Socks
I have socks with the days of the week written on them. I CANNOT wear them on the wrong day of the week. Sometimes if I've been out and am doing the walk of shame in the morning then they are the first thing I take off when I get in as it is the WRONG DAY.

Then I shower off the smell of booze, kebab and floozy, put on the right socks and it's a new day with all memories of the previous night's indiscretions removed along with the socks.

ps just realised I was logged into an account I forgot existed when posting my earlier replies.
(bigjonnydynamite, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 8:03, 1 reply)

Email inboxes
I have to mark all messages as read as soon as I see them come in. For some reason I hate the bold font and number next to the folder in Outlook. It drives me mental when I see other people's mailboxes with them all over the place in their inbox, deleted items, personal folders etc. Am I the only one?
(JonnyDynamite, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 7:48, 11 replies)

That Otho Gammidge,
now ee were a queer one. Always talkin to hisself. An then Mirabella Brown, she...

oh, sorry, bizarre habits.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 4:56, 2 replies)

A few from me,
I have to check my emails as soon as I can. First page I check is my emails when I log in and it's the last place I visit when I log out. No reason, I know there's usually nothing there.

Then there is the ongoing battle with the light switch to the basement. There is one at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. When the light is off they should both point down. Someone in my house (presuming my father-in-law) keeps putting it the other way. Not sure if he does this on purpose or if he just uses the light going in one direction and turns it off when he goes the other way. Every few days I find myself having to correct the lights and walking up the stairs in darkness. Also I get driven crazy every time I look at the kitchen lights as one of them is upside down so they point in opposite directions when they are on. Plus the kitchen lights have to match the dining room lights as they are next to each other.

I have to set up my computer at work in a very particular way. I hate it when I move computers for a day and have to try and get everything set out just the way it was.

I eat skittles/smarties by grouping the colours together and then eating the lager groups until they are all even and then take 1 from each in a rotation. Tootie frooties however I save the red and purple ones until the end. It drives me crazy after I have finished all the other colours and then someone asks me for one. Sure, ask me when I only have the good ones left.

Eating in general, I have to eat each food separately. I start with my meat, then my veg and lastly my starch. Sometimes I will eat my starch before my veg, but never before my meat. Unless it's corn on the cob which I view as an appetizer. But not sweetcorn, sweetcorn is a veg and must be eaten after my meat.

Everything has to be an even number. except paper towels. I take 3 paper towels and then I take 2. No matter what size they are dispensed, 3 then 2. The only odd number I like is 5, the rest I don't like.

The other week I was at a training and there was a stack of wooden beams, some 10ft some 8ft. Some of the 8fts were under the 10fts so I started to unstack the piles and pull out the 8fts and then restack the 10fts so the were in line. there were 4 stacks, to make them fit into the create they were in and not leave too much of a gap I had to stack 3 rows vertically and 1 horizontally. I think I spent 15 minutes rearranging them when someone came over to ask what I was doing. I must look like a right wierdo to other people.

Sorry for lack of funnies.
( bobzarkoff, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 3:56, 6 replies)

Subjects are dumb
Mine are mostly gone now that I'm all grown up. I'll still slap the outside of an airplane, just to the right of the top corner of the door, as I'm boarding a flight.

When I was younger and riding in the car, whenever we passed a driveway (we lived in the middle of nowhere, so not all that often) my eyes would trace a line down the driveway to the road. I always had to do this an even number of times.

I'm still a little overly-cautious with checking to see if doors are locked, but as a teenager I would get in bed, get up to check that the door was locked, get back in bed, and repeat it at least 3 times.
(chase, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 2:52, Reply)

Housefly invasion
Whenever I'm on my computer and a housefly invades my workspace, I instinctively start to repeatedly whistle a speeded-up version of the first few bars of Tchaikovsky´s Nutcracker Overture until I've chased the housefly out the window.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 1:22, 2 replies)

Just a few...
...Have to close the front door, then hit it three times - if my hand hurts as I walk away, I know it's shut. This was my own cure, designed after having to walk back a mile or so "just to be sure" became a bit common.

...Lining things up to see if they are horizontal or vertical. If I'm looking out of a window and see, say, a telegraph pole, I like to adjust my viewpoint to line it up with the edge of the window so I can check its angle.

