Showing posts with label Idiosyncrasies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idiosyncrasies. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Double Play

My friend Sarah will not drink from the top or bottom of the milk container; I only sweeten my coffee with honey which tends to settle at the bottom which means Sarah will not drink the last of my coffee. Fine by me, it's a cute quirk that I happen to enjoy because I like the extra sweet final gulp. Bobby, an acquaintance of mine is deathly afraid of mustard -- interesting I thought, but harmless no doubt. Harmless until I sat between him and the stranger who ordered a chili dog with extra mustard at the last baseball game I attended. As soon as that dog went sliding past his nose, Bobby flipped back over his seat kicking me in the face and cracking his head on the concrete. A perfect double play -- we were both out. Two stitches and a black eye later I no longer thought of Bobby's fear of mustard as cute or harmless. Certain things about a person make them interesting such as Sarah's unwillingness to take that first swig of milk. Other things make a person dangerous such as fear of condiments. I wonder, do all quirks harbor a secretly potential dark side? Should I fear the idiosyncrasies in others or accept them at face value? When does a pleasant eccentricity become a painful neurosis?