We are all complicated, and our brains are a mass of rational and irrational things. Are you a bit ‘disturbed’ by the dark in the loft?
Frightened of a mouse that comes towards you? Can you easily conjure up horrible scenarios from the dark side of the brain that are difficult to pull the curtain across? So can I, but my post is about a couple of much lighter idiosyncracies of my personal oddness.
First, I Count.
Numbers. I don’t know why and I don’t do it always. Let me give you a couple of examples. If I have a glass of drink, not hot, say orange juice. I first estimate the number of gulps needed to empty it. Say twenty. (By the way with the average gob you will find that twenty will drink about half a pint.) Then I drink it and count. Practice makes perfect and I’m never far out. If I am not in good drinking nick and pause for a gasp, I lose. If you want to take up this diversion it’s like golf, don’t cheat, you are only twisting yourself. Sorry about this next bit but counting how long you pee for is a favourite of mine. It has been so since I was very young. I can’t remember when I started but it was perhaps when I was peeing ornamental black lines on the tar wall at my first school.
With pee counting, unlike the glass of squash, you don’t know how much is to come. You have to judge by the pressure. My own peeing varies in count between eighteen and thirty two. The counting is not trying to estimate a second, in time, you know, ‘one elephant’ ‘two elephants’ etc. My counting is of my own devising and is a bit less than a second but I am satisfied it’s about the same every time. Practice makes perfect.
If you embark on ‘pee counting’ I warn you, you will seldom be right. Old Charlie Bladder is a funny old thing. Doing this you must not try to influence the flow to match the count. Even with my experience I still guess a seventeen and do a twenty-eight. There is a satisfaction if you are right, or nearly right, and since satisfactions are not granted to us regularly every day why not get the odd buzz from a ‘pee count’.
‘Counting’ can be done in all sorts of other things of course. ‘When will the traffic lights change?’ ‘How long will that very old person take to actually start the car after they get in it in the Tesco Car Park?’ ‘How long before the tomato sauce come out of the bottle?’ Warning. Don’t take this counting too far or people will think you are odd.
A more minor manifestation of the complexity of the brain, and an example of it looking for something fairly useless to do is ‘Guessing The Time.’ I confess that this is also one of my diversions. We have a biological clock. I think it is usually regarded as more associated with seasons, or day and night, but to me it’s virtually a stopwatch. If I’ve been doing something, absorbing, unconscious of time and away from the mantelpiece or video recorder clock, and haven’t looked at my watch for ages, I like to ‘guess the time’. Nothing vague will do. Not ‘About Five.’ The guess must be exact, e.g. ‘Thirteen minutes to Five.’ Or ‘Seven Minutes past Five.’ Before you guess, set the brain on passage of time since you last knew what time it was mode. If that lobe is empty go straight to guess. Don’t disbelieve it’s announcement. It knows better than you. I can guess the time after a lapse of a few hours within one or two minutes sometimes. I amaze myself. It works when you are asleep. If you’ Guess the Time’ when you wake up, before you look at a clock, I bet you’re never far out, you are also probably late.
Peter
Titilating Timepiece! No offence intended to anyone called Prendergast.
