Food habits...
It drives the boyfriend absolutely bonkers, but whenever we have gammon egg and chips I HAVE to douse the whole lot in vinegar. I don't know why I do it, it's not that I particularly prefer the taste with vinegar, its just a habit I picked up when I was younger.
(kellysprinkles dying for a pee since, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:48, Reply)

More dishwasher nonsense
Apparently I don't put things in the dishwasher enough.

Last week I put my cup and a couple of sandwich boxes in. But I'd done it "all wrong".

Two minutes later she'd restacked to put right the damage I'd done.

Pointing out that there was now more stuff on the draining board than before I'd had a go was a bad move.
(Yellow Car is now red, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:39, Reply)

My sister
Keeps her kettle and toaster in a cupboard and not on the kitchen work-tops.

Bizarre!
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:37, Reply)

A friend
has told me that when he has a pee, he washes his nob afterwards; I tried to tell him this was weird but he thought it totally normal.
(kitescreech still here, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:33, 6 replies)

LOL
I was in a market in the Middle East when I came across a nun's outfit. It was a bazaar habit.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:08, 2 replies)

Even Stevens
I've managed to get by 30 years on this earth without succumbing to any rituals, apart from one. Whenever I breathe in I always, ALWAYS have to breathe out.
( pixel_fucker is going to need a bigger brush, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:04, Reply)

More registration weirdness...
Numberplates have been mentioned several times already. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street I will spot a numberplate and then try to make the shortest word possible from the letters. The words have grown since the introduction of the five letter - two number plates, but occasionally you still get an old car with T453WAT or similar. For the purposes of this game, personalised plates are disallowed, because sometimes they're just too easy.

I can't remember the name of the quiz show, but there used to be one in the afternoon on which the contestants were given three letters and had to find the longest word with them in order. Does anyone else remember this, and more importantly, the title?
(Elephantine Galoot is on the M62 heading east at, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:59, 3 replies)

My bizarre habit
is that I have no bizarre habits.
If this QOTW is anything to go by then I'm the odd one.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:59, 1 reply)

I can't inhale..
..if I have dog poo in my field of vision. I have to immediately alter my breathing pattern if I notice some.
(Elmintrude has lumps of it round the back, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:58, 2 replies)

My mum...
My mother who I love dearly has a few strange superstitions/habits such as:
1. Touching the wooden porch every time she leaves the house for good luck, and any other piece of wood she can find when a 'touch wood' situation arises.
2. Refusing to pass on the stairs as this is bad luck. Despite having bad knees she will insist on either going back down/up the stairs. I guess this WOULD be bad luck if you were to collide and fall down the stairs, but she does it on quite wide stairs too.
3. Throwing salt over her left shoulder 'into the devil's eyes' when it has been accidentally spilled.
4. She also knows lots of proverbs, has a touch of the amateur dramatics about her and comes out with many archaic superstitious notions which have greatly puzzled friends and boyfriends alike in the past. Perhaps she is a witch?
(TruckfulsOfWoo, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:44, 4 replies)

Yet more Skittles
When i was a child i would eat skittles anti-clockwise.

The way i did this was by pouring the sweets into a bowl and separate out the colours. From the the top of the bowl (12 o'clock) going clockwise it would go:
Purple
Red
Yellow
Orange
Green

Then i would eat them anti-clockwise starting from Green. Occasionally i still do it! I'm 25.


Byeeeeeeeeeee
(coolaskimdeal, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:42, Reply)

Skittles
Not entirely sure why but whenever I buy Skittles I have to pour them into a mug and put them into the fridge. Then upon cooling they crunch a lot better and I can drink them like a sparkly brew!

Might have stemmed from getting various coloured fingers when scrabbling round in the packet.

Also my ex's mate would shout "Mini!" whenever she saw said car and then punch everyone in the vicinity (people she knew of course), which when you haven't been told about this and you get a swift thump and a shout in the ear is a bit freaky.
(Dragonpity, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:22, 4 replies)

Mint in the box
I'm sure that everyone is aware of it, and if I'd kept some of my star wars toys in their boxes instead of chucking the boxes within 30 nano seconds of opening the toy, I'd be happy or richer...

