Weird Quirks [NOT 18/11/20]

18/11/20 brightersideoflife 112
image of a Sarah's Scribbles cartoon about sharing memes with friends to show you love them
I love you all. Except that one of you. You know who you are.

Do you have any quirks that have very clear causes? Things that have to be a specific way at your office or in your car or in your kitchen, etc?

I cannot handle when sheets/blankets drape onto the floor. Cannot deal with it. My comforter is a size smaller than my mattress because I don’t want to risk edges draping onto the floor if I roll over while sleeping.

And it’s entirely due to having a bedbug infestation about 5 years ago. After I spent a fuckton of money to have my condo heat-treated to kill them (thanks, neighbors 2 units down that ignored their own infestation long enough for it to spread to 4 other units), I was worried for months that they would come back. The ground zero neighbors never bothered to do a heat treatment and conventional spraying and bug-bombing won’t be enough for a major infestation.

So if you’ve had bedbugs or know someone who has, one of the things you use are interceptors around your bed posts. I bought a new bedframe (metal, because they can live in wood bedframes) and a new mattress and set up my interceptors.

https://bedbugsguidance.com/do-bed-bug-interceptors-work/

And the interceptors only work if there’s no other way to crawl up. So as you can imagine, having a sheet or blanket or comforter hit the ground would be a great way for a bedbug to just crawl on up.

Long story short, despite never finding a bedbug in the interceptors and now having moved to an entirely different house, I’m still really fixated on nothing touching the floor when I’m in bed. Even when I’m in a hotel or on a cruise ship. Hell, if I’m sitting on the couch, the afghan can’t touch the floor.

It’s been 5 years. At some point I’ll get over this. I don’t know when.

Also in case the featured image cuts it off the artist’s name, the image is from Sarah’s Scribbles. https://sarahcandersen.com/page/5

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112 Comments

  1. I got bit by bed bugs at a hotel once and it took months for the scars to go away (I’m very fair). It was awful. They itched for two weeks and then my calves, feet and ankles looked terrible!

    Down with bed bugs!

    • So what delayed things for me was that I didn’t have really any significant reaction to them. Like I get some eczema/dry skin rashes in winter that are itchy and the bed bug bites didn’t stand out. It wasn’t until I pulled the bed back from the wall for some vacuuming that it was like HOLY FUCK WHAT IS ALL THIS I WANT TO BURN IT DOWN. 

  3. My stepdaughter has a bunch of Sara Andersen’s framed work.  She even met Sarah at a Comicon and had a caricature of her made.
     
    Anyway, yes, I am completely loaded with quirks, primary of the physical variety.  I have a mild form of Tourette Syndrome–just enough to be noticeable, but not so bad that it’s debilitating or requires medication.  Today, it manifests itself in physical twitches, blinks, etc.  When I was a kid, it also included vocalizations, but those are mostly gone now.
     
    I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 43.  So, obviously, as a kid I caught no end of hell from other kids, and from certain members of my own family.  All I knew is that I couldn’t stop it for more than a few minutes at a time, and even then it took all of my concentration to do it.  But, now that I know the cause–and that it’s truly something beyond my personal control–it doesn’t bother me so much anymore.  I just let it do its thing and carry on.

    • So one of my very dear friends, whom I met around age 13, has non-verbal Tourette’s.

      I didn’t know this until my early 30s when they made an offhand comment one day. I just thought they did their twitches as like an affectation since (like me) they are very sarcastic and cynical. Like if they make a delightfully sarcastic comment and then tic their head a little sideways, I’m just assuming it’s done to express the point being communicated. 

      They made some comment about Tourette’s and my dumb ass was like “oh did you have that as a small child before I knew you and go to speech therapy?” and they were like “uh, did you never notice me twitching?” and I was like “well yeah but I thought it was intentional.”

      I was not the sharpest kid. Both my parents were smokers and I was excited to have a friend that didn’t make fun of how I smelled and wanted to spend time with me. 

