5 quirks

Okay. Cullen tagged me — and I’m going to try to be better on “tagging follow-through” this year …. once I’m done laughing at that statement.

Anyway …. I’m supposed to name 5 of my quirks, which works out well because I have EXACTLY 5 — and no more. NO MORE, I SAY!

1) I love coffee. Not a quirk, I know, but here’s the thing: I’ve never, ever finished a cup of coffee. Think I’m exaggerating? I’m not. My Beloved will vouch for this. He likes to say, “For you, coffee is not a beverage; it’s an accessory.” Hahaha. Well, I am quite good at carrying it around with that certain artistic nonchalance we all strive for.

But, you see, I do drink it; I do. I just don’t finish it. Ever. I don’t know why. I do try, though. I mean, I always buy the smallest size cup, I never finish it, but because I feel guilty that I never finish it, I’ll put it in the fridge thinking I will finish it later — which I never do, because that would be — let’s face it — disgusting. So, far too often, our fridge becomes what MB calls the “Coffee Cup Graveyard” — old Starbucks cups standing in silent sentinel, a leaky, paper monument to my inability to finish what I start or let things go. It begs questions like “why?” and “what for?” and “seriously — what the !%@#!?! are these doing here??”

Truly, this is a deep, deep mystery.

So “Coffee Cup Graveyard”? I think not. I prefer to call it “Coffee Cup Stonehenge.”

2) I cannot be a passenger in a car that’s going up a steep hill. Sound stupid? Oh, trust me, it IS. Intensely stupid. Because it used to be downhill as well, but I’m (mostly) cured of that. And if you’re thinking “She can’t mean what I think she means.” Oh, I’m sure I do. It’s just this simple: If I’m a passenger in a car and we come upon a very steep hill — and in my defense, it has to be very steep — but don’t ask me what “very steep” is, I just know — I will GET OUT OF THE CAR AND WALK because I am sure we will start sliding furiously backwards and I will lose my voice from all the screaming I will do — which could be viewed as a sign of mistrust — but that all this won’t matter anyway once we hit the bottom of the hill and I’m dead. So I really shouldn’t worry about the screaming part.

How did I get this way, you wonder? Well, once, a very steep — and very evil — hill in Seattle met my friend’s decrepit Volkwagen and decided to play head games with it while I was in the car. It ended ….. unhappily.

And I missed my audition, too.

Stupid, thoughtless hill.

3) I like Lay’s potato chips — too much — so I will only allow myself eat the ones that are nicely folded over on themselves. I like their compact crunchiness. I don’t know. Let’s go with that as the reason why. But look at it this way: More chips for you!!

4) I sleep with a white noise device next to the bed. You know, one of those machines that goes “WHHHHOOOOOSSSSSHHHHH” while you sleep. My parents bought me one when I went away to college — to help me fall asleep in the noisy dorm, I guess. (Never mind that no one sleeps in college. Except during class, of course.) Anyway, seems I got very used to it, verrrry, because I ended up sleeping straight through a fire drill in college — and the fire alarm was on the wall right outside my door. My roommate thought I was dead.

(Not dead, just — whhhhhooooosssshhhhh — sleepin’. )

And, you know, I think it’s so courageous that — even in the face of my recent passing — she still went on that fire drill.

Well, you gotta move on, you know?

5) Now that I’ve lost all credibility as a sane person, let’s go for the coup de grace: I REALLY don’t like sitting next to strangers in movie theaters. Now, I’m sure that lots of people don’t like this, so big whoop, right? Weelll ….. um ….. I’ve been known to …. you know, in the PAST, not LATELY, of course ….spill water on the seat next to me so no one can sit there. Now — I’ve been known to do this more particularly if the movie has started and people whose concept of time is woefully different from mine come lumbering my way with their extra large drinks and their extra large popcorns and their extra large arses needing to squeeze past that extra small space in front of me to get to THE SEAT THEY SIMPLY MUST HAVE — the one next to ME!

“Ohhh, you know what? That one’s wet or something. I mean, I don’t know if you want to sit on that.”

“Oh, really? Ewww. Okay. Thanks for telling us.”

And … off they go.

I know. It’s dreadful. SHAMEFUL. And I truly haven’t done that in a very, very long time. (Now, of course, I’ll never be able to do it again, since I’ve confessed it here. That was dumb, Tracey.)

At least it was water. We all know those seats get a LOT worse. So, I was cleaning them, you see.

Okay. There you have it — my 5 quirks.

Sooooo ….. wanna hang out?