MadMup.com

Somewhere in the past couple of months I’ve picked up a new quirk. When you hold a drink from Starbucks or McDonald’s, your hand forms a letter C, right? I have developed this notion that I’m going to drop things because I can’t hold them tightly enough, so to combat this surety, I curl my pinkie finger in underneath the cup, forming a little ledge for the cup to sit on.

It struck me recently that this might be a little strange. I’ve been holding glasses and cups for most of my life, so why am I just now figuring I’m going to start dropping them?

One thing some of you might not understand is that this sort of thing seems completely normal and logical to me when I institute it:

• Problem: cup might fall out of my hand because I can’t grip it tightly enough.
• Solution: form ledge with pinkie for cup to sit on.

It isn’t until much later that it hits me that this might not be the most sane thing, coming up with solutions to imagined problems.

This new oddity seems to go right along with my belief that the hanging lights and ceiling fans in the auditorium at church are going to fall on my head – no where else, mind you, do I have that thought. It’s only the ones at church.

I’m reading a book right now where the author has just talked about how he had conversations with Emily Dickinson when he was spending a lot of time not around other people. I kind of shook my head at that one, thinking it was silly for him to talk to imaginary or long-dead people, and it was right in the middle of me telling the cats that I thought it was silly that I realized I didn’t have much place to think it was silly.

His point ended up being – and I think he’s on to something – that we need to be around people so we don’t lose sight of “normal” behavior and how it is we’re supposed to be around people. Of course, it’s still pretty easy for me to think that forming a pinkie ledge for my drink is a good idea, because I’m pretty sure even Emily Dickinson would say that it’s not good to drop your drinks around other people.

I got a call the other day from a number I didn’t recognize (so, of course, I didn’t answer it), and after the voicemail notification sounded off, I checked the message. It was the lady who has cut my hair for about two years, if I’m counting correctly. She was calling to let me know that she was going to be working at a different haircutting place (“salon” sounds so hoity-toity) once January 29th rolled around. She didn’t actually say “so you should start going to that place,” but it was pretty clear that’s what she meant. She even mentioned that it was going to be $4 cheaper.

My initial response was panic. I’m not such a fan of change, as many of you know, and I’d gone through this changing haircuttists before. So, panic.

But then I thought it was nice that she called me to let me know that she was going elsewhere. I realize her motivation wasn’t necessarily motivated by altruism, but it was still nice for me since my last regular person sorta just up and left with no advance warning.

Then, after that, I started thinking about how I’d been going to the same place for 4+ years – it seemed weird to think about abandoning the place. This put me back in a quandary: do I stick with the place, or stick with the person?

What would you do?

I was riding in the car with a coworker the other day and I found out something that blew my mind.

On most car radios, there are six buttons that you can program to automatically go to your favorite radio stations. Some have more than that, but six is a sorta-standard. The FM band on radios goes from 87.8 to 108.0 here in the US, from left to right like you’d normally read ascending numbers.

Logically, then, if you’ve got six favorite stations, it makes complete sense to put them from left to right on your favorite buttons, lowest number on the far left, highest number on the far right. Right?

Apparently not to everyone. My coworker said, “Nuh uh. Your favorite station goes on the first button because it’s #1! Also, it’s closer to you [as the driver], so it’s easier to push.”

I could never bring myself to function in that way, but it got me wondering how many other people think like him. You know what that means… Poll time!

Please answer honestly, as this seemingly-simple poll could be the basis of someone’s life’s work on how people think.