Tuesday, October 18, 2005

[Me] So, I'm Crazy (long)

Now, a lot of you already knew this. I know that the voices have been saying it for years. Well, now I know it, too.

I'm completely nuts.

The evidence (a collection of which has been building up for quite some time) that tipped me off to my malady happened in my school's bathroom, a few minutes ago.

I went in to the stall, and knew that no one had used it since I had used it this morning. The reason I knew was because the toilet paper had been torn in a certain way. The way I had torn it when I put it on the roll in the morning.

Now, some may (but won't) say that I simply remembered that the toilet paper had been torn in a certain way. Fools! The question should be: Why did I tear it that way to begin with?

I started thinking, and I realized that I do this more often that I admit (even to myself). For example, the other day, my landlord came into my (his) house while I was at work. He turned on the stairway light at the bottom of the stairs, went upstairs, turned off the light, looked in my room, and went back down again.

How do I know this?

Well, I knew he had been there before I even got to the door. The front garden had been neatly trimmed (it was long overdue, but he told me not to mess with it, so I didn't, not even to pull the obvious weeds). So, fine, he'd been there.

Then, I get to the front door, and it is unlocked. He does this quite often, either forgetting to re-lock the door, or locking it incorrectly (eg, locking the door when it's not completely closed). At least he remembers to leave the front light on now.

So, I go inside, and when I get to the stairway to go up to the second floor, I notice that the light switches have been reversed. How do I know? How can I be sure I remember correctly? Well, actually, I keep the switches in a certain position. I like to be able to turn on the light from upstairs by flipping the switch downward, because it's easier to do that with an armload of stuff (dirty dishes, bags of rubbish, laundry, etc). The downstairs switch is side to side, so there's no beneficial position for that one, so why not use the beneficial position for the upstairs one?

Which is not to say that I'm obsessive-compulsive about it. I mean, it's not like I will be unable to go to bed without checking the switch five times to make sure it's in the "proper" position. But, when it's reversed, I usually try to remember to switch it back at my earliest convenience.

Anyway. That's how I know he turned the stairway light on for one trip, either up or down, but not the other. So, how do I know it was up and not down?

Because it's darker at the bottom of the stairs. The way the windows are placed, the bottom is in shadow, and the top is in light. It's normal instinct to turn the light on where it's dark, and leave it off where it's light.

Finally, how do I know he looked in my bedroom? The door was open. I leave the door closed (at this time; during other parts of the year I leave it open) because it's getting fairly cold, and I like to trap the heat generated by my computer. It does warm the room a degree or two.

So, does this make me crazy or observant? At first, I thought I was just observant, but we took a poll, and the voices outvoted me. :-(

Anyway, back to the toilet paper (where we came in). Why did I tear it that way? At the time, I certainly wasn't thinking "Aha! If I tear it this way, and it's still torn this way later, I'll know that no one has used this stall (or at least, that they didn't use any toilet paper {ew!})." It was completely unconscious. Or was it?

If I were, in fact, completely unaware of tearing it that way, how and why did I remember later? If I were truly unaware, I would think that someone else had torn it.

So, I think I'm subconsciously leaving clues to myself. You've been here. Someone else has been there.

And if THAT's not crazy, I don't know what is.

4 comments:

  1. Well, then the men in white had better come for me as well, because I =consciously= do stuff like that.

    Actually, most of the time, I don't think about it, I just do things out of habit, so when someone else affects my routine, I notice.

    For example, remember the candy machine from Penthouse? After the show, I replaced the wing nut with a proper nut (so that people (read: I) couldn't steal candy). When I tighten or loosen the bolt, I use my Leatherman, which often sits on my desk. One day, I came home and found the Leatherman to be... Not as I left it. So I told Morah that I knew she had stolen candy and she admitted it, wondering how I knew.

    Did you ever see that episode of Full House where the girls accidentally punch a hole in the wall of their dad's room, then to hide it, they move all the furniture over by about a foot. When the dad comes home, he keeps dropping things on the floor because he isn't paying attention to what he's doing, he's just working by muscle memory. Now =that's= anal.

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  2. Do you get the TV show "Monk" in Japan?

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  3. it just sounds like your observent Qoou ^^ its good to beable to notice when people have been around ^^

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  4. I =consciously= do stuff like that
    Yeah, you're crazy. ^_^ But, we all knew that before, and love you anyway. Or because.

    remember the candy machine from Penthouse?
    I didn't until you mentioned it. Now I can't get it out of my head! It's like having a song stuck on repeat, except instead of a song, it's a candy machine, and instead of repeat, it's....penguin?

    And now I have the song 24-hour Candy Machine stuck in my head.

    Now =that's= anal
    Well, he does vacuum the stairs every day. ^_^ [Offtopic]Have you seen "How I Met Your Mother"? He does the voice of the guy talking to his kids. It's a cute show, but the lead isn't so good. Hopefully he improves.[/Offtopic]

    I go by the general rule that if you think you are crazy you most likely aren't
    I go by the general rule that if you think you are crazy, you most likely PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN!

    AAAAAAH!

    Do you get the TV show "Monk" in Japan?
    What? Just because I like to touch every street post I walk past, and I try to step on the same number of shadows with my left foot that I step on with my right foot....what was the question? No, we don't get Monk here in Japan.

    WILLU! Go take the IQ test! And get Gustav and Aikeru to do it too! I need fresh scores...the hunger....the hunger.....

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