Perhaps the greatest source of irrelevant intolerance (as opposed to intolerance that makes people want to kill other people) is, as far as I can tell, food and the way it is eaten. While I am, on the whole, an “eat anything as long as it’s edible” kind of guy there are certain lines which cannot be crossed. Skimmed milk is one. It’s not milk – it’s white water that smells mildly of milk. Sugar in tea has recently become another. It’s very odd, since quitting in March I’ve become something of an anti-sugar fanatic. Occasionally I make a cup for someone with a couple of spoonfuls and it just seems wrong. It’s all I can do to stop preaching at them on the error of their ways. And butter is stupid and the world should wake up to the fact that margarine is far superior because it spreads without fucking up the bread.
There’s a pattern developing here – these are all things connected with breakfast which even for a culinary retard like myself is a constant and important part of the day. It’s a ritual and rituals are very important. I’ve been thinking about rituals quite a lot recently. It sprang from a pub conversation about why drugs are consumed in very specific and orderly ways, from the heroin tea-spoon to passing the joint to the right (or is it the left, I forget…) through to drinking beer out of pint glasses. But what really interests me are the little rituals that seem inconsequential but which are utterly sacred, such as how tea is made or the order in which one gets dressed.
For example, one thing that really brings out the irrational idiot in me is washing up. I have an utterly anal method involving washing, rinsing and stacking which cannot be changed. When I see someone not rinsing a plate or stacking the dishes and pans in an inefficient manner I feel a small but significant tenseness in my shoulders. This might spring from washing up being one of my regular chores as a child, especially as for a few years my sister was too young to reach so it was my domain, but that’s no excuse. It’s petty and stupid of me and it’s not like I even like washing up, as many ex-housemates will attest. It’s just one of those things.
So, the question is, what are your idiotic rituals that you dare not speak about? Things that bug you even though you know you’re just being a twat?
“or is it the left, I forget…” Does this help?
I have to have the toilet roll in the One True Orientation: pull from front, not pull from back. I’m not sure that counts as a ritual, though; it’s just common sense, isn’t it?
Flipping other people’s toilet rolls if they’re the wrong way around: that tips it over into ritual. Or meddling.
Is ritual and routine the same thing?
James: Ooh, I do the toilet roll thing too. That really bugs me. I don’t change other peoples though (unless it’s a holder that’s really easy to change – then there’s no barrier to twattery).
Although thinking about it, it’s been years since I’ve lived anywhere with a working toilet roll holder so it’s all kinda moot.
Dave: I think a routine is just something you do to get stuff done whereas a ritual is something you do because it adds something to your life, be it spiritual enlightenment or, in this case, smug self-satisfaction.
I’m a syntax pedant. Perhaps not a ritual, unless you count the ritual of being a twunt in the pub. People saying ‘me’ when they mean ‘I’, or ‘if I was’ instead of ‘if I were’ and ooh, ‘different to’ when that makes NO SENSE because it’s ‘different FROM’ GAH! I also have problems with the words ‘myself’, ‘utilise’ and ‘firstly’.
Hello Pete. Washing up is a biggie for me as well (Your technique sounds quite similar to mine, too.) One problem with this particular form of anal-retentiveness is that when relatives or friends offer to do the washing up this turns into a traumatic experience rather than the nice break from the job that it should have been (especially when you find yourself re-washing or re-stacking half the bloody stuff after they’ve gone…. sad, I know).
Working for a company who is seemingly incapable of writing plain English (despite having a core “Value” blurghhh of “Straightforward” I have become picky over the use of unnecessary words that add little beyond complication. Apparently “pleonasms” is the correct term, business wank is probably the “straightforward” one!
Getting “whinged at” by the media for not doing enough shopping at Christmas and for them then banging on about consumer debt!
My list would be too long (Lord help me!). But toilet rolls and washing up feature. We recently bought a dishwasher, and I have been known to prowl up and down while it churns away, somewhat like an expectant father…
You know that scene in Alan Partridge where he tries to relax, but can’t until his slippers are straightened and all the drawers properly closed? Sometimes I feel a bit like that.
Checking the deadlocks and closing the windows. I forget I’ve done it, I go back to the house. This isn’t altogether absurd, I’m absent-minded — I once left a kettle boiling while I went to the supermarket. It was red-hot by the time I got back.
It bugs the hell out of me when people do half the washing up. It’s not done till you’ve wiped the cooker. And don’t leave the mugs to drain, they’ll smell awful in the morning.