Anyway we all know those who buy toys, comics etc and never opening, it's a bit weird but still acceptable, however there is one person I know who takes it much much further, they keep everything in the package where ever possible, kitchen utensils, toothpaste, the lot.

However still 2 years after having a nice new sofa delivered it has yet to have the plastic delivery packaging removed, I cannot work out how that will improve the long term value of the sofa unless there really is some other uber ocd nerd who wants a nice SCS sofa still in the packaging in a couple of decades.
(bluehamster, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:13, 1 reply)

Have a rainbow tasting Pea.
I have a very odd and specific system for eating skittles.

Firstly I tip out the entire packet onto a table.

Then I sort each colour into groups and then eat one from the largest group.

I do this until all groups contain the same number. If there are two or more groups of the same size I eat one from the group that I like least.

When all groups are the same size I eat one skittle from each group in alphabetic order by colour.

I'm not sure when this started or why, and why it's only skittles, but for obvious reasons I don't eat skittles very often any more especially around people who still retain some form of respect for me.
(Charlietron Still can't think of anything witty to put here, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:06, 4 replies)

holding my breath
if i'm watching a film or t.v show where someone has to hold their breath for any length of time, i will always hold my breath, too, just to see if:
a) i can beat them, or
b) it's actually possible to hold your breath for that length of time
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:59, 12 replies)

Vehicle Regs
When I am driving, I always spot the number plate on any vehicle I pass and try to find some significance in it. For example if I saw one which said X719 CAU I'd think 'Oooh, that car has my team name at work on it!' (CAU) or FE54 ABS; 'That one has an abbreviated form of Abbie's (my cat) name.' Random but some funny ones come up.
(52486 office lolled on, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:54, Reply)

Car numberplates
When I'm going on a long journey as a passenger, I have to see all the letters of the alphabet in order on numberplates before we get there or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. This usually works best when we're going to visit friends in Canterbury and I can pick off the pesky Q from the foreign lorries... And if I finish too soon then I have to start from Z and work backwards...

But at least I feel better about it now having read that everyone else is a closet nutter too!
( Janetyjanet i get no kicks from champagne ...oh wait, yes I do, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:51, Reply)

Living in a former mining town in Northumberland
Where unemployment is higher than the national average, my getting up and going to work every morning is looked upon as fairly odd behaviour...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:36, 3 replies)

on a more serious note.....
I have some OCD-like behaviours, like timing my blinking to coincide with passing lampposts if I'm a passenger in a car

I will also freely admit I can't "shop" from the front in a supermarket - this I have now managed to infect my gf with who now ALSO has to shop from the back. For the relatively normal folk lurking out there who don't understand, I shall explain.

When you're shopping in a supermarket and you're looking at that bottle of balti sauce, I can't take the front one, I need to go to the one behind. This is entirely normal for cardboard boxed items such as cereal where the front pack is always damaged, so you need to seek out further packs from the back with that mint condition quality.

However.... and this is an issue for me - when it's the ONLY one left, and it's decent looking (i.e. not been bashed to bits or opened) then it becomes such a decision, even Harvey Dent would think twice before flipping a coin to decide what to do.

I've also had the awkward times where you're almost following or being followed by the same person around Tesco, so after a few aisles of my behaviour, I've then noticed said other person doing the same thing and reaching behind or copying my tactic of REMOVING the front item, picking one up from the back, and replacing the front item for some other mug to pick up!

I've also taken to trying to confuse people if they're watching me, by picking up the front item and the one behind, "weighing" them both in my hands before putting the front one back. Again, I have managed to get other folk to try this after a few repeated displays of my money-saving skills of managing to decide the heavier item, thereby giving me more for my money!

I need a fucking life!!!
(Anne Frank started to build a loft conversion on, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:35, 2 replies)

When a passenger, being driven...
...I have to change gear in time with the ups and downs of the kerb at things like driveways or car park entrances. Kerb drops, left foot on the clutch; kerb rises again, left foot off the clutch.

