I
like to alter the settings on peoples Hi-Fis, so that they are always +or- 1 the number they say on the readout.
(kitescreech still here, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 17:02, Reply)

More often than not...
...I quietly sing urine-themed versions of pop songs to start the flow.

I'm scared that I'm going to get older and louder and "hello urine, my old friend" or "give piss a chance" will emerge from wherever I'm psyching myself up in order to micturate.
(Ladyfingers is in your wardrobe,, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 15:51, 2 replies)

Tame compared to many I've read ...
But immediately before sleep, I have to roll onto my other side. It doesn't matter if I start on the left or right, just before I drop off, or rather to facilitate dropping off, I have to roll onto the other side. Not very annoying unless you're with someone who wants to cuddle / spoon, or in a shared room on a creaky bed.
(zenmeban thinks the weather could be better, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 15:12, 1 reply)

Rooms....
I can't go into a dark room until the light is on. Ever.

I need to lean into the room with one hand and switch the light on with my feet firmly on the sideside of the rooms threshold.

It's even starting to piss me off...
(one-winged-angel-616 isn't as depressed as she sounds, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 14:44, 4 replies)

Sometimes when i'm in a silly mood and alone
I tend to talk to myself in various accents, sometimes i'm muttering in a scottish or Russian twang, but most times i'm singing various pop classics but in an 'Allan Partridge' stylee..
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 13:59, 1 reply)

im strange too.....
I thought i was completely alone, as I cant leave an object or foodstuff by itself, as it will feel lonely, have done this since junior school, also gotta check doors, taps etc several times a night, frightened that i maybe flooded or burgled during the night, my mrs thinks I am a loony, maybe she is right, at least I am amongst people like me
(machine for grinding smoke Do it again and i'll fucking kill ya!!!!, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 12:45, 1 reply)

I called hedgehogs 'hodgehegs'.
I have had to literally stop myself from saying it in polite company, but nearly always fail.
(Iggy Pop's Teeth, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 12:28, 3 replies)

I spent about 5 years not stabbing sausages while frying them
because I had a dream once that doing this causes cancer, and just never questioned it.

This went on until one day my flatmate was cooking sausages on a BBQ and as he went to stab them I panicked and shouted "NO DON'T"

He said "why"

I said "because it gives . . . " and at that moment I realised that I'd dreamt the original issue.

Its odd the things we'll do subconsciously.
( Nostrebor can't be everything all the time., Sun 4 Jul 2010, 11:11, 6 replies)

I had some very strange habits growing up.
Looking back, I think it was a form of Tourettes which I've (mostly) grown out of, but it never really got diagnosed in the 70s-80s. I used to twitch quite a lot and I still do now, particularly when I'm stressed or tired. But when I was much younger, I had a lot of what my parents used to call my "Habits". It ranged from being twitchy, stuttering, making compulsive squeeking noises, blinking compulsively and nodding continuously - sometimes this used to make my nose bleed. Anyhoo, all pretty normal you're thinking (maybe), but the most bizarre thing I used to do was one which became known in our family as "The Poodle". I used to walk along and then every so often I'd put my hands into a doggie-style begging position and stand on one leg with the other lifted out behind me. Life eh? You couldn't make it up.
( Farmfoodsman, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 10:06, 2 replies)

Jeremy Vile and Unbeatable bukkake.
These are, resepectively, the names I've given to the television shows 'Jeremy Kyle' and 'Unbeatable Banzuki' and am now completely unable to think of in any other way.
( Funkenschlag still likes dogs more than cats, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 9:50, 1 reply)

Judging by many of the replies to this QOTW, I would appear to be a bit bizarre in needing peace and quiet. I cant stand the radio/CD on in the car - its just distracting. Any noise (especially music) when Im trying to sleep just keeps me awake. If I'm stressy then I need quiet to calm down.

When I say peace and quiet, however, this for me means freedom from man-made type noises such as stereos, televisions, engines, kids unnecessarily yelling, fireworks, etc.

Birdsong, the wind in the trees, rain, thunder - none of these sounds bother me in the slightest.

