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)

I hope they don't breed.
Odds are, one of them will cave in the child's head, as it'll bring nothing but disorder to their lives.

Wait, was this story about you?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:51, closed)

Shit
I do that thing with crisp and peanut packets every time. Every. Time. Meticulously.
(rockdoctor, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 15:55, closed)

I know people who start the fold in the middle.
I think they do it on purpose just to irritate me.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Fri 16 Dec 2011, 9:04, closed)

the thing with the fingers
yep. regularly.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 16:01, closed)

Always one that answers last weeks question..
(Outtheresomewhere, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 16:43, closed)

Hahahahahhaa.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 17:00, closed)

God that was sweet.
I nearly cried.
(yourmumonastickwithmintsauce, Thu 15 Dec 2011, 21:28, closed)

I remember when you 1st posted this story
it's as beautiful now as it was then.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Fri 16 Dec 2011, 13:21, closed)

I couldn't remember if I'd posted it before or not, I thought I might have but wasn't sure, because it was written for something else.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Sat 17 Dec 2011, 17:36, closed)

Christ
How did they ever get around to shagging?
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 16 Dec 2011, 13:49, closed)

Match made in OCD heaven, or hell, depending on who's opining.

You'll want children, of course. Perhaps accomplished best by sending all of your money to an orphanage in Asia, to avoid all the disorder of child-rearing and the guilt of bringing a child into this world that shares your strongest traits. As I daily have when my own folds her napkin in half, then again, and again, neatly creasing, until it is properly ready to be binned.

Just kidding. Bring many pairs of children into this world. We need more like you!
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Sun 18 Dec 2011, 17:44, closed)