  4. Hmm I don’t know how quirky it is, but one thing I have to have is semi dark rooms. I’m very light sensitive so I prefer to have the main lights turned off with just one table lamp to light the room enough to see. My tvs, computers, phones- all have white point reduced, night shift on, and dark modes/themes whenever possible. 
    oh and I also always have to have closed captioning or subtitles on my tv, even though I nor any family is hard of hearing.

    • I’m big on closed captioning. Not only does it help me catch all the dialog, but it also helps me with heavy accents. I wouldn’t dream of watching the BBC without closed captioning. Plus I’ve gotten a ton of song lyrics that I never understood. 

    • Are you me?? All of my devices are set to low light/night mode and I haaate the super bright LED light bulbs that are practically all you can find now. AND I always, always have closed captioning on!

      • “and I haaate the super bright LED light bulbs that are practically all you can find now”
         
        Ha!!!!!😆😂🤣🤣🤣💖
        Smacks, I LOVE this, because I am *exactly* the opposite, and like to have “Noon at Midnight!” Levels of light in my rooms–so I LOOOOOVE the nice, bright LED’s, because then I can get daylight-quality light in the evenings/nighttime (helps me deal with SAD, here in tge northland!), without spending much $$$, so it keeps my roommates happy😉
         
        I discovered YEARS ago, that I most likely had SAD (still un-officially dx’ed), when I got a full-spectrum lightbulb to keep my dorm plants alive at mom & dad’s, the first time I failed out of college.
        I just had it in my desk lamp, which was next to my bed, and I’d turn it on in tge late afternoon, to give the plant some light (my bedroom was on the north side of the house). I realized that *I* was starting to feel better, and was more able to deal with the winter, and realized it was ‘cuz I’d sit & read by that lamp for a few hours each day😉
        So now in my living room lamps, I try to have BOTH warm and cool bulbs in each one, so that I get that full spectrum of light–and tbh, it really DOES help me get through this late October-Dec 21st stretch😉😁💖

    • …I tend to opt for less brightness on most devices & the least lights switched on that I can get away with…which I guess I’ve been putting down to my eyes being as tired as the rest of me & finding the glare uncomfortable

      …but another odd quirk of being generally not-asleep when sensible people are resting is that I tend to be overly conscious of sound (something that would go unnoticed in the daytime can seem loud enough to feel like I might be disturbing others in the middle of the night) so I often have things on low volume settings as well, at which point the subtitles can help

      …but having watched a copious amount of foreign cinema (skewing heavily towards hong kong/kung fu movies for a while) I’m fairly at ease with those (except that when they’re in a language I’m familiar with I do tend to be distracted when I think the translation is off)

      …so this sounds pretty familiar, really

  5. I also always have to have closed captioning or subtitles on my tv

    I am completely opposite. I cannot have closed captioning unless I am watching something presented in a language I don’t understand (don’t even, @megmegmcgee) because for some reason I have to read them. I don’t know why that is?! The Leafs could be in game 7, overtime, in the Stanley Cup final (no, they couldn’t, but let’s go with it anyway) and if the TV at the pub had closed captioning, I’d miss out on the action.

        • The main issue with cc is how truly bad it is. Networks hire the cheapest labor they can get to transcribe and it’s pretty fuckin’ obvious sometimes.

          • I usually only have an issue with cc when watching something live or on youtube. Netflix and cable shows are usually spot on. The worst is when there’s a delay, though :/

            • Nah, I almost never watch OTA and don’t have cable. I’ve seen quite a few where they look just as slapdash, and confused about just what was said, as the crappy outsourced workers the local news hires.

              I live by the train tracks. I have to back up the stream a lot.

            • Youtube closed captioning is an interesting thing actually. The default, I believe, is some AI type system that’s absolutely awful and mostly transcribes total gibberish. But many channels, especially ones that are bigger or have more deaf awareness, actually hire someone to do the cc for them. So the youtube cc vary wildly in quality. 

              • I learned this when I was at my first college when I went back for my Child Development/Early Childhood AA degrees.
                 