I just cant understand how people can live their lives with their ears almost permanently assaulted by (especially) music.
(Freakmandu, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 9:26, 7 replies)

bluetooth russian roulette
my girlfriend's sister was sat on the top deck of a bus once and her phone went off. incoming image from someone she didn't know. she opened it and it was an erect cock. as the picture didn't contain a face she had no idea who sent it.

what a brilliant idea.

so now, whenever i'm in the pub i play the same game. i change the name of my phone to something stupid then send ridiculous pictures via bluetooth to whoever will accept. my favourite is this one;




*pop*
(orestes is shitting in the 1940s, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 3:18, 11 replies)

The clock
Whee, it's 01:02:03

12:34:56
11:11:11
22:22:22
12:11:10
11:10:09
08:07:06

Well you get the idea. I will take my concentration away from even the most interesting TV if I notice the clock making a numeric pattern.
(Cloudane, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 1:02, 4 replies)

I used to like to walk down a deserted street or a road or a car park with my eyes shut
and count out steps, relying on my intertial sense of non-straying-either-left-or-right to not veer off one direction or another. If I could see a long clear stretch then I would count out 20 steps, then 40, then 60 with my eyes shut, but sometimes I would chicken out half way when I felt the dread of actually probably about to bump into something. Or hear something that sounded like a car approaching.

Because roads are crowned to assist in the run-off of rain water, walking in a straight line is actually pretty difficult. But it makes a long walk on an otherwise deserted road or car park that bit more interesting.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sun 4 Jul 2010, 0:48, Reply)

I have a filthy habit.
Stole it out of a nun's bin after she shat herself.
(Helmut McBucket invites you to pull his finger on, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 0:40, Reply)

Scrolling upwards
I can't be the only one who does this - reading the QOTW from page 1 in ascending order, but then immediately scrolling to the bottom of each page and then reading the replies in the order they were posted.
( Amos E Wolfe makes vinyl signs and things like that, Sun 4 Jul 2010, 0:18, 5 replies)

Washing....
I always have to make sure that my son's clothes are surrounded by mine and Mr Twaddle's when I hang them out......as it protects them from evil things

I salute magpies and wish them "Good Morning"

When saying the words "Ground Control" I have to say them like that Mr David Bowie does in "Space Oddity"...

And I never say "Thank you" after someone has blessed me for sneezing as a fairy will die if I do.


I'm only 40......
(pussy twaddle performs indiscretions in branches of Millets..., Sun 4 Jul 2010, 0:03, 9 replies)

I go to work each morning.
It's a compulsion. I can't break the habit.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 19:15, 2 replies)

Your life in the hands of trained medical personnel...
RBF esquire has reminded me of a story I heard from the instructor on a first aid course I was at about a fortnight ago. He was discussing how to perform CPR correctly, and specifically the timing of the chest compressions. He said that ideally you should be compressing at a rate of a hundred compressions per minute.

He went on to describe one unpleasant car accident he was at where he witnessed a trained paramedic performing CPR on a stricken victim. Humming "Nellie the elephant" under his breath to keep in time.


Said paramedic will be known as "Nellie" until the day he retires.
( MatJ LOOK, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 19:08, 7 replies)

Porn must be the number 1 compulsive behaviour for most men.....
...Me for one, it's a lifelong compulsion i'm happy to live with.

An article in this quarters intelligent life* had some shit article about what women want / find attractive about a guy entitled '107 things they think, enter the mind of a woman at your own risk...' #42, Everytime you watch smut - without us - a unicorn dies which is why they're now extinct.' Yahaira (28)

Now my girlfriend has a job with an airline and is away for half the month, personally if I didn't watch porn while she was away then I would want sex so often that no matter how turned on she was each time we made the beast with two backs she would be damned sore!

Watching porn with previous girlfriends has proved to be a double edged sword. Sure it's a turn on but eventually no matter how secure your partner is inevitably the questions start... 'would you like my ass / tits to be that big / small, do you like white, black, brown, oriential girls the best and the classic... you don't ask me if you would like a threesome but quite a bit of your porn has two girls and a bloke in etc...' On the last point in my limited experience threesomes are a real turn on when watched and imagined however they're pretty corosive within a grown-up relationship with a girl you care about.

