BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines

Subject: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 05:37 AM

Have you any habits which are irrational and/or unnecessary but which you can't break?

For example, I realised recently that I always lock the lavatory door even when alone in the house, and even continued to do so in the 3 years between my first wife's death and my remarriage, even tho I was alone in the house — and even tho, I realise, it wouldn't even bother me that much if anyone did chance to come in while I was at it. But it has become an ineluctable habit from my earliest days, tho I would be hard-pressed to express the reason for it.

Have you any similar irrational routines?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 06:15 AM

Nothing really of that sort, but a kind of reversal - or over-rationality on occasions - being influenced by Frank Gilbreth's theories of Time & Motion as a young man. My breakfast routine is one such:

1. Place a mat on the dining-room table
2. Place laptop on mat an go into kitchen
3. Go to sink and switch on the kettle socket electrical point
4. Pour water from water filter into kettle
5. Re-fill water filter
6. Take cafetiere from cupboard
7. Put a heaped measure of coffee into cafetiere
8. While there, open cutlery drawer and remove two dessert spoons
9. Move left along worktop and place spoons on worktop
10. Open cupboard below worktop and take out two cereal bowls
11. Place bowls on worktop
12. Turn round and go to worktop on opposite side, taking one bowl
13. Open cereal jar and place 3 Weetabix in bowl
14. Close jar and take one cup from upper cupboard
15. Go back to other worktop with filled bowl and cup
16. Remove milk from fridge and pout some into bowl and cup
17. Back along worktop to place cup next to cafetiere and switch kettle on
18. Back into dining room while kettle boils to read email, etc. on laptop
19. When kettle boils, back into kitchen to fill cafetiere and bring cereal bowl to dining table
20. Continue reading while eating cereal
21. When cereal is eaten, take bowl into kitchen and pour coffee into cup
22. Resume coffee and reading in armchair

Then I'm ready for the day!

When you analyse what you do in detail in this way, it looks absolutely finicky and anal, but I'm sure we all do this to some extent. The kitchen routine developed itself many years ago when I was at work - to prepare breakfast as quickly and logically as possible in order to get out to work bright and early. I've been retired for 7 years now, with no need to be efficient, but the routine still holds - and it actually amuses me to retain it. I suppose that's where the irrationality might come in!

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 06:16 AM

Forgot to add: the second spoon and bowl are for Mrs.F. - who generally comes down later...

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:20 AM

How did the kettle boil, you forgot to switch it on.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:24 AM

Thanks for contrib, Will; but what was there to pout about [#16]?

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 08:20 AM

Ah well, as Kingley Amis used to say, "Bum!"

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: olddude
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 02:40 PM

Shooting my guns wildly in the air when I hear the song the camp town ladies

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 03:11 PM

I absolutely must fully remove the peelable safety/freshness seals on bleach bottles, patent medicines, coffee cans, etc. My wife is just the opposite. She's perfectly happy to peel the thing back just far enough to get at what's in the container. If I use something she's opened, I'm compelled to finish removing the seal first.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 06:25 PM

In recent years I have developed a habit which I can't seem to break. Every Friday I catch a bus to a nearby town and have chicken and chips for lunch in one of the town's chippies. There are certain 'ritual' aspects to this habit: I must leave my house at 11:00 am and walk the mile or so to my local bus station. I then wait 10 minutes or so for the bus (I could time it better but the wait appears to be part of the ritual). When the bus arrives I go upstairs and sit in a seat on the left hand side about 1/3 of the way from the front. The journey takes about 1/2 an hour and the districts the bus passes through are full of memories and reminders of times past, absent friends etc. I get off the bus at the town's shopping precinct and I make my way to W.H. Smiths and buy an 'Independent' newspaper (what am I going to do when the 'Independent' goes digital in a couple of weeks time??!!). I then turn off the main street, into the old part of the town, and soon arrive at my favourite chippy. I take my usual seat in the chippy's quaint little dining room and, in due course, a member of staff brings me my usual Friday repast. Once I've eaten my lunch, I visit the town's market and then make my way to Currys/PC World for a browse. Then I walk back to the town's bus station in order to catch the bus home. Every week the bus stops just short of the bus stop and we passengers have to wait while the old driver hands over to a new driver - all part of the oddly comforting ritual. That night I, and a few mates, go to the pub for a pint. I wonder if this ritual is related, in any way, to getting old? I am old because I receive a pension and am the proud owner of, what I call, my "old git licence" which means the journey, there and back, costs me nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 06:45 PM

I have two , well, no, many habits which drive the better half round the bend. But these two really set the ball rolling.... I keep two things always in the fridge ! Empty... A beer class and a milk mug! I love milk and it must be cold so I rinse my mug and pop lt back in the fridge, same with my beer glass. I have done this for most of my life, even before matrimonial bliss, but it still drives blessed partner mad and I am often castigated For it.
I also reserve my Sunday mornings for crosswords and hate to be interrupted, otherwise I am , I tell myself, the perfect mate!