...Have to sleep with my ankles covered. This is because I fear the ankle-monster, who has lived under every bed I've ever had.
(Mousy Tongue ...Generally bemused by life..., Fri 2 Jul 2010, 1:04, 1 reply)

Not sure if this is bizarre...
...or just gross. Probably the latter to be honest.

But... my bizarre habit is skin peeling. And not just my own either, other peoples. It started a few years ago when my Grandmother had something wrong with her legs. I can't remember the exact name of it, but I believe it was linked to either fluid retention or kidney disease, she ended up hospitalised over it in the end. She was retaining water and she ended up with the skin on patches of her legs flaking off in thick, scaly pieces. She used to get me to sit down in front of her, with a pair of tweezers and peel it all off for her, because it drove her mad. It would break into smaller pieces as you tried to pull it off, so there was something really satisfying about getting all the skin off. Now if I or someone I know gets sunburnt, I love when it gets to the peeling stage so I can peel it all off.

I am a freak :(

Also, my sister says 'LOL' out loud instead of laughing whenever she finds something funny. I find that bizarre.
(Melody was not PMSing on, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:56, 5 replies)

Treating a 'lady' properly
Not me but a friend of the opposite gender (female), with whom I have a long, platonic friendship, which is under threat for the reasons I shall proceed to describe.

A while ago, she informed me that the correct behaviour for a gentleman, walking alongside a lady, is to make sure that he is the one closest to the road. In this way he is 'protecting' her from cars, splashes and other dangers real & imaginary. "Oh right", I replied blandly, assuming that she was telling me this because I'm perpetually single and she was worried that I might drive away the love of my life on our first date with my poor knowledge of ambulatory etiquette.

Not quite. Apparently she wanted me to do this when I was with her. Over the next few days, she proceeded to train me. The training took the form of her stopping in the middle of the pavement to yell at me every time I found myself on her 'wrong' side. This happened quite a lot, because I wasn't used to doing it and didn't care very much anyway.

We were on holiday at the time, and the week took a sour turn when I got bored of being chastised for continual breaches of this arbitrary new rule. A drunken argument developed, which quickly escalated into a stand-up row with onlookers. I demonstrated just how far I was from acquiring gentleman status by informing my friend, (quite loudly by this point) that I would only bother treating her like a lady if I wanted to impress her, that I would only want to impress her if I was hoping to shag her, and that I wouldn't want to shag her because she was fat, ugly and now apparently mental as well.

Clearly I didn't cover myself in glory, but what I want to know is why she suddenly insisted on this new arrangement after we'd been friends for a decade and more?
(slowly play it cool, Trig, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:40, 12 replies)

Always lock the door
I always have to lock the door when I'm taking a shit, even if there's nobody else in and no chance of them coming home. I think it becuase I used to live in a house with cats and one pushed a poorly shut door open and started rubbing itself around my ankles when I was dropping the kids off. It's a bizarre feeling having something furry rub itself around your legs while your starfish is stretching over a particularly large brown log, and not one I want to recreate.
(JonnyDynamite, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:24, 6 replies)

The Lucky Milk
It's a subject that's come up a fair bit with my friends and relatives, but it seems nobody knows about the lucky milk. Nobody but me.

When I open a new bottle of milk, I lick the foil-y bit. Same with yoghurt pots, and cartons of cream. I do it without thinking. It's earned me many a strange look when in the company of my mother or friends. I've been known to walk into the kitchen to help my mum with the tea order, see her opening the milk and whip it out of her hand to lick it. If the foil gets thrown away with the lucky milk still on it, I have an impulse to take it out the bin and lick it. Even if it's been in the bin several hours with a used tea-bag, some cold beans and a clump of cat hair sitting on top of it.

However, I have been able to control this urge, and haven't actually gone so far as to remove said item from the bin and lick it. Yet.
(Elegant Lady Vee is not my real name., Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:16, 2 replies)

Imaginary sniper
Whenever I'm watching anything on television and any vaguely irritating person (a horribly unfunny comedian, a politician, or just anyone at all if I'm in a bad mood) comes on the screen, I will go through an elaborate imaginary sniper ritual whereby I pull out an invisible bolt action rifle, load a shell (while making "clickety-chik" sound effects), take careful aim, and fire -- complete with "POW!" sound effect and recoil. BOOM, HEADSHOT.

Then I'll switch to the victim's point of view, and snap my head sideways while crumpling to the floor not entirely unlike those poor soldiers at the beginning of _Saving Private Ryan_ when they land on the beach.