So in conclusion for Porn can, in moderation, stop me from abusing my missus' snatch too much when she gets back home.

*lie, it was Esquire.
(Moominator missing the good stuff cos' the swear filter is on, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 19:04, 1 reply)

My bizarre habit
isn't so very bizarre.

Nonetheless, making people LOSE THE GAME is generally frowned upon.

_mahahahaha
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 18:18, 17 replies)

Tap, tap, tap, tap
As a certified mentalist, I have about a billionty of these. Seems I'm not alone in some of them, which is kind of heartening. A selection:

1) I am obsessed with numbers and counting everything I do or see to ensure a 'good' number. 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 are 'good' and 3 and 6 are to be avoided at all costs. I don't recall the exact logic behind this but it goes right back to childhood, and I have been known to get halfway into town and have to go home because I think I've touched my front door three times. Fruitcakery.

2) I also 'balance', i.e. have to touch things with my right hand if I've touched them with the left. This is somewhat awkward when some bloke walks past me in the street, accidentally brushes my hand, and I have to fight with myself not to run after him and essentially stroke him O.o

3) Like a lot of others, it seems, I absolutely cannot walk on someone's right. It makes me deeply uncomfortable, like I have earwigs under my skin. Unfortunately, my sister shares this one with me, and when we're together we spend the whole time ducking behind one another and swapping sides. She now has a pushchair with her wherever she goes, which incapacitates her a bit.

4) I can read very fast, but if I start focusing on the punctuation, I can spend a frustrating half-hour or so on a couple of pages. I have to balance everything on a double page spread, e.g. two dashes on this page, must find two dashes [but not three, oh, god, please not three or I'll have to find five on each side] on the opposite page. And so on with full stops, exclamation marks, etc. I constantly check page numbers and flick back to check the *exact* words used in an unimportant sentence that caught my eye as I turned over the page. Over and over, and 'what was that?' [does it matter?] 'I NEED to know!' Apparently, watching me read is an interesting experience.

5) I fidget constantly, but I have a real thing for sticky labels. There is literally nothing in our bathroom, my bag, or my girlfriend's make up bag that has a label on it. If I have nothing to play with, I get extremely edgy. Which, I think, is why she sacrificed her make up bag to me on a long train journey. I also like those blister packs tablets come in. As I take a few different medications, I have a steady supply, and once I've straightened out the plastic and pulled off the foil, I add them to a huge blister-pack block I'm building on my bedside table. I've got to the point where I actually ask the pharmacist for my meds in a specific configuration so that the packets will fit on it *sigh*

6) Handwashing and obsessive cleaning to the point of near-constant contact dermatitis. As I work in a high-risk environment [rehab centre, so lots of ex IV-drug users] I have to cover the open wounds with loads of plasters when I go in, meaning I constantly look like I've been savaged or working in a mine, or some such. Gf nags me to wear gloves to clean. I nag her to use the right fucking chopping board for her raw meat. You can't always get what you want.

7) Singing along to TV theme tunes -- I'm VERY ritualistic, if you hadn't noticed. Every Saturday breakfast time must begin with a rousing rendition of the West Wing theme [Do do dooo, do do dooo, do do doo do doo doo dooooo']. Mushrooms cannot be chopped without 'Time for Miracles' by Adam Lambert, and rats on the bed, on my shoulder, on the sofa, etc must be serenaded with a bastardised version of 'There's a rat in my *whatever* what am I gonna do?' Found out this morning that gf didn't previously know this was a real song and just thought it was me being... well, me.

We also have several ritualistic games, the strangest of which is probably 'Name that fish'. The first object of Name that fish is to realise that you are playing Name that fish. Apropos of nothing, one player [usually me] mimes a fish. Your job, of course, is to realise that no, she's not sticking her arms out for no reason, she's being a plaice. This game can now be played in company, such as:

'I know, mum, I couldn't believe it--oh, shark!--yeah, so then he told me he wanted me to call him Lola Fuckweasel.'

Ooh. My mother and I also like to play 'he's dead'. We had no idea we were doing anything strange until gf pointed out that most people don't greet any passing mention of a deceased celebrity with mutters of:

'He's dead.'
'Ooh, yes, he is.'
'Dead.'
'Yep. Dead.'

