1 / 8
Mar 27

What kind of weird quirks do you have that others might find to be irrational?

For me, it's probably the fact that I cannot stand to see a book getting damaged/destroyed/discarded. I don't know why, and I can't explain it, but I feel like I must save all the books. I've still got most of my childhood books, including school readers.

About five years ago my husband's grandfather fell too ill to stay at home (he was 98 years old) and so moved into a retirement home. When he did his three daughters (including my mother-in-law) cleaned the old house up to get it ready to sell. We went down there to help with some of the heavy moving, and as soon as I walked inside I almost cried: There was a huge pile of rubbish in the middle of the livingroom, and it was mostly books that they were just going to throw in the dump!

I threw myself on that pile and defended it like a mother lion defending her cubs. I would not let anybody near it until I went through it and saved every book that I could. And these weren't just any books. I'm talking several dozen books from the 1920's and 1930's in their original printings! The Great Gatsby! Scarface! A whole bunch of 90-100 year-old books that had survived for so long and were just going to be thrown in a dump!

Anyway, I saved them. I can't stand to see a book suffer, even if it isn't a book I'd read. I almost feel like books are living things.

  • created

    Mar 26
  • last reply

    Mar 27
  • 7

    replies

  • 286

    views

  • 1

    user

  • 13

    likes

My family had a few 100-90 year old books of plays and stuff some time ago, it was crazy to me.

As for strange sentimentalities, I'm a little bit of a hoarder tbh. I have a hard time parting with anything my older brother gave me. I don't know why. He's very much so alive, (he's my editor lol) but there is a ton of different things he passed on to me or bought me that i'm just ridiculously attached to. He's worked very hard to try to help me improve my health because I've been overweight and just generally sick for a long time, and one of the things he bought me to help me achieve my health goals was a jump rope. I used that thing until it snapped, but even after it broke, I couldn't bring myself to throw it away easily. I recently had to throw it away because we're moving and we just can't carry broken things with us now, as there are no companies that ship things out of the Dominican Republic that we can find

I have McDonald's wrappers from the year 2001. All neatly preserved like they're fresh from the factory.

And old Philippine peso coins and bills. Even a couple that were from the Japanese occupation

Plushies! I have a bunch because I get them as gifts all the time, which is why I rarely get rid of any. Also, old, oversized shirts. They're too comfy to throw out, even when they get a couple little holes on them, mostly from my rabbits nipping at the hem.

Oh, I have ‘collections’…

For example…



I'm very attached to to my laptop. Not to the point I wouldn't replace it if broke. Just because it carries my solace with it.
My projects mostly. My Artwork. My years of practice, blood, sweat and tears.

I get defensive about it and when people tell me not to bother getting it in case of a house fire...
Yeah I might die trying, but if I run out and live through it, but my laptop does not, It's all for nothing.

So I compromise and back up all my stuff on an external backup drive I can just snatch up quicker. I can always get a new laptop. I can't replace the hard work I put into some of my works.

I probably would be the first person to turn a hardcover book into "secret stash" handicraft, if I had any. When I have 'extracted' all the content of it, the book feel like a useless corpse to me. Exceptions are gift and books I really like or reference I need, although that might change with PDFs.


For me? If someone give me a nice chocolate big chance that I'll keep the packaging boxes. That's how I remember gifts. Same with tickets, boarding passes, and clothing labels.

I don´t like when someone uses my pronoun instead of saying my name.
That has nothing to do with gender or anything like that.

Here is an example:

We are in the band practice room and someone says (about me):
"But he played a c minor chord"
It makes me freak out, just say my name :smiley:
"But Pete played a c minor chord"
I´m really allergic to this and people actually do that all the time