There are four members of our immediate family. We were all born in even years, on even days. We all have five letters in our first names. That's an odd number, but at least we all have the same, and four of us with five-letter names makes 20 letters. See? It works out great.
I never really paid much attention to odd/even numbers myself. I've paid a little more attention to them since my kids told me about their preferences. Since they told me, I usually leave my TV volume on an even number, in their honor, I guess you could say.
All of this is just leading up to my original thought for today: we are soon to lose our even-numbered year and move into an odd one. Here is where my number preferences start to show: I don't like writing the numbers one and eleven, in digits. I often don't get them as straight as I want them, and the two digits in eleven usually are not parallel. Sometimes I try to make them straight, but they still slant the wrong way. That bugs me! If I'm asked on a form, how many "whatevers" do you have, and the answer is one, I'll write the answer "one" instead of writing the digit 1. That digit, 1, all by itself, looks too lonely and too easy to misinterpret. I'm already thinking how happy I'll be when we change from 2011 to 2012.
Maybe my kids come by their number fixations honestly. Who knew? I know I have some other weird secrets about myself, but I didn't think it had much to do with numbers.
Did you know that I secretly count things? And now that I think about it, counting is related to numbers! I count objects in clusters, and I count body parts on people. Weird!! Maybe I'll explain that one in a future post.
What do you think? Do we all (in my family) have OCD? If so, I hope it's an even number of us who do.
9 comments:
I have some number quirks too. I love it when a credit card bill is repeated or symmetrical, like $23.23 or 34.43. Part of hubby phone number is 8436 and I like that the pairs are multiples! In my family, we were born on odd days, and they fall on the same day of the week. Daughter on the 11th, 5 weeks later hubby on the 15th, and 4 weeks later me on the 13th! With Friday the 13th birthdays in my life, I learned to like odd numbers!!
Symetry, equality, balance, order, accuracy, precision. Hmmm. OCD? Nah. Sounds more like a quilter to me!
Hmm, I think the number one answer to the OCD question is MAYBE. But I also think that we are ALL a little OCD, and a little ADD. Humans prefer order and symmetry and they look for patterns everywhere. We are creatures of habit as well. So I am going to say you all are quirky and not compulsive. I love your family name trivia--we have our own as well. It's fun to map it all out and see where the patterns lie!
ODD
An old friend could never eat an odd number of food. Ie, couldn't eat 2 or 4, but was happy with 3 M&Ms.
I like symmetry, and play with numbers as well. Ie, my favorite pager at work is -2365 b/c it makes a box on the keypad.
One of my stress relief measures is to count; ie, if I walk into a room with a huge number of people (unexpectedly), my brain freezes, but I'lll count # people per row of seats, or # with red shirts, etc.
I also will repeat a license plate # in both sign and English when anxious. I know they're stress compensation measures, but am OK with that....
Happy New Year!
I'm not obsessed with counting or ending in an even number, but I've always, now that I think of it preferred even numbers too. Interesting table conversation topic!
I count, too! especially when stressed- I find it soothing.
Me??? No, I'm not OCD. I'm OLD. And I like things in even numbers. I count steps as I'm walking from one location to another (unless I have someone with me), and I always buy canned goods in even numbers. Never odd.
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