I swear, it's a great stress reliever. No, really.
(The 2-Belo OH SHI--[Sound of impact][End of recording], Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:15, 2 replies)

Are all you folk getting unsolicited gazs from ambulance chasing psychiatrists?

If not, you should be!

Mind you...before I went electric I used to hold my toothbrush steady and move my head from side to side and up and down.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:08, Reply)

Cocaine
Well let's be honest, it is pretty damn bizarre. Fifty english pounds a pop just to feel confident and good about yourself for a couple of hours. I could have bought a new pair of trainers for that. Fuck.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:07, 6 replies)

Odd, or 8, or 14
I do a job where I have to carry a walkie-talkie around (which I still think is really cool, despite being in my mid-thirties). The walkie-talkies arrive with a technician, each of whom has their own kit. The technicians number their handsets to make sure they get them all back.

I will only accept a handset with an odd number, or 8, or 14. If no odd numbers are available, I want one with two numbers that add up to an odd number, or 8, or 14. e.g. 412 is acceptable, so is 404. Oh, and I won't have 1 or 11, or 111.

I don't see what's unreasonable about this.
(slowly play it cool, Trig, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 0:04, Reply)

Internet speak....
Further to my post below with regard to surfing the internet incessantly I have now developed some interesting side effects on the way I conduct my internal dialogue. Pre internet days I would walk around and have normal conversations in my head about everyday stuff. You know the ones. You're in the supermarket and you see something you like. Your brain says to your conscience, 'Hey, that's a good deal. Get it'. You have the briefest of arguments with the part of thoughts trying to justify why you should spend 50 pence more on muesli that has "10% more fruit" and "Contains no dust".

However these days when I see something that surprises me I exclain 'ZOMG111'. And I'll actually say it like this 'Zo my God one eleven'. Then almost immediately a picture of a startled cat will play out in my mind. Similarly the other day a fat chick got stuck in the doors of the train. Comically the doors stayed closed for much longer than they should of and she ended up screaming at the top of her voice to be released. All I could think to say to myself was "lolcats". As if any comical situation was in someway related to lolcats.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:35, 3 replies)

Thought of some more
If I'm using the microwave to make something, it has to have completely used up all the time I've given it before I can take something out. If I can see that whatever is inside is about to catch fire, then I will take it out but I have to delete whatever time is left. Going to use the microwave and finding 37 seconds leftover from whoever has used it last freaks me out, it needs to be a clean start.

When I'm driving, I have a set routine - engine on, lock all the doors, seatbelt on, window, light fag, check mirrors, and go. I can't take my handbrake off until all this is done. Locking the doors drives my mates mad when they try to get out and find themselves trapped, but I just feel safer driving with doors locked, regardless of where I am or what time it is.

If I need to get up early, at say 4.30am, I have to set about ten different alarms all spaced out in multiples of five or ten from about 3.30 - so 3.30, 3.40, 3.45 etc until I've reached 4.30.

I eat most of my food in a pattern - a piece of steak, piece of potato, piece of veg etc until it's all gone.

Doing the washing up has to be done in a pattern for me too. It goes: glasses, cutlery, plates, then really dirty things like pots/pans. If anyone tries to help me, I have to shoo them away, I just don't think they'll be clean unless I do it that way.

In work, I have the most OCD habits ever. I work in a coffee shop, and I have my own way of doing things. If I'm on bar making drinks and anyone tries to help me, I can't let them - them 'helping' me messes it up, and I end up worse off than I was before they came along.

Control freak? Moi?
(Twinx, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:26, Reply)

I would type my OCD story here, but I can never get the keyboard clean enough to bring myself to touch it ... OH SHI
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:11, 1 reply)

Days of the week also have colours in my head.
Monday - Ice blue
Tuesday - Green
Wednesday - Orange/Red
Thursday - Dark Blue
Friday - Brown
Saturday - white
and Sunday also Dark blue.

No idea why?
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:09, 8 replies)

Music creation software
I always colour code my individual channels.

Drum loops are dark blue
Bass lines are light blue
Melodies (such as virtual guitars) are yellow
Pads and strings are orange
Vocals are purple.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:07, Reply)

I used to hold my breath when driving under bridges
and through tunnels. This got especially difficult if the tunnel was quite long, such as the Mersey tunnel.

