Whenever I travel the interstate highways
and go north through Pennsylvania, the moment I cross the border into the state I have to imitate the first moments of "The Lion King" and bellow "Peeeeeennsylvania Welcomes You!"

I've been doing it since the kids were infants. Now that they're grown they do it too.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 15 Dec 2011, 16:03, 2 replies)

An Irish chap came up to me in the pub last night and asked in a very loud voice: "Sock on, or socks off?"
Obviously, socks on - I don't think the missus has ever seen my feet.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 16:01, Reply)

Every day I try and dislodge the wobbly front step at work
my idea of a get rich quick scheme

_{4 years and counting}
(KarlToOnZ feels like crap on, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:57, Reply)

Whenever I have a Stella Artois
I start singing the chorus of this: www.rathergood.com/supercool_winkytool
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:47, Reply)

Vogue and peanuts and falling in love
He first noticed that it wasn’t quite right when he was sat at their table in the pub, waiting for her to get off her mobile phone. He was idly flicking through the copy of ‘Vogue’ that she had left on the table in front, paying perhaps closer attention to the pictures of Kate Moss than he should have been. Nevertheless, he was still surprised to have the magazine gently removed from his hands and laid, face up, closed and perfectly aligned with the edge of the table. She hung up the phone and looked at the magazine, then at him and said ‘sorry, but you were ruining my magazine. I need to flick through each page myself while it’s fresh’. OK, he thought, that’s a bit odd. But then realised that he felt quite similarly if he wasn’t the first one to open the Sunday paper.

They talked, she ate peanuts, drank white wine. The peanuts were cupped in her hand. He looked at her, amazed at how sweet and delicate she was. Incredibly ladylike, the way she slowly picked the peanuts out of her hand one by one. It took him ages, but eventually he realised that she was always taking either one whole peanut, or two halves. The fewer peanuts she had in her hand, the slower the process became. He watched her, her face screwed up in concentration, eventually the last peanut was gone, and she slowly emptied another handful onto her palm and started again, one by one, slowly delicately. When there were just a few left, he realised that he may as well not be there for all the focus she was giving him, and he watched, silently. She seemed totally unaware that they weren’t even talking. He noticed that there were three peanut halves in her hand. She took two, put them in her mouth and let the last, solitary half salted peanut drop to the floor. He recalled a conversation he had had with a friend a few months earlier about how she had to eat everything in pairs. How odd numbers made her feel uncomfortable, how she attributed it to a mild version of Obsessive Compulsion Disorder.

He pictured the bathroom, where her stuff had gradually been accumulating recently. The bottles of girls potions lined up on the shelf, in descending size order from left to right. He pictured the rectangular bathmat that he had laid next to the bath haphazardly that had move to fit snugly in the corner between the bath and wall, he pictured the perfectly folded towels, the socks laid in pairs, flat over the end of his bed that she had spent what felt like hours sorting out that morning. I guess that’s two people I know with it then, he thought while absent-mindedly, barely even aware was doing it doing it, pushing the quick of his left thumbnail down with his left forefinger, then the quick of his forefinger with the same thumb, then the middle finger, the ring finger and finally his left pinkie. Then he became aware of a strange discomfort in his right hand and he repeated the process on that side, finally feeling relaxed as his right thumbnail pushed against the skin of the last finger. He touched his right ear, then his left, then he polished his glasses on his shirt tails, vaguely aware that he had only just done this, so they couldn’t possibly need cleaning.

She finished the peanuts and again, a solitary peanut half dropped to the floor and she laid the empty packet on the table. Instantly he picked it up and folded it in half length ways, rubbed it across the edge of the table, forcing the air out. He folded it again, rubbed it across the table again and started folding it at right angles, over, under, until he was left with about half an inch that he tucked delicately into the folds, leaving a perfect right angle triangle of the peanut pack. He laid it carefully on the table, and looked at her again as she tapped each finger on the table edge, one by one. She then picked up the peanut wrapper, looked at it, looked at him inquisitively. Defensive, that was the word for how he felt under that gaze. ‘It’s just something I do’ he spluttered. ‘It looks…neater…’ She dropped it in the ashtray. He tried to resist, he really did, but he knew it was there, sitting in the ash and he had to pick it up, dust it off and lay it on the table. ‘Sorry’ he said ‘I don’t like other things in ashtrays. I can’t help feeling that they are going to catch light’. But she didn’t really hear him, she was too busy lining up the two empty wine glasses in front of her.

