I’m not controversial. I’m vanilla.
But every now and then, people find out little quirks about me and their HEADS EXPLODE. LITERALLY.
So I thought I’d share some of them here. A few little (surprisingly controversial to some) quirky things about me.
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I don’t eat cheese. I never have. I can’t stand the smell; I used to leave the house whenever there was a lasagne or other cheesy meal in the oven. VOMIT.
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I order my Uno cards by number. I didn’t think it was that big a deal until my husband made a passing remark. I asked the question on Facebook, and WHOA. We number-orderer types are outnumbered about a thousand to one.
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I open jars and bottles with my non-dominant hand. This is less controversial. Facebook reliably(?) informs me that it’s about 60-40 on this one. Most use their dominant hand, but a large minority hold the lid with their non-dominant hand and then turn the bottle or jar itself.
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I can turn my elbows inside-out. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But I can hyperextend my elbows, and it freaks people out. It brought my short-lived calisthenics career to a screeching halt. Imagine an eight-year-old girl finishing her end-of-year concert with a flourish only to see hundreds of audience members simultaneously cringing away from her.
That eight-year-old girl was me. (My lack of coordination had nothing to do with the decision. Nothing, I tells ya.)
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I remember most things after writing them once. I don’t know why. I’m very grateful for it, though. Especially since I’m excellent at leaving the grocery shopping list at home. Sucks to be my husband who might have added something he wanted to the list, though. Unfortunately, the write it once, remember it forever rule doesn’t extend to things other people have written.
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I think in words rather than pictures. That’s why book-movie casting decisions never really bother me. (Except Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise was all kinds of wrong as Jack Reacher.)
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Your turn! What quirks of yours raise eyebrows? Do you eat cheese? How do you order your UNO cards?
It’s funny that thing with the Uno cards – this woman stopped me at the supermarket cos I picked up some eggs ‘without checking them’. I thought she was some nutter so I put it on fb and about 300 people informed me I was insane and everyone checked eggs – 2 others also didn’t check, one being my husband. So it was a lesson in ‘normal’ is only ‘our normal’. Everyone else has a different vcrsion of ‘normal’
At the supermarket in the UK, the cashier checked that I had checked the eggs before she scanned them! And my controversial thing is I have never played UNO!
SCANDALOUS!
Haha, I always check the eggs but I don’t think I’d say anything to people who didn’t!
Well, Emily, I think you know your UNO approach is, really, a bit weird, but that’s ok, if it works for you! I always check the eggs too, and have done so since working at Coles many, many, years ago (and we were told to check customers’ containers in case there was a broken one: ‘It’s the little things you do that will show the customers we care’).
My main thing, which I don’t think is weird, but apparently is, especially in Melbourne which prides itself on it, is I HATE, with a passion, the smell of coffee. And it is everywhere. EVERYWHERE. (including unwashed mugs that somehow get left around the house by a certain other adult in the house. A topic of contention which, if raised, can easily spiral into a oneupmanship of annoying things we each do, so I’ve given up. and just take them to the dishwasher, tipping out whatever horrible stuff remains). Urrghhh.
I don’t drink coffee. I hear you. Can’t stand that coffee smell, and I REALLY can’t stand that four-hours-ago-there-was-a-coffee-in-this-vicinity smell.
I check, but I don’t know why. If an egg is broken in a container it’s pretty clear the minute you pick up the gluey box…
Oh wow, the elbow thing! Amazing, the variance in the human body!
Yep, it’s pretty funny! My little fingers bend right back from the first knuckle as well.
Me too!
I have ordered my UNO cards too. It makes sense in this game. I did not realise it was an actual thing!
I am ambidextrous. This tends to freak people out. Technically I am left handed but I can also write with my right hand. Often I pick up a pen and have trouble remembering which hand to write with. Confusing!
I KNOW, right? You can see the colours at a glance; they don’t need to be beside each other. But having the numbers together helps you play them in the right order. Right? Right?
OMG you don’t eat or like cheese?! I adore cheese. Cheese of every type! I’m a savoury girl! 🙂
OMG! Yep, can’t stand it. People often can’t get past it. I worked somewhere for 9 months once, and I swear that every day, one colleague of mine would ask about it. “Not even feta? It’s barely even cheese! You have to like feta!”
I’m left handed but I think I’m ambidextrous about most things. I think I go colour, then number within the colours, for UNO cards. Also, I haven’t played UNO in a while, do you know where my cards are?
Have you checked under the couch cushions?
How shocking! I’m definitely a colour then number Uno card sorter. Not sure we can be friends anymore 😉
Oh no! Haha!
I order my Uno cards in colour then number order. I also colour code my hanged items in my wardrobe. OCD much? And that elbow, ewww! xx
I like that! I sort my wardrobe by clothing type, then by colour. LIKE MY UNO CARDS. OMG, Jodi. You just blew my mind.
Your elbow!!!!!!
I also order my Uno cards by number and open jars with the non-dominant hand.
I cannot however turn my elbow inside out …
Almost twins! So close!
I always sit at the end of a table at a group thing unless it’s people I’m really close to – I hate being boxed in. I won’t go to the toilet at the same time as someone else at work and everyone knows it. I put my left shoe on first and I have to sleep with the door shut!
Ooh, really interesting. Thanks for sharing, Beth. I don’t think I’m consistent with shoe order. But I certainly have to have the wardrobe door shut when I’m in bed. Can’t let the monsters in!