                We had two women in our program who were deaf, so we ALWAYS used the captioning in-class.
                And–as a hearing student–it INFURIATED me, that we were REQUIRED to watch these videos in our classes (*and* at home sometimes, too!), and that our classmates were just ENTIRELY MISSING really important parts, because the captioning was SO TRASH.😒😒😒
                 
                Luckily, both women had interpreters who were sitting right up by the screen, and who were able to relay the correct info… but it was still unacceptable, infuriating, & disgusting(!!!), that we didn’t have a way to get them the correct information, the FIRST time, *immediately,* like the REST of us in the program were able to get!!!😠😡🤬

    • Ha, so here’s a marital conflict in my household – my husband is like myo and hates cc because he pays too much attention to them and finds them distracting. I like them on, because while I am not hard of hearing, I’ve come to realize that I do probably have some sort of undiagnosed issue going on, maybe ADD or an auditory processing problem? If there are two auditory stimuli at once, I have a lot of difficulty paying attention to either one. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize this was not normal. 
       
      So if we’re watching TV and there’s other noise – someone speaks, a truck rumbles by outside, etc – I have no idea what was just said. If cc are on, I can continue paying attention to the show without interruption. (But when my husband starts trying to talk to me during a show, I do have to pause it to understand what he’s saying. And after close to two decades together, he still tries to do this and gets frustrated when I hit pause and ask him to repeat himself.) 

      • Have you noticed any difference if the conflicting sounds are in the same, or completely different, frequency ranges?  There are lots of people who have trouble hearing the human voice, for example, because it sits in the part of our hearing which is most sensitive and therefore most prone to getting mixed in with other sounds in the same range.

        • Interesting question, and I’m not certain of the answer. I’m trying to think of examples that don’t involve human voice, because that’s definitely the most common (but also makes the most sense for a problem because it’s sound that I need to absorb meaning from). I’ll try to pay attention and see if I can discern a pattern. 
           
          I will say when there are two other types of sound happening, like conflicting sources of music (with a three year old, this happens frequently), I do tend to find my stress level rising. I don’t always notice it’s happening though. The other day I had music playing in the room and lildamnhero later switched on a toy that plays music. My husband came in and started talking to me and I nearly bit his head off.

      • I hear you. When Mrs. Krispy (or anyone, for that matter) talks to me while I’m concentrating, I can’t instantly turn my attention to them – it takes a brief but finite time for me to process that someone is talking to me and *then* turn my attention to them. Love that ADD.

        • Yesss. I definitely do the same when I’m concentrating. I feel like I have to manually switch gears, and I’ve often lost what was said before I was able to start paying attention. Drives my husband CRAZY. 

      • I have a problem with ambient noise too, but it doesn’t manifest often.  It’s most frequent occurrence is when it’s just two of us at a crowded restaurant. Whoever I’m with is talking to me two or three feet away but my attention is riveted to something inane being said, not even very loudly, two or three tables away. My previous doctor had hearing problems; the way he talks makes me think he was deaf as a child and had some kind of surgery and used to wear the largest hearing aids I had ever seen, and he told me this is very common. Reassuring, but irritating.

    • “because for some reason I have to read them”
      Myo, were you a precocious reader as a child, too?
       
      You have me curious, because *i* was. “Reading” by.. somewhere between 2&3? (really just having my Little Golden Books memorized, and reciting them to my parents at night, when they were reading me books before bedtime😉)…
       
      But I discovered–when I got tested for Autism & ADHD–that I fall into the 98th percentile on reading & language/literacy stuff.😳😖🤣
       
      I thought until then that I just liiiiked reading, language(s) & words🤣, and was maybe a bit of a word-geek… I just naturally DO read EVERYTHING that crosses my path, without even thinking about it! But I didn’t realize until getting tested, that I was THAT far outside the general population norm!🤣🤣🤣
       
      Otoh, it’s SUPER helpful with my kiddos, and kinda ends up being a bit of a superpower!🤗🥳😁
       
      Because I recognize my “word-y” kiddos and precocious readers, WELL before the rest of the adults around me do…
       
      I know the signs, and I test their abilities to read, because I know what *i* did as a little one.
       
