Tuesday, June 26, 2007

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy

1. a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual.
2. the physical constitution peculiar to an individual.
3. a peculiarity of the physical or the mental constitution

So I was at work having lunch which is a little akin to sitting in the local morgue on some days, the room is a bit stark and cold, the conversation non existent and just the occasional crunch of an apple or rustle of a newspaper.

Newspapers I might add seem to be the most popular item in our lunch room, the desire to read the daily paper is it seems the number one priority on most peoples agenda.

There are several people eating lunch and I was actually leafing through an old Woman's Day wondering how I was going to disguise the chicken and corn soup I had just dropped on my shirt when a visitor to our office opened his rather large backpack and pulled out several newspapers.

Now believe me in our rather bleak lunchroom he may as well of opened Pandora's box on the latest office sex secrets it doesn't get much more exciting than this.

Some people raise their eyebrows and quickly return to their lunch, after all they are well trained in ignoring the unusual.

I on the other hand am merely a novice, as was another lady who started two weeks ago and was actually working with the Newspaper man for the day.

And she asked the question that we secretly all wanted to 'Why so many papers?'

Our Branch Manager's ears pricked up at this point and my spoon stayed in my soup in anticipation of his response, I mean we are talking ten or twelve papers here.

Apparently he reads the first four pages, the last four pages and saves the middles to read later.

Obviously days or weeks later on some occasions.

My face must have been an open canvas, as our Branch Manager with a faint hint of a smile says 'Well Trudi, don't just sit there, tell us what you think'

Now hindsight is the wonder of wonders, I have several fantastic response's that would suit the occasion now but of course my mouth in its usual unrestricted fashion blurts out exactly what the brains first thoughts where.

'Its bloody bizarre, interesting but completely bloody bizarre'

Newspaper man says most people think its a bit OCD and explains he needs to read everything in the paper eventually otherwise he may miss some great financial news or business opportunity.

And I'm thinking honey by the time you get to it the market will have crashed.

This of course I manage to keep to myself as I have my mouth back under control.

So I guess he has his own little idiosyncrasy.

Which led me to wonder what my own is.

And I can only think after sitting there and telling some poor guy he was a bit bizarre mine may well be opening my mouth before thinking.



2 comments:

Brissiemum2 said...

Rofpmsl Trudi. That was a great 'read'! ;)

Vanessa x said...

OMFG that is hilarious!!!! OCD at its best LOL