Thoughts from the Washing Line: Funny Things People Do

[source] - it's not my garden, but I wish I lived there...

The sun was shining yesterday, for the first time since Sunday.  It was a perfect drying day, so I was out with my basket of clean clothes, pegging away.  And I was thinking about the Funny Habits that People Have.

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The other day someone (and I can't remember who - if it was You, please remind me!!).... posted on their blog about a strange habit she has.  She wondered if she was weird/strange etc.  I remember adding a comment along the lines of - no, she is quite normal, others have even odder habits. 

Such as my friend, who waggled his head while cleaning his teeth (and the toothbrush stayed still).  He put his back out one morning and had to crawl back to his bedroom.  Then, once he could actually stagger to a taxi, he endured a series of bone-cracking osteopath visits, to put him straight again!  

And then, the friend whose mouth made "cutting" movements, as he manipulated the scissors to cut - mouth and scissors in perfect harmony - "cuuuuut, cuuuut, cuuuuut....". 

The Register of Things that People Do, ranges from the very "normal"

- such as nail-biting; or always doing up your buttons wrong (you know, you miss one part-way up your shirt/cardigan, then wander round with a gap over your tummy for the rest of the day?)

 - through the mildly obsessive - always stacking the dishwasher in the same way (guilty!); matching the colour of the pegs on the clothesline (guilty again!); or always eating the same meal on a Monday evening (errr....)

- to the mildly irritating - always leaving something in the gangway, forgetting to shut doors, switch off lights etc (teenager at home, anyone?); or sniffing (I hate sniffing!) - not just because they have a cold, but always, as a habit - sniff, sniff, snifffff  

- to the very irritating and really rather OCD - like having to check the windows are closed, Yourself, even though someone else just did it, or else you can't go out;  or eating things in a certain order, always, because you have to;  or cleaning their teeth every time they eat (I mean Every Time or they might explode...)

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And then there are the "normal side of weird" and the "just plain weird" things.  With a fairly fine dividing line between them...  

A Boy I Know, "has to" go up the stairs in multiples of 2 steps - two, four or eight steps. He goes up two stairs together, to make the number of steps up a 13-step staircase into an even number.

A gentleman in our town used to run a second-hand and antiquarian bookshop.  The shop was small, but it probably contained more books than the local library.  Floor to ceiling books.  Packed on the shelves, two or three deep. Piled on the floor, in corners.  Stacked up the staircase on both sides.  He knew Every Book that he had in that shop.  You could say "Have you got such-and-such-a-book, please?" and he'd answer, "Yes, it's just... here." - and there it was, just there. 

A lady in our town dresses like an Edwardian lady. She wears a straw hat, trimmed with ribbon and flowers, a long skirt, short jacket with leg-o-mutton sleeves. She rides an old-fashioned "sit-up-&-beg" green bicycle, with a wicker basket on the front, trimmed with artificial flowers. She used to catch the bus to Cambridge quite regularly - pretty much every time that I was going with my BF, to visit his parents in Suffolk. She always looked the same. As if she'd stepped out of a novel, or through a time-warp. Even her umbrella was old-fashioned. I saw her again recently. She looks much the same, just a little bit older.

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People waggle their hands when describing something, they click their fingers in the air when trying to remember something, or blink disbelievingly and slap a hand over their face when confronted with a case of utter stupidity.

James' friend buys a coffee from the common room.  He drinks about half, then says "But I don't even Like coffee". 

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It's Normal to Do Odd Things... people who don't have any odd habits, are really a bit spooky and strange.  We don't like them.   

People Do Odd Things. They really do. And that's what makes everyone so interesting really.

What about You?  What do you do (or someone you know)?