“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” — Robert Fulghum
We all have quirks. Everyone I know has a quirk, some random behavior or belief they know is unbelievably weird but so instinctive, so inherent to their being, there’s no way to willingly let it go. For example…
One my closest relatives eats chalk. Seriously, she stashes it everywhere. Her nightstand, her car, her kitchen, her purse. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened a random drawer in her house to find a box of opened chalk with a couple of half-gnawed sticks inside. I mean, what!?
A dear friend of mine peels, salts and eats raw lemons like they’re oranges. It’s his favorite snack, which of course begs the question, WHY, GOD, WHY!? Bah! It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it!!
My college roomie was a total sucker for dumb animal commercials. This is a very intelligent person we’re talking about here, but I swear to Moses, if it had a talking animal, she could not help but laugh… Every. Damn. Time. Remember these guys? Yup, she couldn’t stop giggling.
While I have many of these myself, one of my defining quirks is cetaphobia, otherwise known as “whale fear,” and YES, this is real thing, and NO, I don’t know why I have it or where it came from. My best guess is that I was a seal in my last life (I AM an accomplished distance swimmer despite my rather blubbery physique) and I must have met a violent and untimely end in the jaws of an orca. (I hope this means I can come back in my next life as a ridiculously cute puppy with doting owners…)
By the by, I am not kidding about this shit. Shamu is the frickin’ devil as far as I’m concerned.
I am deathly afraid of all whales and several other sea creatures as well, but orcas in particular give me the heebie jeebies. In fact, I would say at least 50% of my nightmares feature these loathsome creatures, regardless of whether or not they take place anywhere close to the ocean.
For instance, I had one horrible dream that I was at a high school reunion, staged at a mountain retreat in the wintry woods (because I went to school in Socal so of course — thank you, dream logic.). When everyone decided to go ice skating on the lake, I hung back and watched from the bleachers (why there were bleachers, I have no idea). From on high, what could I see swimming just below the surface of the ice, waiting to break through and DEVOUR MY OLD FRIENDS? Yup. Shamu the Shamumalitor.
Another night I foolishly decided to read a bunch of Scientology exposé articles right before bedtime. Once the lights were out and I drifted off to dreamland, I found myself trapped in one of their underground desert bunkers, trying to sneak my way from level to to level in an effort to escape. WHAT DID I FIND ON THE THIRD TO LAST LEVEL!?!? One big, empty floor, all concrete with nothing but a giant tank and a one angry, lonely, watchful orca. I’d rather encounter a pack of angry pitbulls!!
I have had many, many more of these horrid nightmares, and while they do honestly scare the bejeesus out of me, I figure this is just my cross to bear. My very own fun quirk if you will. At least it makes for amusing storytelling at boring social functions. After all, if you dig deep enough, there’s always a silver lining.
My question is: what’s one of your unique personality quirks? What strange little habit/tick/belief is so embedded in your being you can’t imagine existing without it? I mean, everyone’s got SOMETHING, do they not?