Sometimes, for variation, I'll use lamposts as the markers instead. Or alternate sides of the road.

Occasionally, I'll go into a fit of double-declutching as we near our destination.

And what makes it freakish is that in the US automatics outnumber manuals by hundreds to one. I need psychological assistance...
(IHaveComeAmongThee__Twice Tissues on the left. Self-esteem on the right., Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:32, 2 replies)

I think I'm agrophobic!
I like to stay indoors!
(Anne Frank started to build a loft conversion on, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:20, Reply)

A former colleague of mine
told me this one about a chap she met at a conference. I can't remember where this was now, but she was booked into the hotel room next door to this feller.

Now I'm sure we've all had moments when we leave the house and think,
"I'm sure I turned the oven off. Didn't I?"
or
"I did lock the front door, didn't I?"
and it drives you to distraction up until the point that you get to the train station and find some other enjoyable event like a general train strike or messy suicide to take your mind off things.

In this chap's case, it was the door. Was it locked? Better check. When my friend first encountered him, this amounted to him leaving his room, closing the door behind him, locking it, and then trying the door handle a couple of times to make sure it was, indeed, locked.

This was on the first day of a week-long conference. With the paper-thin walls in this cheap hotel, she could hear him, every time he left his room. On the second day, she noticed that he seemed to be taking a lot more trouble to ensure his door was locked. By that evening, he must have been waggling the handle five or six times to make sure it wasn't going anywhere.

You can probably see where this is going. By the last day of the conference, apparently this chap would check the door handle perhaps forty or fifty times before he could convince himself that his room was secure. She could even use the sound of his departure as an indicator that it was probably time to set off for the conference centre - hear him lock the door, leave her room and greet him with a slightly embarrassed "Hello" as he stood there waggling the door handle in front of her, and by the time she'd got to the reception desk, he was probably just finishing off his extended security waggle. All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't there when he was getting ready to leave and checking he had all his belongings...
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:17, Reply)

I blame watching Airplane too much for this one
Whenever anyone says "good luck" I can't help but say "We're all counting on you.
(Charlietron Still can't think of anything witty to put here, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:14, 5 replies)

I
can't call anyone once if they don't pick up. I only do it with friends, but I keep thinking, maybe they just got back to their phone and didn't see that I called! Then I end up calling them seven times in ten minutes =) maybe I'm just desperate and lonely and trapped underground in a disused train station
(Ludacrust alliterated your monstrously magnanimous mother, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:56, Reply)

Lucky fag
I briefly got into the habit of taking a cigarette out of a freshly opened packet and putting it back in the wrong way, then leaving that one until last on the basis that it would bring me luck.

I soon stopped it after inhaling a burning filter for the umpteenth time.
( Muns, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:52, 2 replies)

I've got this bizarre habit of not finishing my

( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:47, Reply)

Apostrophe's and other such nonsense.
I have a compulsion to try to abbreviate as well as I can and to try to use the correct words.
I actually care weather eye use whether or weather; I or eye; there, their, they're or there're and countless other old-fashioned things.
I don't profess to use the English language completely correctly, but I try my best. I also find it harder to parse sentances not constructed using the correct words.
Huw wud ave fought it?
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:22, 2 replies)

When I leave a house
it has to be through the window.

Maybe that's because I was born via Caesarean section.
(grundig Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:16, Reply)

My microwave
Beeps three times when its done cooking. It does it in perfect time to the first three bars of the Imperial March from Empire Strikes Back and i ALWAYS have to do the last "da-da-da da-da-daaa" either whistling or playing out in my head.

I got loads worse when my daughter was born and we heated up the milk.

When im in the office i have to have my phone on the left side of my desk sitting on top of my post-it pad.
(Beaverman Opulence, I has it., Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:09, 7 replies)

Whenever I fly commercial
I have to touch the skin of the plane--usually between the edge of the boarding door and where the jetway butts against the plane.

I am not a nervous flier--in fact I'm a pilot. No reason--I just have to do it.
(grundig Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 18:05, 2 replies)