‘Shall we go?’ he asked, she nodded in agreement and moved away from the table. He went to pick up her magazine for her. ‘Leave it be, please, I can’t read it now’ They walked home, he was still pondering her behaviour when she slipped her arm around his waist, kissed him on the cheek, looked up at him and said ‘I was watching you tonight. I think you have OCD’.

That was Seven years ago. That was the moment he fell in love. And now he can’t imagine life without her.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:45, 11 replies)

Everytime I have a shit
I wipe my arse afterwards
( Regger, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:40, 12 replies)

I count out the rhythm of any sexual activity by resolving the dates of famous historical events into their prime factors.
So the Battle of Hastings is 14101066 which resolves to 2 x 7 x 773 x 1303.

But I'm only allowed to climax when the event has three or fewer factors. So Henry VIII took the throne on 21 April 1509 which is 19 x 269 x 419. Bingo. Moneyshot.

If there is only one factor then I allow myself to defecate while I ejaculate. Which is why I love JFK.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:31, 16 replies)

i have a few
when having a shower, leaning in to turn said shower on so it gets 'up to temperature', I must do this without getting my arm wet, even though I'm about to get all of me wet. It just feels like i'm an idiot with a wet arm waiting for the water to get hot...

I have to put my left shoe/sock/trouser leg on first. always, since I was about 9 or 10... If I go into a shop and they bring me the right shoe, I really have to think if I'll buy the pair of shoes. I don't know why I do this.

My beans must not get my chips wet. Like Partridge I need to use the sausage as a breaker.

When watching/listening to football, however I find out the latest score or half time score is how I have to find all other latest scores on said match, even if that means walking the long way back to the car to go past currys.
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:28, Reply)

I'm willing to bet that I'm not alone in this...
I regularly flush the loo just as I start my piddle... and RACE!
(not when I sit down for a plop though!)
( DanGleeballs Moist people don't notice spelling errors..., Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:26, 9 replies)

I used to count to twenty-two before I did things.
Especially getting out of bed. The rule was, my mum had to go for a whole twenty-two seconds after telling me to get up without shouting again, then I could get up.

I don't count to twenty-two any more, although, I often count to an arbitrary number before doing things, or decide on a number to count to while doing things i.e. twenty-five turns of the pepper mill this time, or 4 seconds under the tap should be enough water to fill this pan.

I also have to finish all of one type of food on my plate, before I start another. Once again, I'm not as bad now as when I was younger. At the age of ten, if I found a pea under my meat after I had finished the peas and started eating something else, it would have quite upset me. Now, I just eat the pea, and hardly think about it.

The two foods I feel really go together are sausages and egg yolks. I've become an expert at removing the yolks from the whites on my fry up without breaking them, so I can save them for my sausage which always comes last.

It's quite sad that the most detailed and comprehensive amount of information I carry around in my head is the order food on the same plate should be eaten in.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:24, Reply)

Whenever I'm in a pub/bar/tavern/nightclub
I have an alcoholic beverage. Sometimes several.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:22, 7 replies)

I can't leave curtains open in the evening.....
doesn't matter if it's summer or winter, cold or hot, dark or light outside. I cannot sit in a room where people can look in at me like I'm a goldfish in a bowl.
Bought a 5th floor flat many years ago and I still couldn't leave them open, even though there was nothing in front of the window apart from the sea.
( NooShmoo It's a fantazmagorical pile of ultra bollocks, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:08, 9 replies)

I like to pee in a circle motion.
I've found it's the quickest and most satisfactory way of turning the clean toilet water pissy yellow.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:05, Reply)

Punctuated Equilibrium*
For a couple of years when I was 12 or 13 I was beholden to the idea that the punctuation marks in a sentence had a kind of numerical value, and that a well-constructed sentence would be one in which the value of the punctuation added up to an integer (in rather the same way that a bar of musical score has to have the right - whole - number of beats in it). If a sentence didn't meet this criterion, it'd be somehow unbalanced or unfinished.

