Quirks and Collectibles

A few days ago at work some coworkers and I were talking about our various quirks and oddities. This all came about on the one day when I wore tennis shoes into work. For those who don't know me, I prefer to wear boots. I wore the tennis shoes because that was the day we were moving our offices, and I didn't want to keep walking back and forth from one building to another all day in my boots. My coworkers and I got onto the topic of why I don't normally wear tennis shoes. For some reason I just don't like shoelaces. I don't know why, I just don't. I don't like the way they feel. The laces sometimes come undone, and if you don't notice they are untied, the laces drag through the dirt, water, and mud, and they get all icky. Then your hands get all icky when you have to retie them. I just don't like shoelaces. I also don't like drive-throughs at fast-food restaurants. I am morally opposed to drive-throughs. I don't see why human beings need to scream into a little box in order to get our food quicker. I get even more annoyed and morally opposed to drive-throughs when I see drive-through drivers who are on the cell phone and still have the radio blasting while they are trying to yell into the little speaker. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't mind waiting in a line or having face-to-face human contact with the person getting my food. Plus, I like to watch the people as they gather my food to make sure they get everything I ordered. Therefore, I never use drive-throughs. Even if it is the middle of the lunch rush and the lines are long, I still prefer to park my car and go inside to order my food.

And while we are on the topic of quirks, that leads to certain collectibles. Collectibles and mild obsessions, I should say. I have a minor obsession with office supplies. I think this comes from my youth when on the weekends I would go with my Pa to his work. I always came home with a pen or two from the office's supply closet. When I was still in school, the most exciting thing to do was to buy school supplies. Fresh paper, cool notebooks, and brand new pens and pencils always excited me. When I started to study Greek and Latin, I developed a system of color coding my notes, vocabulary cards, declensions, and conjugations. For some reason the color association helped my memory. So because of that, I had to buy pens in a variety of colors. Since I took so many notes, I had to have a lot of pens. Well, necessity eventually turned into an obsession. Even though I had my favorite brands and styles, I always wanted to try something new and different, so I kept buying different pack of pens. It wasn't long before I soon amassed a nice collection of writing instruments. Some are fancy and cool, and others are standard and basic. But, it is a rather large collection. I mean, really, does one human being really need about 120 pens? I can see a person going through 120 pens in an entire lifetime, but to have that many at one time? But, then again, you never know when you are going to run out of ink. And if there is ever a time when the world experiences a writing-instrument shortage, my collection will be worth a fortune!