Quirks

“I have quirks????”… I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, Mom you have quirks”….. Erik answered.

And so the conversation began…. Okay it wasn’t total disbelief…even I know I have some quirks.

I love Post-It notes. I use Post-It notes for everything…. Scraps of information… thoughts…appointment times… addresses… directions… phone numbers… the list goes on and on.

I am particularly bad about phone numbers…. I usually just write the phone number down and no name… or just a first name… I stick the phone numbers in my address book… my address book is a wonderland of all these numbers I have no idea who they belong to… I never throw them out… hey… you never know… I might need that number.

“So there… I admitted my quirk”…..

“You admitted YOUR quirk???” ….

“Uh huh…MY quirk”…

“You think you have only one quirk??”

“I have more than one??? I asked in definite disbelief.”

“Mom…. Are you kidding??? …. Your address book…it takes years to get written into your address book… and an act of God to make it in there in ink… Gift wrap… it’s a sickness, Mom… you have every kind of gift wrap …Christmas, Easter, male birthday, female birthday, kids wrap, baby wrap, bows, ribbon, … “(he forgot wedding shower, wedding, baby shower and non-descript)

And he just kept going….”Loading the dishwasher… you load the dishwasher a certain way… and if I load it slightly differently, you move it…sometimes I do that just to watch you” …

(I knew that…)

He was going like a train at full speed “Tupperware…. We have every size and shape…Tupperware, Tupperware everywhere”…

“Okay…okay…I get the idea…will you shut up now”…

Apparently he wasn’t going to shut up….”Leftovers….. you have the inability to throw out anything left that’s more than 2 tablespoons… Grammar… you are a Grammar Nazi…. I watch your face twitch when you hear a double negative… forget the word ain’t…you look like you’re going to have an epileptic seizure… Commitment-phobic….you’re so commitment-phobic that you haven’t re-newed your cell phone in something like eight years…so if you want to cancel it you can without a fee… nevermind you have been with Verizon since the beginning of time.”

“I renewed it the last time I bought my phone… so there…”

“That was in 2003…and you’re phone is falling apart”

“The rubber-band works fine keeping the flip part on”

“Okay enough… I get the picture…Mr. who hates to use pockets and insists on carrying everything in his hands so he can lose his cell phone on average of at least once a month… insists on wearing loafers without socks… calls his watches time pieces…and has an out of control hair care product fetish….”

So we all have quirks… Warren has his quirks too… his affection for cowboy boots and hats… The utensils MUST be handle up in the utensil tray of the dishwasher… he likes his hairbrush next to the sink in the bathroom …. (when we were first dating I used to like to screw with his head…I’d hide it before I would fly home to NY…I’d leave a Post-It note where I knew he would look that said something like…not here stupid…come to think of it I haven’t done that in a while..)

The way he folds wash… he is very, very, very particular… did I stress that enough?.... he brings folding wash to an art form…it took me a year to get the jeans right… and I’m not quite sure I will ever get the tee-shirts quite right…he snaps them..folds them in half..lays it against his chest…folds the sleeve in….snaps the bottom to the top…smoothing out the wrinkles in one quick move…and then in half again…all in a matter of 5 seconds…I timed him… watching him fold his tee shirts is like watching someone doing the makarena… hands patting here there everywhere…. the man is amazing…. He could have a second career in laundry .

And there’s the way he eats… three things on the plate… he eats one at a time… heaven forbid he take a bite of one thing then another thing… nope…no can do….

I decided it’s the quirks that make us..us…. and it is just those things that make us unique and funny and lovable… I love them for their quirks … I truly do… as nuts as they can make me…I love them with all my heart and soul… and I guess they love me for mine too…