The One With The Challenge: My Worst Habit

I'm telling you right off the bat I am not going to share my worst habit.

It is so bad I don't like to admit I do it. I'm embarrassed and ashamed and I try not to let anyone know. I work really hard not to do it but I think I need that hypnosis therapy or something to help me stop.

It's really, really bad. Way too bad to share.

However, I do have several other bad habits that I don't mind sharing. In fact, I'm full of bad habits. Perfect, I am not. Not in any way. And habits are just so...comforting at times. They are habit-forming. HA! Get it?

Okay...moving on.

So two other big bad habits I have is biting my nails and picking/plucking my face. I have always bitten my nails. When I was younger, my mother would put that bitter nail polish on to stop me from biting. It didn't work. I actually grew to like the taste of it! I have bitten my nails for so long that now if I do manage to grow them out at all they are all warped and misshapen. I will never have nice nails. Sometimes I can go for awhile and have them appear presentable. I even have gotten manicures and made them look human at times. But some stressful situation, like watching one of my favorite TV shows or thinking about laundry I have to do, will bring me back to biting and soon all I have are ragged nails and torn cuticles. The one and only time I kept all of my nails in pristine condition was for our wedding. I had managed to not bite my nails for over four months. They were long and pretty and ready for my french manicure on the Big Day. Then I played basketball with my Dad and Charming four days before the wedding and snapped off my left thumbnail. Of course it had to be the LEFT hand, the one that would sport my new wedding ring. So even that didn't work out.

I also pick/pluck my face a lot. And other people's faces, namely my husband's. Which drives him insane. I had a lot of acne growing up and still battle it today so I am constantly squeezing and pinching even though I know I shouldn't. There is something about popping a zit or pushing out a blackhead that soothes me. I don't mind pus and even marvel at it at times. I love to work out splinters too, getting satisfaction out of extracting the foreign object from my skin. One time I discovered a small lump behind my knee. I had an huge ingrown hair from shaving. I pushed and prodded and popped until I managed to pull out a pencil eraser sized bundle of hair from my skin, leaving a hole in the back of my leg for a few weeks. I was so proud of myself I showed my family. It helped that we were all locked in a hotel room in Gettysburg while on vacation and trapped while it poured outside. They had watched me work on this issue for about an hour in abject horror. Yeah, that makes me sound a bit compulsive, but I enjoy the idea of fixing the imperfection, so to speak.

Good times.

I also love to pluck hairs. Ugly dark hairs from my chin. Stray eyebrow hairs. Hair off Charming's ears. I often wonder if I would have so many hairs to pluck if I didn't start plucking them in the first place. It seems every time I pluck, three more come up in it's place. I have tweezers in my purse, my desk, my nightstand, my bathroom drawer, my car. Always on hand if I feel anything that shouldn't be there. It drives me crazy when I feel a hair and I can't pluck it. I also forget that I shouldn't do it to other people and it's hard to resist. Charming has run screaming from me and my tweezers one too many times. I think this obsession with plucking/picking stems from my Dad letting me peel his sunburned skin off and allowing me to pluck his gray hairs when on long road trips. I loved getting big full pieces of skin off in one piece and I would rejoice over the tidy pile of little gray hairs I would collect over the miles.

Wow, I just realized how weird that sounds. We were really a normal family.

At least in public.

The One With The Challenge: Something I Am OCD About

How fitting that this challenge would come up today when I am currently in a tiff with Charming over something I am OCD about.

You see, I have a thing about food. I am very particular about what I eat, how something is prepared, what brands I am comfortable with. I love almost every type of food, as long as it is made the way I like it. This proves to be difficult when items I love how one person makes is different when another person makes it. Immediately potato salad springs to mind. That is often a tough one. Also, I physically can not eat some foods due to their contents whether it is allergies, too spicy/hot, or contains something with a suspect texture. Texture is a huge thing with me.

I like my sandwiches made in a specific order. Mayo on both sides of bread, then meat then cheese then lettuce then onion or whatever other veggies I want for a particular sandwich. I have been known to direct specifics at Subway employees, even having them remake something if it is done incorrectly. Usually if I stay on top of them I can avoid this but it has happened. I am not proud of how this particular tick of mine makes me into a bitch at times, but I can't help it. If things don't taste right I can't eat them and I hate wasting food. That's an even bigger pet peeve of mine. Which is why I have a problem with buffets I have never been to before because it is often hit or miss to find something I can eat. I am not sure why I am this way, I just am. I have tried to fix it, tried not to be so picky or detail oriented but it doesn't work. Something is off with the texture or spice or look and I have a really hard time forcing myself to eat.

The thing is, I will try anything once. I am not shy about trying new foods. But if I don't like it I probably won't try it again. My deal comes with things I have an expectation of tasting a certain way. I don't like it when food I know should be a certain way isn't. So I try my hardest to not put myself in those situations. I have gotten really good at circumventing what I can and can not eat.

So today we went grocery shopping. Charming and I split up. I took the coupons and he took our written out list of items we needed. The list was pretty specific, although anything not specified I was sure he could handle because we have been shopping countless times together and he knows about my little quirks with certain items. However, I still asked him repeatedly if he was okay with doing the deli meat because that is something I really am OCD about. He assured me he had a handle on it. We went our separate ways and met up at the end.

We got through checkout with only one mishap (he had picked up Mandarin oranges in snack cups, I don't do those slimy things, prefer fresh oranges) and went home. Once we were unpacking I came across the deli meat. Not only did he get the wrong type, but the wrong amounts and most importantly he got the most expensive brand there. A quick calculation and I realized we had almost $40 of deli meat that I wouldn't be able to eat. So I asked him about it, which led to a little bit of raised voices and then him saying he could never do anything right and me crying because I made him feel bad. I didn't want that. I don't like making him feel that way, especially when he tried. We eventually did make up and apologize and kissy kissy.

But that still didn't stop me bringing the deli items back and getting what I wanted in the first place.