idiotic things we all do
Sometimes you have a moment of reflection and you reflect on something you just did. Something idiotic that you do over and over again without a clear reason and without clear benefit. The classic: opening your completely empty fridge 800 times and each time coming to the conclusion that, gosh how strange, there’s still nothing in it until you reach the point where you think you can really make something out of that moldy container of crème fraîche, half a lemon, and a wilted tomato. And there’s more.
I’m quite the star at having entire conversations with Disco and pretending she’s a human being made of flesh and blood. While I’m doing my paperwork, she sits on my papers with her whole cat body and then I pet her and say out loud, “so nice that you’re helping me so well.” Anyway, I meow back with enthusiasm when she starts talking to me – that’s what you get when you live alone as a woman with a cat.
What I also don’t understand about myself is why I always delete the entire sentence I just typed when I see there’s a typo at the beginning. This happens especially often when someone is watching me type, a few extra eyes on my keyboard and I spontaneously forget how to type. Or why I ask “what?” while I’ve heard perfectly well what my conversation partner said to me. And why I, in the rare case that I’m behind the wheel, turn down the radio when I’m looking for a street sign. There are so many of these kinds of nonsensical things and if I share them with you, will you promise not to judge me?
– While cycling, I put my favorite playlist on shuffle and then keep skipping until I get to the song I wanted to hear.
– If I have to have a Difficult Conversation, I first rehearse that conversation in detail, often even in front of the mirror. And if the actual conversation goes differently, I can be completely thrown off when the other person doesn’t stick to the script.
– Admittedly, I’m better with words than with numbers, but things like 30 + 55 I can still manage. But more often than I want to admit, I also do that for certainty with a calculator. Because you never know.
– If I want to know a letter in the alphabet, I have to start at A before I know that L comes after K.
– Looking at your phone to know what time it is, forgetting to check the time, and then having to grab your phone again to know what time it is.
– If you give me a menu, I start reading completely illogically somewhere in the middle, then down, back up, and I always read from right to left instead of the other way around. A menu is often just as much of a puzzle for me as a real map.
– Nowadays I don’t have a TV anymore, but when I still had one, I always had to start zapping at Nederland 1. If I turned on the TV and it started at 8, I had to zap all the way back to 1 before I could just end up at 8 again.
If anyone wants to offer professional help, I’m all ears.