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:07 PM

WIf I wake up at, say, five in the morning for any reason at all, I get up and go for a wee. This is whether I need to or not. If I fail to get up I just know that I'm going to lie there fretting about my one-third full bladder for the next three hours. I even torture myself by prodding myself in the belly to confirm that my bladder is not perfectly empty. It's taken me sixty years to realise that it's best just to get up and go.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:13 PM

just don't get me started.....

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 16 - 07:23 PM

Oh, come on now. Get started... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:42 AM

I don't suffer from OCD.



(It's CDO because it has to be in alphabetical order.)

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:45 AM

GUEST,Raggytash - 28 Feb 16 - 07:20 AM

"How did the kettle boil, you forgot to switch it on."

Shame you didn't read the post Raggy:


17. Back along worktop to place cup next to cafetiere and switch kettle on

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:52 AM

Hemingway has a great description of his writing rituals in A Moveable Feast when, as a young writer with enormous self-confidence, he used to go out and write in one of a selection of cafes in Paris near where he and his new wife were living; he had to have a rabbit's foot in his pocket.
Karen Pryor has a chapter about rituals, or what behaviouralists call 'superstitious behaviour' in her book Don't Shoot the Dog. "I have seen one baseball pitcher who goes through a nine-step chain of behaviour every time he gets ready to pitch the ball," she writes – "touch cap, touch ball to glove, push cap forward, wipe ear, push cap back, scuff foot, and so on. In a tight moment he may go through all nine steps twice, never varying the order. The sequence goes by quite fast—announcers never comment on it—and yet it is a very elaborate piece of superstitious behaviour."
Do musicians have similar rituals?

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 04:36 AM

Well done Terribus, you are correct .................... for once.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:03 AM

I'd need better proof than Mudcat posts to make such a bold assumption Raggy..

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 05:28 AM

That baseball pitcher story reminds me of those bloody tennis players that seem unable to serve unless they've bounced the ball about twenty times. More than one bounce should lose you the point. Grrr.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:13 AM

But you do get close ups of their legs meanwhile... 🤐

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Michael
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 07:14 AM

Two magnetic knife holders on the kitchen wall: one holds a set of knives(in descending size order), other holds oddment knives (but still in a particular order).

Toilet rolls on wall holders MUST unroll from the front (and I don't care who's house it is).

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 08:15 AM

Toilet rolls on wall holders MUST unroll from the front

Good man.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 09:26 AM

On the very off chance I was a visitor at either of your houses, I'd not be able to resist folding a single roll of the two ply paper the other way so the tears don't match up.

My responsible adult has a similar mental health issue regarding toilet paper. Ditto folding towels in a certain way, even drying racks get rearranged if I unload the washing machine.

Mind you, try serving me a pint in anything other than a straight glass and see if accept the bugger...

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 09:48 AM

I'd accept a pint served up in a bucket and spade as long as you were buying.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 09:53 AM

Many years ago a mate of mine who didn't like his neighbour nipped over the wall into their back yard and spread Fiery Jack on the Izal bog paper in the outside toilet, rolled it back up ..............

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,MikeL2
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 10:22 AM

Hi

I have " Steve's disease" too. I go to toilet if I wake early whether I need to or not. My theory is that if I go then i can sleep on longer if I go back to sleep.

And talking of sporting habits, has anyone watched Dan Biggar as he prepares to take a kick ??

I once had a touch of the yips when I played golf. Just couldn't bring myself to hit the ball. I used to go back and forth to the ball, waggling my club but just couldn't hit it.

I was "cured" when I was playing in The Isle of Man with a professional golfer. He said.....after some expletives, "Line up your target, take your stance ...AND JUST F***ING HIT IT."

Cured me though.

I do have some of the mannerisms of above and it is re-assuring that I am quite normal !!!

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 10:42 AM

When I was in 7th grade, my science teacher, Mr. Williams, told the class, "I'll bet I can watch you once put your shoes on, and then predict how you will do it every morning."

I had never paid attention to such things, but next morning I noted I put my left shoe on first. Since then I almost always do it that way, even adding putting my socks on the other way... right foot first. I *think* I am doing it just because Mr. Williams was such a forceful teacher, and I wanted to justify his prediction. Whatever.... it has now become a ritual.

This, I would contend, is an example of a "self-fulfilling hypothesis". In college, a psychology professor demonstrated something similar by telling a girl.."I'll buy you a new dress IF the next time I say 'pebble', you do NOT think of 'crocodile'."

I do of course have various habits & routines, but mostly they are done for convenience & efficiency..(timing of the toast to meet the coffee being done...etc,) I generally do NOT like to be bound by automatic routines.... but the shoe/sock thing just is there to stay.

(It's interesting that I don't have any particular order to removing shoes & socks. Sometimes it's just which foot hurts most.)

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 10:53 AM

Try washing your body parts in a different order than your usual in the shower. It's just WRONG.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 11:00 AM

While listening to a radio news broadcast, I'll frequently
hear the announcer say something like (such and such a city)
"is the epicenter of" (some human activity).

