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I'M GOING SLIGHTLY MAD
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I have never considered myself to be especially strange - I think everyone has a measure of oddness or eccentricity about them - it's just that some have a little more trouble with the "volume knob" than others. However, for what it's worth, my wife says I exhibit more than my fair share of oddness, so after some earnest discussions on the sofa last night we reached some sort of consensus (for the unmarried folk out there, consensus in the marital context means husband saying "Yes dear, whatever you say dear..."). So, keeping in mind that everything is relative, without further ado (is it just me, or in saying that, are you are in fact making further... oh, never mind) herewith please find a list of five of my most unusual and interesting foibles.

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No. 1 - At The Double
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I have a strange compulsion to buy things in two's. This makes me the undisputed king of the "buy one get one free" (BOGOF) offer at my local Sainsbury. I have no idea what the deep-seated psychological reason is for this, but one of my prized possessions is a favourite children's book that my parents used to read to me as a kid - yup, you guessed it - the story of Noah's Ark. This baffling behaviour has always extended to chocolate (understandable), video rental (excusable), and buying books, CD's and games (expensive).

However, the best "double" I have ever bought was as a student. The National Lottery had been going for a short time and the new-fangled scratch cards had just come out. I was waiting in a queue at the local newsagent and had some time to peruse the various "games" available. When my turn came, I plonked down my Double-Decker and two-fingered Twix, asked for a scratch card, and, as the shop-keeper went to get it, I told him "Go on then, get me two". The first was a duffer. The second won me £500.

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No.2 - Remote Awareness
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Whenever I sit down to watch TV, like a king surveying his kingdom, I have to know where each and every remote control is, it has to be in easy reach and it has to be available on demand. Given that there are seven separate remote-controlled devices in my living room, this makes for an interesting inventory each night, especially given my daughter has discovered that the easiest way to wind me up is to accidentally on purpose "lose" one of them.

I will literally tear the place apart until I find it, with an enthusiasm, zeal and dogged determination that I am quite unable to apply to any other facet of my life. My family know well enough these days to stand back and let me get on with it, rather like waiting until a hurricane blows itself out. I thought an all-in-one remote would simplify my life and have had one on my Amazon wish list for some time now, but my wife has pointed out that I would probably explode if it was ever misplaced.

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No. 3 - Other People's Babies
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I love my kids. I love holding them, hugging them and playing with them, but if you make the mistake of confusing fatherly affection with a general love of bambinos and proffer anybody else's infant to me - I run a mile. The fact that my son is a six month old pooing, peeing, puking and drooling machine doesn't bother me one jot, but the idea of holding someone else's equivalent is borderline repugnant. Yuck. Get away In fact, my wife was so concerned at my ambivalence to other people's kids that she was convinced I would have the same issues with my own. No chance.

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No. 4 - Ice Isn't Nice
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There is one sound guaranteed to reduce me into a juddering, weeping, hopeless mess - scraping ice. Whether it's ice on my windscreen, removing a bag of frozen food from the depths of the freezer, ice skating or someone crushing ice cubes, this horrible, painful sound sends jolts up my spine and practically incapacitates me. I'm shuddering just thinking about it. I go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that I don't have to scrape ice from my car windscreen. I even made sure our nearly-new Ford Focus had an automatic front windscreen defroster.

However, one nightmare morning, I discovered, to my horror, that the fuse for the defroster had blown and I was completely out of spray defroster. I went back into the house to try and convince my wife to do it for me, but my entreaties were met with the "glare" - not surprising given she was still in bed - so I sat in my car for fifteen minutes waiting for the heat and windscreen wipers to do the trick.

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No. 5 - The Hoarding Magpie
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I am a compulsive collector of things. I have more books than I will ever read, yet I still buy more. My "to read" pile could stock a small community library. Same with Wii, DS and PC games - I have more titles than I will ever have time to play. I have two year old games that have never seen the inside of a PC CD-ROM drive, yet I still aspire to play them.

A few years ago, I decided to get back into the hobby of making plastic airplane models, so I set about buying up - new and second hand - every World War Two aircraft that I ever wanted to build. I now have over three hundred kits - most of them insulating my loft - and have managed to build a sum total of six. At this rate, I will need to live to the ripe old age 150 to build them all. I used to collect beer mats as well, but at least they were free!

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NOT SO STRANGE?
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For the sake of propriety (and at the other half's insistence) I have refrained from self-indulgent revelations of the more prurient and possibly anti-social variety, although undoubtedly, they may have been more fun to read. That said, in case you are now worrying (or wondering - we cater to all sorts here on DooYoo), I don't do strange things with dandruff, toe nail clippings, or any other kind of bodily detritus, and am, unfortunately, in the main, a relatively well balanced and socially adjusted member of society.

Thanks for reading.

© Hishyeness 2010