I was called weird the other night, and it got me thinking. What is about me that makes me so strange? So I have decided to create a list (woah really? A list? This blog has never seen a list before!) in order to highlight what has made me the weird-oh I am today.
Urges
Not the sexual kind. Wrap your head around that you filthy animals. This is not a list of the inappropriate things you would find in a B grade porno where a girl yells and a guy high fives himself.
Sometimes (K, a lot) I get urges to do the most politically incorrect things ever. I always wonder what would happen if I were to go up to a random, punch them in the face and walk away. This sounds slightly psycho, but luckily it has never, and will never happen.
Having worked in hospitality (ahhh what a glamorous occupation, nothing beats the feeling of making coffee, cleaning up mess and dealing with cranky housewives who like decaf cappuccinos with no chocolate but extra marshmallows and soy milk - IT'S NOT A COFFEE) there is not a moment which goes by when I don't want to slap my forehead and curse mankind. The kind of people who laugh with their friends, give their waitress a cold look when they order their well cooked salmon filo, and go back to laughing again drives me bonkers. I know you can smile ladies, you were doing it five minutes ago. Humour me and smile when you order your food. It will make you feel polite, and make me not want to flip the table over and throw napkins onto your plastic fantastic face. If I could do everything I wanted to when I work in hospo I would be out of a job and probably have a fantastic reputation as a delinquent bad-ass.
I don't know what it is, but urges like yelling at people, running down a street naked in broad daylight, eating food off a stranger's plate, jumping off a bridge, or flipping a desk full of important notes just appeals. It'd be all normal then BAM! For a few magical seconds I've disrupted a stranger's day for no other reason than I bloody well felt like it.
I told a friend about this once and she replied "Oh my gosh! Same! Sometimes I want to punch pregnant women!"
This makes me feel that I am not so weird. Everybody (well at least me and one other person) have these absurd urges. But luckily we have the capacity to ignore them and live our life doing the mundane activities. Only occasionally disrupting our lives by spilling wine 'accidentally' on ourselves or others.
Awkward Turtle
There is nothing I like more than an awkward moment. Awkward silences present an opportunity to say something so completely out of context the moment becomes more awkward, but draws the attention away from the lack of conversation and unites people with 'da fuck' looks. So really, when I say absurd things in moments like these, I am not doing it to be odd, I'm doing it to help others out and give them a sense of unity. Jokes. I am doing it because there is nothing more rewarding than seeing people look at each other while thinking "who invited this girl?" - who invited me? Chances are nobody did, but I was there and I gave you something to talk about afterwards. You can thank me later when you're married with children.
Elevators are the perfect place for an awkward moment. I work in a corporate building (like how I threw that in there? Wear shirts and pant suits. Yeah baby) where streams of business people frequent the elevator, staring at the doors in complete silence. Having to maintain a professional persona in these circumstances I remain on my best behaviour. But that doesn't stop the odd awkward comment from flying out of my mouth. The other day I was travelling down the 26 floors when I was joined by a fashionable middle aged corporate woman. We stood there in silence watching the numbers tick down. Then, my ears started to block up. This happens regularly and I've learnt to deal with it. But that day I must have been feeling either lonely or bored (maybe a little from column a, a little from column b) and felt that I should share this with this stranger. Her response? "Oh" and then she hurried (yes, hurried) out of the elevator and dashed out of the building. It took everything in me not to follow her and share other moments when my ear drums were blocked. But the poor woman looked so surprised with this spontaneous and awkward human contact that she probably had to go home and update her status.
Hipsters are the perfect people to plant awkward bombs with. Living in the hipster capital of New Zealand there is a constant tap that pours out these specimen into the streets. I am not generally into stereotypes but for all intents and purposes, hipsters are going to be defined as a collective of attractive, judgemental, shallow, boring and uptight human beings. Coming into contact with one of these creatures is a magical moment which my weird inner being relishes. I came into contact with a group of hipsters a while back who were on the way to a party which I had just left. Having never met them before I thought it was the perfect opportunity to introduce myself, by yelling slurred comments and moving my hands in turtle movements. Their response? "Lets get out of here!" I will never recognise these people, and they probably won't ever recognise me. But for once I gave them something to laugh about. Something other than their trim lattes and expensive clothing. Katie Sherriff. Of the people, for the people.
