Irks and quirks (#5 is probably genius though)

When it all comes down to it, we’re all a bunch of weirdos. But everyone thinks that their oddities are especially odd. As a special and unique treat to all 7 of my regular readers, I’m going to share a few irks and quirks of my own. Oh no, please.. please. Don’t paint me as a brave hero. It’s really a win-win for me. If you don’t identify, I will feel like a rare gem of beautiful eccentricity. If you do identify, we can be besties for life.

Wet Tupperware

When I unload the dishwasher, those stupid Glad dishes or whatever that have these horrible droplets of water on them drives me CRAZY! Handling those dishes – attempting to dry them with a damp towel especially – is psychologically torturous to me. One of my goals in life is to have all glass/ceramic dishes. Cuz Ima fancy gurl.

Numbers that can’t be divided by 3

This may be the nerdiest quirk. A long time ago, I learned that if the sum of the individual numbers of a multi-digit number can be divided by 3, then that number can be divided by 3, too. For example, 8079 can be divided by 3 because (8+0+7+9=24), and 24 can be divided by 3. Thus to me, 8079 is a cool kid. But a number like 4691 is lame. When I’m driving I automatically add up the numbers on license plates and mailbox numbers to see if they’re cool. If they’re not cool, then I think about the smallest alterations needed to make them cool. Like stupid 4691 could be promoted to 4692, and voila! my brain is happy again.

Microwave beeps

This is not just at 3a.m. – I hate the stupid, obnoxiously loud and persistent beeps of a microwave. What is that microwave afraid of happening? My food will get cold again? Okay, fine. That’s my problem and then I’ll just re-heat my re-heated food. Nothing is going to catch on fire so please relax, microwave. I take distinct pleasure in stopping the microwaving at 1 sec to prevent its stupid chirping. Aha! I beat you again, self-important kitchen appliance!

Food containers with less than one serving of food in them

They’re horrible. They’re just sitting in there, begging to be eaten so I can throw away that idiotic, empty container. The quickest way to make me obese would be to fill my fridge with containers that all had 80% of a full serving left in them. I would angrily devour them all, out of principle.

Life (sometimes)

Life doesn’t always go the way I want it to. Or, I really want something that isn’t likely to happen. It can be helpful to sit down and write out what I wished had happen or want to happen, in all of its absurdly-unrealistic glory. For example –

…To Claire’s astonishment, Jo-Jo was standing at the door with flowers in his hands. “Claire, I’ve been thinking… and I agree that I never should have questioned your food choices. You can have as many kale acai smoothies as you want. I just want to be with you and read aloud Tim Keller books as you eat an entire jar of almond butter. Take me back, Claire Bear! ”

Is this stupid and cheesy? Absolutely (and no, I never broke up with someone over smoothies. I don’t even really drink smoothies. #sugarbombs But this is a humorified version of the sort of thing I have written before). But sometimes the stupidity and cheesiness actually helps me move on, because I realize what I want(ed) to happen will never happen. There’s also a part of me that really enjoys creating a sub-reality in which things go down the way I want. There’s probably a bit of egomania in that… but if you tell me so, I’ll just write a story about how I went on Oprah to explain this amazing technique and she gave me a free car. BOOM

These are just a few of my quirks and irks. Now you understand why my blog posts are so weird. There’s some strange stuff going on in the #gallonoggin’. And please.. share your oddities with the world. It will at least make everyone else feel a leetle more sane. 😀