A tribute to oddity
Some talk to themselves. Others refuse to let different foods touch on their plates. Others must eat their Skittles in a specific, color-determined order. There are also a fair number of people in this world whose CDs and DVDs absolutely must be in alphabetical order.
And then there are the people who can’t bear to turn off the radio mid-song, so they sit in their cars to finish it after arriving at their destinations.
Whatever it is, most people have at least one little odd behavior that baffles those around them.
Author Judy Reiser has written two entire books on idiosyncrasies. After interviewing more than 2,500 people about their quirks, she published her findings in “And I Thought I was Crazy!” And “Admit It. You’re Crazy.”
Her findings include a teenage girl who made it a point to wear all her T-shirts the same number of times, a college student who sneezed exactly three times before going to bed every night and a grandmother who had every check in her checkbook predetermined to pay for a specific item.
After spending an afternoon interviewing random people in the Union, I discovered our campus also has its fair share of people with quirks. To avoid any embarrassment by friends or harassment by people intent on using their pet peeves against them, only their first names and majors will be used to refer to these people.
Bethany, dietetics, named her phone “Celly.” A friend gave her previous phone a name, so it only seemed natural to continue to name them.
Rachel, a psychology major, always takes off her shoes the instant she sits down, even in class. She also says she hates it when guests go into her kitchen.
Ross, a communications professor, sometimes feels uncomfortable with the idea of using a dirty keyboard that has been handled by so many other people. When he feels this way, he unplugs the keyboard and wipes it off before using it.
Stan, a computer science major, goes out of his way to avoid using teller machines. He says that as a computer science major, he is very aware of how they are programmed. The slightest error in the programming could cause the user to lose money. While it is not very likely to happen, it is not a chance he wants to take.
Shane, microbiology, has a ritual for eating E.L. Fudge cookies. He eats one of each, and it is always in the same order.
I, of course, don’t have any quirks. I am simply a perfectly normal person who enjoys observing peculiarities in other people’s behavior.
Those who know me personally will probably disagree. However, I see nothing odd about the fact that my CDs absolutely must be in their jewel cases. It bothers me if they are in a CD wallet. If I go on a road trip and put the CDs in a wallet so I can listen to them in the car, I have to take all of them back out and put them back in the jewel cases.
There is also nothing odd about my tendency to use a fake British accent when I tell a joke, or my habit of swaying my whole body back and forth when I use a hand drier rather than just moving my hands. Everyone does that, don’t they?
Perhaps this goes to show a quote I read as a child holding true: “Eccentricity is like an accent. It’s something someone else has.”
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum