Everybody’s got eccentricities. My mother’s obsession with water, for instance, would probably provide a psychologist with months of fodder. Lately she’s taken to driving from the North Shore to Maine to fill water jugs from some beaver-contaminated “secret spring.” She does this because buying Poland Spring was getting to be too expensive, what with keeping the dog’s water bowl topped off. I argue that a creature who enjoys licking the cat could probably live with city water, but if she wants to give him bottled water (or now, beaver water), that’s her business. And while my mom’s water obsession is certainly odd, at a recent company lunch I learned that many of my co-workers harbor quirks that make my mom’s look almost normal.
    The revelations began with a conversation about typing. I mentioned that I don’t know how to type. (Due to a paperwork error, I was never required to take typing class in high school. Which is unfortunate, because my high school turns out typists with the same rigor that West Point turns out military officers. I had one friend who was forced to take typing even though he was born with only three fingers on each hand. He failed the class.) When I said that I can’t type, a co-worker countered that she can’t stop typing. She types everything she sees or hears. “If I’m walking down the street and I see a stop sign, my fingers are moving in my pockets typing out s-t-o-p,” she said. “I type the names of objects. I type what people are saying. Try it.” “I am obsessive-compulsive,” I offered. I watched as she typed it, her left pinky even flying over to an imaginary shift key to capitalize the “I.” Then I quietly thanked whoever messed up my typing paperwork back in high school.
    This opened the floodgates. People wanted more. So I admitted that I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror in the morning with my boxers (not while I’m wearing them, mind you). This prompted a “Uggghhhh!” from everyone, which, incidentally, is the same response it elicited from my roommates the first time I mentioned this habit. Really, I don’t see what the problem is. I throw my shorts on the floor, get in the shower and then wipe off the mirror with them before I shave. Why is that gross? You look in the mirror, you don’t touch it. Unless you’ve got some issues of your own, hmm?
    Soon people began ratting each other out. Air-Typist, it was revealed, also washes her office keys every time she’s in the bathroom, and then uses a paper towel to grab the door handle on the way out (washing the keys must be difficult while simultaneously air-typing “Germs! Germs are on me everywhere!”). I started to feel quite well-adjusted.
    Throughout this there was one person sitting there silently, which surprised me. I knew that she at least harbored a strange hatred of bananas, a neurosis that I’d recently discovered when she was driven from my office, shivering in disgust, by a banana sitting on my desk. “What about you?” I asked Banana-Loather.
    “I don’t like to eat the edges of things,” she replied, motioning to the pizza in front of her, which was middle-less but still had the edges quite intact. “Big deal,” I said. “Plenty of people don’t like crusts.” “No, it’s not crusts. I can’t even eat the edge of a cookie. Just the middle. And I can’t say ‘Au Bon Pain.’ It has to be ‘ABP.’ And my clock’s alarm setting has to end in three or seven. And I can’t shower when it’s light out because I need all night to dry. I sometimes get lost on my way to work. Last week I was driving home from Syracuse and didn’t realize I was going the wrong way until I was on the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York. I have to switch sides of the bed halfway through the night, every night. I only chew on the left side of my mouth, and I have cavities on that side but not the other. And I never washed my feet until college.” Whoa, girl.
    Aren’t personal nuances great? These wonderful idiosyncrasies help us affirm ourselves as individuals, priceless and irreplicable, singular in a world of mass-produced ennui. I feel honored to work with such a unique group of people. However, just to be on the safe side, from now on I’m keeping a bunch of bananas on my desk.*