A comma was worth one half of a "beat", for example; a semi-colon was worth one and a half beats. A colon - notwithstanding that I didn't use them much - was worth two. So a sentence could have two commas, or a coma and a semi-colon, because that way its value'd be a whole number. Just one comma in a sentence, though, would have been unacceptable - unless there was a semi-colon as well.

I commited syntactic atrocities just to get enough clauses and subclauses into my sentences in order that they obey the rule.

And then, suddenly, I stopped caring, at roughly the same time that a small number of my classes at school became co-educational. Odd coincindence, that.


*Reposed from about 18 months ago.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:04, 2 replies)

I have found out that quite a few people share my 'only able to get out of bed if the time on the alarm clock ends in 0 or 5 strangeness.'
But I have taken this a step further.
~~~~~~
I log on to the computer at work.- 'Oh for Fucks sake!'
Colleague, concerned.- 'Whats up? you OK?'
Me- 'Yeah, but some twat has left the volume of this PC at 37.'
Colleague- 'Er, So?'
Me- It's a prime number. I'm going to have to change it to 35 or 40 now. Why can't they just leave it at a proper number like normal people? I'm all tense now.'
Colleague- 'You what?'
Me- If it was one less, 36, that would have been OK because it's a square number. Fucking idiots.'
Colleague. 'You're strange.'
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:02, 4 replies)

The Bed
I HAVE to tuck the bottom of the duvet in, I cannot under any circumstances have my feet waving around in the night breeze.
Something might bite my toes.
If I have to I will turf my wife out of our bed and totally remake it. Pisses the cats off no end, not to mention the wife.
(SpangoTheWonderBadger is brewing beer, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:59, 12 replies)

Off-topic
26 against 1 dissenter where the 26 do what they want is not called "exercising veto". It's called "losing".
(SpangleDangle >->)))'>, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:49, 2 replies)

I scrutise the current QOTW
and see how similar it is to previous ones. I will then go through a matching previous QOTW ferreting out all of my answers and reposting them sporadically throughout the week.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:48, 2 replies)

Dark rooms
I won't enter a dark room. I will stand outside, reach in and switch the light on before going through the doorway. The door could be wide open and the room be partially illuminated from light from the corridor but I will not go in.
I think it came from being a bit afraid of the dark as a wee one and now it has just become habit.
(Darth Thump, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:43, 6 replies)

Every day I visit a comedy website

( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:42, 2 replies)

If a car window is to be wound down partially
then the diagonal edge of the glass must intersect with the right-angle of the window frame exactly.
Even if this means a protracted sequence of tiny up-down adjustments.
(i.charlius *Two Ronnies Theme*, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:39, 1 reply)

I have a ritual where I sacrifice a goat/prostitute/noob/child every time there is a full moon
with a home-made dagger I have lovingly crafted and honed over many months and polished into an exquisite, blood repellent sheen.

But then, who doesn't eh?
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:38, Reply)

I like to put all five of the people who post before me on QOTW on "Ignore"
And then say "First!" and kid myself it's true.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:30, 3 replies)

I have this weird ritual
that I go through most days where I pretend to an honest day's work and they pretend to give me an honest day's pay.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:29, 3 replies)

I sit to wipe, cannot do otherwise, it's inexplicable but to stand and wipe would mess with my head (so to speak). Candid discussions with friends suggest I am alone in this methodology.
(Amberleaf, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:29, 14 replies)

I have to close every open app on my phone when I'm not using it
Even if I end up going and opening it up again a minute later.

I think this is going to expose a lot of people with undiagnosed OCD
(wehttamman via B3ta for microwave, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:28, 2 replies)

I'm mildly CDO
its like OCD but all the letters are in the correct alphabetical order like they should be.
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:26, 1 reply)

I sometimes hang around b3ta waiting for a new QOTW on Thursdays.
Then I sit idly by while people post "first" and tut at my computer.
( Zuowan, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 14:22, 4 replies)