Oh that’s so interesting about the UNO cards – I order by number but in groups according to colour!
Not sure what’s weird about me except no one seems to cope with the fact I have voluntarily eaten SPAM as an adult – I was addicted to salt during my pregnancies – common with boys apparently – and I ate all the chips, fetta by the block and even a block or two of SPAM.
Can we still be friends?
I’ve never eaten SPAM. (Knowingly. I lived in a university college for two years, so who really knows?!) I craved salt too. And yes please to the friends thing. Please!
Ooh, I love learning more about my favourite bloggers! I’m similar to you with uno but I order my uno colours by number AND by colour – it just makes sense from a card playing point of view. And I’ve always learned and remembered things by writing them down first – it was a very handy trick at uni and still helps me with speeches and lists to this day.
So handy at uni! I still freehand my first drafts of children’s stories.
I’m a verbal thinker so hear rather than see… if that makes sense.
Not a huge fan of cheese though don’t mind it.
And… I’ve NEVER played UNO. (That could be my weird thing!)
Well, you’re the second commenter not to have played UNO. Not so uncommon, apparently! Glad someone else isn’t a huge fan of cheese. Just don’t understand the appeal!
Interesting! I love how we are all so different! I am a verbal thinker too. I used to have a ridiculous memory, so ridiculous that my psychologist believes that my memory was probably gifted lol, and that quite possibly the memory issues I think I am having are in fact just bringing me back to the rest of the population. I rarely had to study very much at school or uni because if I had written or read it or even heard it then it stuck in my head. This totally sucked to be my hubby because the poor bugger knew he could never win an argument as I read chapter and verse what he said last time! So just quietly I think he is just a little bit pleased I have come back to the field memory wise.
Oh and I order my uno cards based on colour …
Very interesting with the memory. I’ve never analysed it that closely, but we have similar stories by the sound of it. Thank you for sharing!
I will only eat cheese if it’s sprinkled on something and melted..like pizza. I have this weird thing with ear lobes, cannot stand them being touched, which becomes an issue when one wants to wear earrings
That’s interesting! I know a few people like that with eyeballs. And my daughter recently lost her first tooth, and the wobbly stage was excruciating for my husband. Only 19 more to go. Then 20 in the next child!
I order my uni cards by number too! I thought everyone did that lol. Also I eat cheese but only melted cheese, must be a textural thing? I have double jointed thumbs, freaks people out when I click them.
Everyone SHOULD do that. We are the brilliant ones, Toni.
Thanks for sharing Em! I’m a cheese fan. Sorry to hear you are not. I am left dominant but do so much with my right hand as well. I write left handed. I eat with knife and fork like right handers, but use my left hand for spoon. I use scissors right handed. I bat right handed and bowl left handed…so I am somewhat ‘blessed’ when I have a hand out of action (had surgery for arthritis a few times) as I can still do most things.
I am 100% a visual thinker and predominantly pictures (but they might have a caption!) It came as a HUGE surprise to me some years ago when I was leading a group of school colleagues about ‘thinking’ and how we do it (because I ‘assumed’ – that awful word) everyone used visualisation. This person said ‘what do you mean??’ It took me aback as no wonder she and I couldnt communicate as well as I had hoped. Big lesson learned there. Great post.
That’s so interesting with your hands! What a talent to have. I attended an author talk last year and he had some interesting stats on thinking – apparently most people are visual thinkers. He said there was usually one in the crowd who wasn’t… and yep, I was the only one to raise my hand.
The UNO one blows my mind for sure. I never even considered the possibility that someone would order them that way? Haha. Love your quirks though!
I am just a strange, strange person! Apparently. 😉
Anyone who can hyperextend their arm is sooooo not vanilla! You’ve always been tutti fruity to me x
And now that song is in my head!
Okay the cheese one completely shocked me. I cannot live without cheese. When I gave up sugar, I formed a mild addiction to cheese. Those elbows are off the hook. I am the same as you with opening jars. Uno though. You have to sort by colours, surely? x
Yes, so many people find the cheese one shocking! I just don’t get the cheese thing. Just don’t get it.
My theory with the Uno cards is that you can see the colours anyway. When you sort by number, you can save your ‘same’ numbers for later in the game, to potentially make changing the colour easier. Potentially. I’m sure it works. That said, I can’t remember the last time I beat either my 6yo or my 3yo at Uno. Hmmmm.
I sort my Uno cards by colour and then by number. Surely that’s the only way??
I also use my non-dominant hand to twist lids off – I hadn’t ever thought about it before!
I always check eggs before buying them, including pushing a few around to make sure they’re not broken and stuck at the bottom of the carton (that’s happened to me before, but never again hahaha)
No! It’s not the only way! NEVER!
And oh no! How frustrating. I’ve accidentally broken an egg in the supermarket. The cashier checked the box, pointed out that it was broken and asked if I wanted another. I confessed that I’d actually broken it, and she said she wouldn’t tell anyone and went and got me a new box!
I have funny elbows too. It upsets many people. Just like I’m upset by your uno card configuration – its just outrageously wrong. I’m outraged. The cheese thing would be a trifle awkward if we lived together, but otherwise inoffensive. I don’t like avocados myself, something that has turned people away from me at cafes. You know how you’re all having a lovely lunch and then you push the cheese/avo to the side of your plate and there are gasps around the table and then everyone starts ignoring you for the rest of the meal. That.
OUTRAGE. Yes. That’s what I was aiming for.
I don’t like avocados either. My list just keeps growing!