We all have weird quirks, we like our sandwiches made certain ways, wear our hats a specific way, or even avoid certain things all together. I recently listened to a podcast with the title ‘Don’t Peer Over The Metaphorical Urinal’. The podcast was actually about not constantly comparing yourself to others, but it actually had me thinking about one of my ‘quirks’. I cannot stand using a urinal. I will actually go out of my way to avoid using them and have ‘held it’ longer than I should have in order to wait for an actual toilet to be available. I think I can count the number of times I’ve used a urinal since I was 7 on one hand, and it’s always been an emergency situation.
Where I grew up, most of our classrooms were portables, so if you needed to go to the bathroom in winter, it involved putting on your winter clothes and making a trek across the playground to the main building. When I was in grade 2, I had this massive winter parka with a fur trimmed hood and it was bulky and awkward. One day I went to the bathroom but opted to not remove my parka. After I was done at the urinal, I realized that there had been some…backsplash…and the front of my jacket was wet. I was thoroughly disgusted and threw myself into a snowbank on the way back to class to disguise it. There was a frantic washing of my jacket once I got home, and I haven’t been comfortable with urinals since. Oddly, I don’t think I’ve ever told that story to my kids but the older two both hate urinals as well. They may have their own reasons for that.
What’s your weird quirk? Is there something that other people consider to be a normal thing that you just absolutely WILL NOT do, or go out of your way to avoid? Let me know in the comments!