Packing the bag at the supermarket — there’s a right way to do it, and a wrong one. And crossing the road, oh crossing the road. I’m banging on. I’ll continue this at home …
I can go one better on boiling kettle stories. Dave Hughes and I left his flat once, forgetting there was a kettle boiling on the electric hob. When we got back not only had the water boiled away but it had melted right through the bottom, leaving the flat bathed in a cloud of metal smoke.
My ritual is to be bugged if by imaginary dust on tables that I have to sweep off and smooth down with my hands if I’m not to have a fit.
Got an obsessive compulsion thing whereby I’m halfway to the pub and suddenly think I’ve left the hair straightener on. On occasion I’ve had to get off buses and go back and check.
The perils of the metrosexual age.
Rituals. Life as a paramedic is full of them – never use the word “quiet” whilst at work. It’s safe to go as far as “the Q word”, but it must not pass your lips in its unadulterated form or you open the rest of the shift to pure hell.
Never EVER open or think about drawing up drugs until the paramedic has finished putting the needle into the vein. It’s just asking for trouble and the paramedic (especially me!) will immediately fuck it up completely – usually on a really ill patient who only has 1 good vein.
My crewmate has to drive 1st. No ifs or buts, she’s in the driver’s seat at the beginning of EVERY shift. If she doesn’t, life as we know it will end….
Do not mention resucitation, maternity cases or ill children in any shape or form unless you want to experience that job later in the shift.
That’s just at work!!!!! Can you imagine what a joy I am to live with???
When do you put milk in tea or coffee? 1st in teas, last in coffee; anything else is just WRONG.
I definately agree with the “different from” and not “different to”. It drives me mental, as it does when people type incorrect english grammar or using text speech in typing. TYPE ENGLISH!
Sorry to all you brummies out there (and I am one as well) but stop calling me BAB. I have a sudden urge to pick up the nearest blunt object and stave the person’s head in. Worrying, I know.
(If my brother reads this, he will be pissing his pants laughing at how sad I am).
ME? Anal? No.
Ah, ritual = neuroses.
I always park in the same space in the office car park. Thats the only one I can think of at the mo.
Butter is better than marge. You’re wrong.
No, you’re wrong. Butter sucks Satan’s cock and you know it.
i was really scratching my head with this one…
I asked Louise & she couldn’t advise – I was starting to feel a little felt out with an absence of ‘habituals (maybe having kids leaves no room to for this) – but then – SM says a transport themed thing, & being a commuter – I do like to sit by the door, & on the aisle seat – yeay!
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Butter’s better. The devil puts butter on his toast and throws the marge to the souls in torment.
I have to set and reset myu alarm clock about half a dozen times and I’m almost as bad about locking opening and then locking doors. Also why do people insist on squeeze tubes from the middle!?
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idon’t think it really matters which way the wash up gets done so long as it gets done, if like to have your toilet roll a certain way then you have it that way. butter i think should be taken off the shelve’s it’s a waste of fucking space, if ya ask me. and another thing you always past the joint or dutch to left hand side. thanks for listen towhat i had to say.
I used to be much much more obsessive compulsive than I am now. As a student I would go back downstairs after going to bed to check all doors were locked and kettle was not on up to about 4 times a night. When I was a kid I would turn a light on to make sure when I turned it off it was definetly off.
I hate the sound of people eating bananas. I hate people not holding their knife and fork at all times while eating. I especially dislike the fork in right hand, left arm resting in front of plate style. It makes me very very angry. Why have a knife and not use it? Anything that varies from the fork left, Knife right combo I find a problem.
Any combo that means because you are’t holding your knife and need to put food on your fork which you are using as a shovel by using your fingers is wrong.
People eating sandwiches at their office desk with a bin underneath them to catch crumbs is a hideous sight.
Some poeple don’t like to see others eating in the street. I don’t mind that.
People who put salt on their food before tasting it. I’m sure this is a smokers thing.
People who squeeze the toothpaste tube at the top. How fucking retarded is that? It’s the most annoying thing in the world. Someone goes into the bathroom to brush their teeth and afterwards I go in and have to squeeze all the toothpaste back up to the top. So the next time they go in it’s magically back to normal. AAAAGH!
In an effort to reduce my blood pressure I go out and buy a pump dispenser type thingy, can’t go wrong there eh? Oh yes I can. The other tube gets left alone until my tube is empty, then we’re back to square one. I’m just gonna let my teeth rot, that’ll show them, Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haa!
Hmmm, good site for all of us compulsives. I agree with the toilet paper roll, but only because it is more convenient to have it roll off from the front. BTW butter vs. margarine both bad for you… a really good article about it here: http://www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/margbutt.htm
cheerios,
and yes… this is as good as it gets.