.

                  I did read one history about Flagler and the Miami boom and bust of the 1920s. Also the Kennedys up in Palm Beach, but gross. There was a magazine article about (here’s that lingering long-Covid fog) some guy who was friend of Madonna’s who ran the hottest club (it was on Washington Avenue) but he had a huge downfall and if he’s still alive he’s probably in prison.

                  Your bio of your MiL might add insight! I’ve never read any of the many books about Disney because, you know, why?

            • Years ago I worked at a makeup store and we had an older lady who did this. Including trying to return open products she clearly bought somewhere else as it was brands we didn’t even carry. It was so annoying every time she came in and it would take an inordinate amount of time to deal with her.

              • We absolutely know how much she’s hated by the retail community. Frankly, taking back food you’ve opened and sampled is, to me, stealing. They can’t resell it. It’s no different than wandering in the grocery store and opening things and eating them, then dropping the remains on a shelf.

  4. I knew a girl in highschool who was obsessed with Buffy. So much so that she mimicked her personality, speech pattern and gait. She even claimed to go “patrolling” at night.

     

    “Like hunting for real vampires?”

    “Yes.”

    “Oh.”

    I steered clear of her after that. She went on to do some wild stuff like female bodybuilding competitions and is now a conspiracy theory believer and spewer.

  5. There is a fellow in my area who drives around in a Batmobile (the Tim Burton version) and dresses as Batman (the Christopher Nolan version.) I’ve walked into him a few times.

    Our conversations go like:

    “Good evening, Batman.”

    “Good evening, Citizen.”

    I suspect he’s on the spectrum, but he’s harmless. Even cops want to take selfies with him.

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