Is This Normal? Everything You Never Wanted to Know...

I have a lot of weird tendencies.  Do you?  I have started noticing some of my weird thinking and wondering if other people have weird little habits or if I am just a real live case of OCD.

• If I go to the bathroom in the dark during the night, I always tend to think "what if there was a snake in the toilet?"  As of yet, there has never been a snake in the toilet that I am aware of. 
• I almost always talk myself out of using the bathroom.   I will think "I need to pee....no I don't....I can wait."   Then I will finally give in when my kidneys start hurting.  (well....maybe I don't wait that long).  
• Once I make it to the bathroom I think of how I am going to be a rebel and not flush the toilet.   "I am not going to flush the toilet....what would it matter? It is my house. It can wait till next time."   Then I give in and go ahead and flush. 
• The next step is to think I can be a rebel by not washing my hands.  "No one will ever know."  I give in and wash them begrudgingly.  

If I am in a public restroom the same rules apply but I add a few more.

•  I cannot go in a stall and use the bathroom if I have seen the person who came out of it.  It creeps me out to know how the seat got warm. In order to not look rude, I will go in and pretend to pee.  Other times, if the opportunity presents itself, I will just pretend I didn't need to pee and only needed to look in the mirror and or stand there oddly.  
• I cannot use the toilet paper that is hanging out of the dispenser. I must rip off a few squares because I know that those squares were touched by someone who was ripping off their squares.  
• I will avoid touching the door on the way out at all costs.   If this means using a paper towel to open the handle and then running the risk of not being able to launch it all the way across the room into the trashcan, I take it.   So if you ever see a stray paper towel near a trash can and think "who would do that," it is me.  Sorry. I just don't want to touch the door. There are some people who might have actually been rebellious and not washed their hands.  

Party Hardy

When my sister turned 18, my parents did the most unthinkable thing.  They let her have a party at our house, alone.  My parents naively thought that she and her girlfriends would sit around braiding each others hair, talking about boys, eating ice cream, and having pillow fights.   Little did they know the real party would be so wild that had Charlie Sheen been there he would have said, "Wow, this s*&# is getting crazy."   The next day me and my dad returned from our stay at some low budget motel to find the house a little bit trashed.  The mailbox was messed up, front door broken, my allowance stolen from my bedroom, suspicious residue on my mom's make up mirror, and urine in the fake plants.

This obviously showed my parents the error in their thinking; therefore, when I was 18 there was no such party.  The closest thing I got was when I was 16.  They left me at home with my 22 year old sister while they went on a weekend getaway. I have no recollection of my sister's whereabouts.  I do remember that I invited some friends over.   It wasn't real scandalous.  The most memorable moment was when a guy came out of my parents' bathroom to inform me that he had overflowed the toilet. You know it is a good party when that happens.   I will not say this guy's name. Not because I am nice, but because I cannot remember it. If I did remember it, I would expose him as being a party pooper. The cops weren't called at my party, but a plumber almost was.

Let's Draw a Picture of All Your Flaws!!

Seventeen years ago an event occurred that rocked my world.  My family had gone to Six Flags.  I was around 12 years old.  My sister was 18.  I remember my bumper bangs, braces, and large glasses like it was yesterday.   We spotted a caricature artist.  Parents: NEVER let your pre-teen get a caricature.  Why? It is simple. Let us look at the definition of the word:

 car·i·ca·ture

n.a. A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject's distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect.

Every twelve year old girl needs a grotesque painting of all her peculiarities.  My sister's "distinctive features," as seen by the 20 year old horny caricature artists, were her breast.   He exaggerated them all right. 

I am not sure what I expected him to draw for me.  In hindsight, he did the perfect pictorial representation of my distinctive features and peculiarities.  At the time, it felt like some 20 year old guy had just punched me in the ugly face. When I saw it, I was less than impressed, verging on depressed.  He rolled it up and gave it to me. When I got home with it and unrolled it I saw that it wasn't quite dry when he rolled it up.  This made spots that looked like I had really large zits. Perfect.  

Flash forward......

This weekend we were at a picnic for my husband's work.  Guess who was there?  A caricature artist.  I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to stick my chest out and redeem myself.  I used my son as a way to get this done.  Not to say I didn't want him to have a caricature...I just didn't want to be the only grown woman sitting there getting her picture drawn. So you know I'll just hold the baby. Go ahead and draw me too.  Anyways, I told the guy Finn loved sports.  So he made him a basketball player.  I was happy to see that I was the cheerleader!! Yes you heard me...the cheerleader.   My distinctive feature is apparently still my choppers.  They are large. I get it.  My eyelashes have apparently moved up a notch because they looked great in the drawing.   Did the picture look like me? I don't think so.  I do feel it was much less grotesque than the previous one.