I don't think this is my fault. My mother, not me, is the one who, at the age of 52, triumphantly announced that she had figured out that toothpaste is called toothpaste... because it's paste. For your teeth. Genius.

I am not mad. But if I am, it's genetic.
(Samara Morgan is a small blue thing, like a marble or an eye, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 16:12, 1 reply)

Ketchup
Ketchup MUST go in the fridge after opening. If I ever find it in the fridge, even at someone else's house, I sneak it back into the refrigerator.

It's caused a surprising amount of arguments. I've got official emails from Heinz confirming the tomato condiment storage location.

Most people I've met are fanatical about it; more than religion. I suggest changing the subject to child abuse, it causes less offence.
(kupogud, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 15:56, 11 replies)

You're mad, stark raving mad!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTlHkzloNTg

Back when Harry was funny
(MagicMoose, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 14:47, Reply)

Get over it
You wouldn't say to someone with depression "Just cheer up!". It's a bit on the tasteless side and it's not going to work anyway. It's not just being upset, it's a lot deeper than that.

And I do understand that a lot of OCD behaviour is like that. And getting rid of it is neither easy nor quick. But am I alone in that every time I hear about some OCD quirk like "I have to have the volume on an even number" or "If there's two different coloured foods on my plate touching I can't eat it" I have the same mental reaction

"Just grow the fuck up and get over it!"

I can't help it. You do not *have* to have the volume on an even number. Try setting it to three. And then put up with it. If you were hungry enough you'd bloody well eat the food, even if a prime numbered set of peas were directly adjacent to a piece of fish that wasn't at 90 degrees to the setting sun in Tunisia. You might prefer that the books are lined up in alphabetical order but YOU DO NOT NEED THEM THAT WAY. WANT. NOT NEED.

Please tell me I'm not the only person to have that instinctive reaction even if it's wrong.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 14:37, 10 replies)

When someone accidentally bumps into me in a bar/club
and says "Oh, sorry!" (in that classic british mannerism) my uncontrollable sotto voce response is,

"You fucking will be."

One day somebody is going to punch out my teeth.
(Ragathi wants to know where his evil twin is on, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 14:05, 4 replies)

My family collects geological souvenirs.
My dad has shelves and shelves of little jars of sand, labelled according to area and date collected. People - family members from further afield, mostly - send him little sand samples from all over the world for his collection.
We also have mantelpieces full of rocks, crystals and shells, as well as boxes of stone eggs and other carvings. There's a certain subset of these rocks that my dad is particularly proud of.
They're normal rocks, or they were at one point, but they're all flaky and crumbly. This because they've been swallowed at one time or another by various animals. The chemical transformations leave them softer and more delicate than they were. I know they're treasured, but I can't resist picking them to pieces. My dad detests this, but he collects and keeps the pieces anyway, so as a result we have a large number of Bezoar Bits in this household.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 13:55, Reply)

Also
I pull out my beard hairs the way some people bite their nails.

I also bite my nails, but that's not weird.
(ElGranto, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 13:39, 5 replies)

The Extra-Terristrial
Beloved children's classic my arse. I saw E.T. when I was 5 years old and he fair scared the shit out of me. As a result, I became so convinced that he lived under my bed that I could never bring myself to look down there after lights-out.

Even if I was staying at a friend's house, I wouldn't let my hand touch the ground. This lasted until I was about 12 years old. Long-fingered fuckwit.

I had a similar problem with Labyrinth, especially that pit of hands, but I thankfully never thought David Bowie was down there with him.
(ElGranto, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 13:37, 3 replies)

Dislocated Spine
As a teenager I had some of the aforementioned habits - lining things up nice and square, books arranged from largest to smallest and so on.

~~ 20 years later ~~

You know how a row of books on a bookshelf will have the writing on the spines running from top to bottom?

This is not the case here in Germany.

As an owner of both English and German books, can I just say: NNNNNGGHHH!!! And if you lie one flat on it's back it gets worse...
(pimp yourself green long time listener, first time caller, Sat 3 Jul 2010, 13:29, 2 replies)