Quirks

I can’t help myself, I am a huge fan of quirky people. I’m not talking about the quirky like “different but cool”, but more of the quirky like “that kid is weird”. I think deep down we are all quirky people who have our own bizarre qualities, and I appreciate discovering people’s quirks. When I met Danny, I fell in love with the fact that Danny was a 90-year-old man trapped in an 18-year-old’s body. He talked about his love of old hymns and bluegrass music, calling women “gals”. He was always stretching, and he liked to spend his evenings sitting on the porch and playing his harmonica. This one’s painful to share…one time my friends saw him in PUBLIC wearing a t-shirt tucked into his elastic-banded gym shorts, with tube socks to go with his tennis shoes.

When Danny and I were dating, he brought me a huge branch off a tree with leaves on it because “the fall leaves were really pretty and it reminded him of me”. The branch was too big to put in water, and the leaves were dead within a few days. Really sweet thought, but really weird gesture. You can see why I fell madly in love with this guy.

Most people keep their quirks relatively hidden, only revealing the strange things about themselves to people with whom they are very close. As a matter of fact, people may not even realize they have a “quirk” until they reveal it to someone else, who responds by telling them that it isn’t “normal”. So what really interests me is when two seemingly “normal” people with their own separate sets of semi-controlled or unrealized eccentricities fall in love, get married, and decide to cohabitate. All of those little quirks are quickly brought to light, and the result can either be horrific or hilarious. I choose hilarious.

A few “quirks” Danny learned about me so far through marriage and cohabitation:

1. If I am very, very angry for no apparent reason and am extremely irrational, ask me if I have eaten something recently. Chances are I am HANGRY (so hungry that I become angry), and just need a snack.

2. In my ideal marriage world, we would always be short a chair so Danny and I had to share one. It is the simple dream of “two people, one chair”. I just really love to sit ridiculously close to Danny, and sharing a chair gives me occasion to do that.

3. Do not step even one foot into the kitchen while I am cooking, or I might turn into an evil creature who is quite scary. I realize I am not too handy with sharp objects, so chopping may be done at the edge of the kitchen counter. If I seem abnormally angry, please refer to number 1.

A few “quirks” I have learned about Danny from marriage and cohabitation:

1. All clothing items, even if they are on your body (particularly blankets), must be treated with the respect of the American flag. If they touch the floor even for a moment, they are considered “unclean” and must be burned.

2. Danny likes to invent money-saving “tricks”, such as pouring twice the amount of water into a bowl of oatmeal to stretch out the meal and create an oatmeal soup. My thought? Trick’s on you, oatmeal soup is gross!

3. At the top of the list of the most evil of sins is wasting food. Throwing away the little bit of milk at the bottom of your cereal bowl is unheard of. Tossing out the last few bites of rice on your plate is worse than genocide.

We both have several more quirks, but we can’t have you thinking the Slones are TOO quirky, or you won’t perceive us to be cool anymore (as if we had a chance after Danny’s t-shirt tucked into his elastic gym shorts episode)! My dad always told me that those quirks you find “so adorable” at the beginning of a relationship are what drives you nuts about the person after a while. I choose to make a continual effort to think of my husband’s eccentricities as hilarious, rather than horrendous. After all, he does deal with me when I’m HANGRY!