      And it means that we have soooooo many more ways to play then, too–and I can use reading as a calming activity when they’re upset & stressed–because I get how the “order” of seeing familiar words on a page, in the same order every time, can help calm stress when everything else around those kiddos I’m working with is sooooo very unpredictable & potentially stressful, BECAUSE of that unpredictability.😁🤗💖
       
      It’s part of the reason I have 4 full bookshelves… words and reading calm me. 
      But like you, if there are words on the bottom of a screen, I HAVE to read them–i can’t ignore them–and sometimes, I then DO miss the action on the screen, because I’m reading ALL the words😉

      • I don’t doubt your superpowers or how they benefit your kiddos!

        I have always had a weird relationship with reading. As a child, I HATED reading books or stories because I would read a few pages before realising I wasn’t paying attention to what I was reading (thinking about whatever else) and it would frustrate me (still does). However, my mom had a rule that I was not to put my mitts on the local newspaper until she had read it because of the amount of time I’d spend with it and the state it’d be in by the time I was finished with it. I am still that way only online now.

        I knew how to “read” stats before I knew how to read. I was obsessed with hockey (and stats) so I’d memorise the player’s stats and the team standings which I think really helped prepare me for the maths but not so much the grammar.

        I really don’t understand the cc thing but I assure you that “advanced reader” isn’t it lol

      • I was an early reader too. I learned to read way ahead of schedule which really fucked me up trying to learn phonics when I got to kindergarten because I couldn’t backtrack and learn that way… because I was already reading at a higher level.  I read through all the available reading assignments in first grade (it was like 12 volumes of collected stories) so they had to send me to the school library to pick out books so I could continue to complete my daily “reading” assignments 😂 #bookworm My mom was the same way as a kid, I got it from her

  6. I’m not quirky, I’m eccentric.

    Mostly about language (both written and spoken); timeliness (let’s not be late); and requiring multiple dogs (three, minimum) for happiness.

    I have permission to mention that Keitel has a system that may not vary for going to the grocery store, from staying on-list to checkout; will drive a longer route as long as the car keeps moving or avoids left turns; and has eye tics when he spends too much time around his very dramatic mother.

  7. I inherited one from my father.  He and I both can’t stand loud eaters.
    In Korean culture, loud eating (smacking, noises, open mouthed chewing) is considered the norm.  My dad HATED it when I did the same as a kid.  It would set off his (already short) temper.
    I learned to eat quietly as a kid because of that.  When I had a housemate a few years ago, I didn’t realize it but he turned out to be a loud eater.  At first it didn’t bother me, but a few years later when he started really pissing me off (for other reasons) that was it began to bother me.  I really hated it when he ate wings because it sounded like he was humping his meal.

      • Misophonia. Raises hand GOT IT!

        Over the years, scientists have been skeptical about whether or not it constitutes a genuine medical ailment, but now new research led by a team at the U.K.’s Newcastle University has proven that those with misophonia have a difference in their brain’s frontal lobe to non-sufferers.

        WRONG, time.com! The so-called “medical ailment” is really called “ZERO fucking goddamn tolerance for DISGUSTING inconsiderate pricks!”

        • Welp! That chewing sound comment really greased my gears. I just have no tolerance whatsoever for inconsiderate people so here is myopicprophet’s list of grievances (I have plenty but this is just off the top of my head):

          • people who stop with their shopping carts mid-aisle without looking behind them (I’m vegan so I don’t shop in the aisles…just let me get to the dried beans, mustard, pickles and olives FFS!)
          • people who stop at red lights – with the intention of going straight – on the far right of the lane when there is AMPLE ROOM for people to turn right
          • people who walk out of stores in a “downtown” setting without checking if someone is coming
          • families or groups of people who spread themselves out on sidewalks or in shopping malls so no one can get by them 
          • people who drive in the middle lanes of major highways
          • people who text and drive

          Most importantly, I want to give a shout out to spit stringies. If you have spit from one lip to the other whilst talking…do you not FEEL THAT?! It’s gross.

    • I had a co-worker who used to be the loudest fucking eater in the Western World.  Whenever she would break out her lunch, everyone else in the office would put their headphones on–it was that bad.  Eventually, she got fired for picking her nose in front of a family while consenting a patient.

    • Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…
       
      Slightly related – there is a woman at the office who, when she picks up for the intercom, must put her mouth right on the phone and, I dunno, lick it or something because it just sounds so gross and wet.

  8. I have a lot of quirks, but one that I recently noticed is that ever since I was given dessert size spoons and forks I never use the regular size anymore. I ate a massive salad today in a massive bowl, but I used the smallest fork I have. 

  9. I can’t sleep without a fan near me.  It can be 10 degrees & I need a fan blowing.  Many of my other quirks are from upbringing, I can’t wear shoes indoors & always take them off before entering someone’s house.  I hate being late & don’t like crowds, except I make exceptions for concerts. 

    • I don’t like to hear myself chew but I can somewhat tolerate it if I am alone. If anyone else is within a 50 metre radius, I get paranoid that they can hear me so my quietest possible chew noise is intolerable.

  11. I have to touch all of the stove burners before I go to bed and before I leave the house, because as a child I was surrounded by the kind of dumbasses who would set the house on fire with their carelessness, who also insisted on smoking all the time.

  12. My biggest thing that drives me crazy is when I’m trying to cut someone’s hair and they talk and move their head at the same time. I’m like fucken sit still for ffs🙄

  13. Most of my quirks are just because I like things tidy or in order, even if that’s just my opinion. My clothes hangers match my clothes. Keys always go in the box on the end table. I never leave dishes in the sink because I hate the way it looks. I’ve even done dishes at my bff’s house when I was staying over. Just point to where this stuff goes, the sink is driving me crazy. I always make my bed and no one ever made me do that as a kid. It makes the room look nicer even though I haven’t dusted in 6 months.

    • My clothes hang from right to left. Hoodies, long sleeves then tees and from darkest to lightest (following the colour spectrum of course). Same goes for suits and dress clothes. Same goes for summer-y dress clothes. Of course I have a closet for each because I am totally normal.

    • My wife has to have the bed made all the time.  She will wash the sheets & completely make the bed, including 20 fucking throw pillows just to take them all off bed.  I am talking right at bedtime!  She gets pissed because I just laugh now instead of fighting it.  She does those fucking tight nurses corners that makes it so you can’t put your feet straight!  I sleep pigeon toed or crows feet! It really grinds my gears!!!

  14. All the bills in my wallet have to be facing and oriented in the same direction. NO EXCEPTIONS. My daughter hands me wads of cash that are all willy-nilly, and it drives me insane until I’ve got it properly sorted. 
     
    I also hate it when someone gives me change like that. I’m like, organize your damn cash drawer, you slob. Don’t be handing me bills all crazy and backwards. I won’t hold up the line, but I have to take a few steps and organize those Benjamins properly. Can’t go into my wallet like that — leads to the apocalypse. 

  15. First time posting here!
    I am solidly ADD. My desk at work was invariably covered in disheveled piles of papers and other materials. Total chaos. Except those piles represent a kind of organization that I understand. A certain student’s lab report? <rustle rustle> Here it is! At my first school, my department chair always got fed up with the chaos at some point during the school year and made me clean up my desk (I didn’t know I was ADD at that point). And every time, I ended up losing *something* critical and never found it. 
    In some areas, I survive on ritual. For example, after the 4 a.m. Feeding of the Beasts, I take my morning round of meds. In the dark. So that the light doesn’t start to wake me up. I position the pill bottles in certain positions in the closet, so that I know I can reach for them with confidence. If they get moved six inches in either direction, CHAOS!!
    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to – SQUIRREL!

  16. i hate it when things make noises they shouldnt make…squeeks rattles..whatever…dont care what it is…i will take it apart till i find and fix the source (im especially bad with my bikes… you should be silent damn you!)
    anyways..that proved problematic when my gasmeter developed a squeek on every rotation as im not legally aloud to touch that (meterfraud).. drove me nuts for a couple weeks….had the whole thing replaced

    • THIS!!!
      The music a machine makes is the ONLY music it ought to make….
      When it starts to squeak, grind, grate, or otherwise make discordant *sounds,* those noises MUST be hunted down, understood, and mitigated.
      The.END.

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