I gave up when going to France.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:05, Reply)

Zombie escape routes and refuge spots.
Probably because of my obsession with George A Romero films, but whenever I move to a new area or visit a place, I always check the supermarkets for 'entrances' in case of a zombie outbreak. Yes, i know they're not real (zombies not supermarkets) but this doesn't stop me.

For instance in my home town Tesco's is the least safest supermarket due to the multitude of glass windows but Morrisons is the most secure due to the roller shutters that cover every window (the easiest way in is by climbing the fire escape, presumably smashing the 1st floor window with a shopping trolley and dropping the fifteen feet into the supermarket). Morrison's also has a territorial army barracks less than 2 minutes away too - In case i need guns or something, although i've not figured a way out yet (as i'd effectively be trapped inside with all the food and booze).
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 23:02, 9 replies)

Every night..
I'll come home and sit for a few hours on the internet. I'm not writing emails or doing anything constructive and to be honest it can be rather boring sometimes. But never the less I will still do it. It baffles me as to why I need to sit and look at other peoples drivel and mindlessly boring lives. Why do I need to read the sun and see who's shaggin who? What is so interesting about reading cracked and seeing the Top 6 most perverted people in history ever. And lets be honest I can't remember any of this shit anyway. For all the time I spend on the internet it enriches my life how exactly? Oh joy, I get to join in the conversation down the pub when we discuss the sickest thing we've seen on the internet.That is probably the sum total of the benefit I get from surfing the intenet.

And yet, I know all this and I'm still compelled to turn my computer on and mindlessly gaze into the multicoloured binary abyss. It is OCD. It is bizarre.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:27, 2 replies)

If I'm slightly higher than surrounding buildings
For example, the canteen at my former workplace overlooked several old buildings with their back alleys, courtyards and varying height rooves, I would see it as a level from Tomb Raider and would catch myself thinking 'i could climb up there, jump that gap and shimmy left. Then drop down and go through that door which would probably come out at that other door higher up' etc.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:25, 3 replies)

Books, Magazines, DVDs etc
When buying anything which comes in a stack on a shelf I HAVE to flick to the middle of the pile and pick one of those, check the case/pages etc are in perfect condition then I buy it. I once had to walk out of WH Smiths to Waterstones to buy a book I wanted because Smith's only had 1 copy left on the shelf and I couldn't buy it as it wasnt 'right' and was from the front.

I also have to put DVDs/CDs into disk drives/cases with the image exactly straight or line coins up in size order, tails side up with the images in a perfect line.
(Haggard, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:24, 2 replies)

As Soon As I Shut That Bathroom Door....
Then I usually shout out some epithet, or mantra. Favorites these days include "Bitch!", or "$80,000!" (my mortgage balance) or "$800,000!" (my theater's mortgage balance). Sometimes I start Presidential orations that drift into silence - "My fellow Americans..." (in the manner of Lyndon Johnson), or plead in the manner of a newspaper reporter "Mr. President, Mr. President!"

When it's late at night at work, the air conditioning system sounds a bit like conversation in the distance: murmuring, babbling. I just know one of these days I'll be able to understand the voices, and then I can enter a new realm of personal adventure and exploration!
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:09, 1 reply)

when i was much much younger
i had a bunch of these that were more 'usual'. All books had to be symmetrical on the shelves and i had 2 book cases even then. If i took one out (which was frequent) i'd have to move them about from shelf to shelf to reset the pattern. My shoelaces had to be EXACTLY the same length untied, and again after being tied. Toast had to be buttered and marmited correctly. Failure at any of these could drive me into a fit of rage... they have words for it now i'm told :/

i'm much better now...

apart from little things like running through the same snap daydream of a large antigravity battleship firing its bank of cannons in a certain way when entering the little boys room... freudian yes, but its not an OCD thing, its just a habit. Like picking up feathers if i see them but only the ones that i know i should pick up.
(DreddPirateBob has watched every scifi film ever on, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:05, 1 reply)

i almost always have music playing
When I'm driving. I also almost always change gear in time to the music. Not just in time but on the first beat of the bar. The same goes for coming off a mini roundabout and I do that thing where you let the wheel slide back on its own, I'll let it slide nd then stop it in time to the music.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:03, Reply)

When does masturbation become habit?
It's starting to feel like
"Oh I've got 20 minutes spare ,might as well".
(Tangerine_Avenger, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 22:01, 4 replies)