Shout
I used to read 'Babysitter's Little Sister' when I was a child. It was about this girl called Karen who was a little sister of the Babysitter's Club. What a concept. Anyway, her teacher had to remind her to use her inside voice nearly every time she spoke. Karen, I feel your pain. I do not have an inside voice. No, instead of that I have a loud shouting yell which bounces off walls and fills peoples ears like cotton wool - annoying but slightly delightful.
When I am working I have to remind myself (and get reminded by others) that it is not appropriate to yell out a conversation I am having about my weekend, the printer, coffee, or the cute person who served me a scone in the morning. But you know what, when I'm yelling and people can hear me it means that they are too darn quiet. If everybody had my volume we could get along just fine. Jokes, we would all be loud deaf people relying on sign language and high fives.
Foot and Mouth Unite
Hello foot. Here is my mouth. Jump inside. You comfortable? Good. You're going to stay there for a while. Until I learn when not to say the absurd things which jump into my head. I cannot control what I say. It's like I have these great ideas which just have to come out. Soon enough I'm projecting verbal diarrhoea onto anybody who will listen, spewing out odd questions and insane scenarios for no reason other than I just thought of it. Perhaps it is my willingness to share, or my lack of social awareness but I just like to say what pops in my head at the click of a finger. I like to think it keeps people on their toes, guessing what is going to come out. But, in truth it probably annoys people who are trying to have an intellectual conversation about things which really matter. Like Facebook, and who from high school got married in the weekend.
Sometimes the things I say (which we all know I shouldn't) are quite inappropriate. If you know me then chances are you've slapped yourself on the head and thought to yourself "Not again!" If you don't know me well, or at all (why hello there) then count yourself as lucky. Making Chuck Norris jokes at a ginger man who I had never met before was probably not the best thing to do when I moved to Wellington, but it happened. Asking the barmaid for a jug and straw because I'd had a bloody guts full of people updating their statuses about what they ate for dinner was just awkward and got me a glass instead. Correcting a friend's grammar got me the silent treatment and an awkward taxi ride home. But, for the record you can only use the word 'done' when you use 'have' before it. The same rule applies to 'seen'. Look it up.
Personal Space
I'm all about the personal space thing. Honest. If I could I would draw a chalk circle where I stand and stick up a sign with "Katie's space, don't touch" in bold font that would be great. But then drawing a fresh circle every time I moved would just be annoying. So instead I rely upon people's common sense not to enter my personal space unless invited in. This rule applies to me, but somehow I don't let it apply to other people. I like to touch. It's like when you go to the museum, the displays say don't touch but two seconds later I'm sticking my mits all over the dinosaur bones, picking up antique pots, or examining the fine brush strokes of a painting with my fingers. Shame signs, you'll have to work harder than that for me to follow your rules!
I like to touch people. That does not sound right. Let me try that again. I like to touch people, with our clothes on and in a non-sexual kind of way. What I mean is I like to hug awkward people, squeeze strangers on the arm, dance around couples in bars (or on the street), pat strippers on the bum (true story. She did a really good job and giving her a dollar just didn't cut it) and high five everybody. That stripper part didn't meet the criteria of 'with clothes on and non-sexual', but I'm keeping it in for laughs.
Being a touchy feely person has some cons. The most major is that people take my delight in human contact with flirting. This is NOT always the case, despite what some of you may think. Unfortunately my pats on the arm, high fives and cuddles have been construed as "woah this chick likes me! I'm in!" when in actual fact I have taken pity or simply been bored with our mundane conversation, so in order to spice things up I've touched them on the arm in a "have to move otherwise I'll tell you I'm bored, making this even more awkward". This has resulted in a tonne of friend zoned people, and a lot of females adamant that I am a lesbian on the prowl for some fresh straight meat.
I am weird. That is all.
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