Bits for Sunday, May 25th

One of my birthday gifts was an adorable sticker set for scrapping. Five or six pages, filled with words that look like they’re written on labels…perfect for pages and cards. Today I made the opening page to my birthday scrapbook. I used my biggest alphabet stamps to write out the date and event, and then I pilfered through the stickers, looking for words that I thought described me in a nutshell. (No, nutshell nor any other word resembling it was used.) One word I did find to fit on my descriptor page was quirky. I realize some of you may prefer to label me as weird, but I prefer quirky.

This caused me to think of some examples of said quirkiness. And so, I present to you…my top five quirks.

* I watch TV with the captions enabled. I have done this for so long that I forget not everyone does it. When people come over to my house, they ask about it immediately. That is usually followed by a request to make the words stop.

How did I start this strange behavior? It began in college. That was the first time in my life I’d shared a room with anyone, and one of the hardest things about the arrangement was learning to drown out a TV while I tried to go to sleep. The last roommate I had was a night owl like me, so it didn’t often create an issue, but sometimes one of us would have an early morning appointment or a test the next day, and sleep was important. We discovered that my TV had a caption option, so we learned to use it. That way the one who wanted to stay up could simply read Jay Leno’s monologue or the Huxtable’s latest teenage dilemma, and the other could sleep peacefully.

After a while, the captions became so routine that we left them on even when watching TV in the daytime. Now I have discovered that when I don’t watch captioned TV, I miss about 20% of the program. My friend Amber used to come over to watch a show every week, and she’d bring her two little boys with her. We turned on the captions and those boys could run and chatter throughout the house and we never missed a beat. So call me quirky, but at least I don’t have to say “What’d they say?”

* I cannot stand uneven blinds. This results in much teasing at work, but I can’t help it. The blinds on the windows should not be under-turned, or over-turned. They need to be perfectly straight for maximum viewing pleasure through to the other side.

I have been known to refuse to sit down for a meeting until all blinds are straightened…and I’ve been known to ask someone during a meeting to please fix the one messed up blind slat behind him or her. People in my office have been known to have a few ideas of their own…such as dragging their hands down the blinds just to throw off a dozen or so, and then taking great pleasure in watching me try not to cross my eyes or shiver.

* I am not a fan of shorthand in texts and instant messages. If it’s not shorthand – then whatever it’s called. Abbreviations. I don’t mind LOL (laughing out loud, just in case you don’t know) and I’ll use that one. But anything else needs to be written out in full. Maybe it’s the English lover in me. I’m not sure. But UR is not you are. Y is not why and B is not be. No wonder no one can write anymore!! (Okay now I’m sounding old. Time to stop.)

But I will say that while most of the abbreviations just annoy me, the use of TX for thanks actually offends me. Come on people. You can be grateful enough to add the extra four letters to type out a real word.

* I have a serious gum issue. And I don’t mean medically speaking. I have an aversion to gum, which has recently come to the attention of one of the girls in my office, and she is enjoying it entirely too much. She found this little wad of white sticky tack and she brings it back to my office, molds it into the shape of a wad of gum and hides it somewhere. Then she waits to see how long it takes me to find it and freak out.

I used to chew gum before I was diagnosed with TMJ and told to quit. But even when I was a participant, I couldn’t stand the sight of gum that wasn’t in someone’s mouth. In high school, I’d make my friends cover it up when they stuck it on their trays. At summer camp, the “gum plate” that was posted by the door to the dining hall…made me sick to my stomach. Gum on sidewalks, sticking to the side of trash cans, stuck under a DESK…ewwww!!! And now that I’m no longer a chewer, I find myself painfully aware of other people’s gum-gnawing habits. And if they pop it – FORGET IT. Wait for “the look” to begin.

* I must sit at the end of the row. I’m pretty well known for this at church. I prefer the end seat. If I don’t get the very end, I can accept spots two or three in – but no more. Where did this oddity start, you ask? One summer back in my college years, I went to a program in a large auditorium. Several older people from my church were with me and I was smack in the middle of the row. And halfway through the program I felt very sick. The aisle was about half a person wide, everyone’s legs were stretched out, and two or three of my crew came with walkers and canes that also took up some room. I almost never got out…and now…I won’t do that again!

So there you go. Quirks from Bekahland. And now that I have trusted you with this information, if I find you turning off my captions, raking your hands down the blinds, popping your gum, snatching up all the end seats, or writing me notes that say UR GR8, TX…

I’ll probably just roll my eyes and walk away.