When that happens I cannot resist loudly and truculently saying
to the radio, "No, it's NOT 'the epicenter of'" (whatever.)
If someone asks what I mean, I'll explain that "epicenter"
is a technical term in earthquake science, meaning that spot
on the surface of the earth above the quake's center,
which is located perhaps two or more miles below
the earth's surface.

Now, I know perfectly well that I am engaged in a lost cause,
because the word "epicenter" has been carelessly misused so
widely that it has come to mean, in the minds of many speakers,
either just "center" or maybe something like "very center
of the center". So my correction of the speaker on the radio is
useless (or otiose, if you like) on two grounds: 1, the
meaning of "epicenter" has been irretrievably fuzzed up, so
I'm out of date, and 2, the announcer can't hear me in
any case.

Just the same, for this word and for some choice few other
words I hear, I'll "correct" the usage I hear on the radio.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 11:07 AM

I think Mrrzy has a point. In my case, when the warm water hits my shoulders, I MUST use a brush to stop the ... 'itching'? Then, there is a fairly routine order to the rest. Never thought about it before.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 12:41 PM

Not a bad idea buying beer for Liverpool fans Steve. Mind you, I'd have to buy a half in a pint glass to leave room for the tears as you cry into your pint...

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: olddude
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 01:20 PM

Wearing cowboy boots during sex

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 02:55 PM

I drink faster than I cry.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 03:18 PM

I hope you take your spurs off when playing rodeo?


(Rodeo. A bit like doggy fashion but once you get started you say "Oh yes! Almost as good as your sister!" My record is 8 secs.)

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 04:57 PM

Uncle Dave, you are my hero. And the epicentre of my world.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 09:11 PM

He is just above your world? I hope you are not in hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 29 Feb 16 - 11:36 PM

Posting on Mudcat!!..or for that matter anywhere online, but Mudcat got the pick of both the draw...and my nose!!


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 04:04 AM

when i pass the sign for Blennerhasset and Baggrow   between carlisle and cockermouth i always begin   'the police, miss blennerhasset -just tell the m there are a couple of drunks in the penrith tearooms.....' and the n on with the script til my imagination is taken by something else
                               '

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 04:11 AM

I keep the same clothes in the same drawers, fairly neatly folded, including socks and underwear. The kitchen - anyone in my household could go in there blindfolded and reach out for any given object, even in the fridge. It's kind of calm; you don't spend frantic energy looking for things. (Though a kindly Christmas gift was a Tile, which will allegedly keep track of my keys if they migrate.)
On the other hand, I often can't find things I don't use often - jewellery, the boxes that a phone or tablet came in (with its earphones still in situ…)
I have friends who are rapidly turning into the kind of old people who are eventually dug out from their mounded mountains of clothes and books and… stuff, only to feature in Daily Mail spreads - Police Had To Search For Pensioner Under Years Of Detritis - and whose stairs are a terrifying hazard, two-thirds covered with slippery magazines and books. No wonder stair falls are such a common cause of death.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 07:24 AM

When I'm driving I have a habit of constantly reaching for the gear lever to check that I'm in fifth gear.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 09:46 AM

What you were grabbing ISN'T the gear lever....but we don't need to go into THAT!!


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 09:57 AM

Non-LoL & not ROFL-ing...

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 10:02 AM

Oh, yes, talking back to the TV and the radio. Really helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 10:57 AM

".. talking back to the TV."

Be careful what you say...I read that some of the fancy new TVs can hear you and report what they hear to.... 'someone'.

Samsung

Vizio

Samsung, Vizio and LG

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 05:17 AM

I have just noticed something I wasn't even aware of doing. I keep my email inbox, sent items and deleted items empty at all times.

I do file some emails for retention but everything else is deleted and the deleted box emptied daily, sometimes several times a day.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 06:15 AM

I absolutely can't stand the thought of eating carrots. It is probably irrational, but it's a peculiarity that I choose not to correct. We have even put in notes when we are playing for a folk society and being hosted that I am primarily carnivourous and would prefer no carrots. I know I pick them out, but....

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 06:52 AM

Slowburn about the loo rolls correspondence a few days back (29 Feb):-

They probably look a bit more elegant unrolling from the front: BUT they are liable if one is not careful to unravel out of control, which they don't do if reversed & unrolling from the back; which I have therefore decided I marginally prefer.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 07:15 AM

On the other hand, loo rolls that have been touched with perhaps dirty hands are wiping off the wall if they're unrolling from the back, but waving in clean air when unrolling from the front. I'd see front as more hygienic.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 07:29 AM

I do not remove portions of bog rolls to order, as it were. I remove a section of sheets before the commencement of the procedure. I rarely detach too few. If I've removed too many I may blow my nose whether it needs blowing or not, which eases my conscience apropos of profligate waste. With a different hand, before you ask. Glad to share.

Subject: RE: BS: Irrational or otiose habits & routines
From: Michael
Date: 08 Mar 16 - 07:29 AM

For me it's the possibility of having to run my nails up the wall to catch the bottom edge, "waving in clean air" from the front removes that risk.

Mike