Six

Everyone has their weird habits, or their dark secrets. Everyone. I do, and I'll be putting them out here on this blog for anyone who gives a crap to read this. But, people do things that defy explanation, and I'm talking about normal people. Not the crazy person who hears voices and shoots up a church. And yet, even with those morons, their friends and neighbors feign disbelief because he was always such a nice, quiet guy who grew roses and raised puppies and loved his mother. I'm talking about the every day person, who sits beside you on the bus, or works in the cubicle next to you, or smiles at you every morning at Starbucks. One person I knew would frequently go to the coffee station at work and take a dozen tubs of liquid creamer, pour them all in one cup, and drink it- she was a Type I diabetic and was trying to purposely make herself sick so she could go home. Another woman I worked with would sit in her very public cubicle and take her shoes off, picking at her toenails and throwing whatever she found right out onto the carpeted aisle for all to see. A very quiet lady at work shocked us all when she was arrested because she had two foster children (we didn't even know about them) and neighbors turned her in for locking the kids outside of the house while she was at work, and keeping a chain on her refrigerator so they couldn't get to "her" food- which in turn uncovered a previous case of foster child abuse for making a girl sleep in the bathtub some years back. One very good friend of mine, who was demure and sweet and shy, lived at home with her mom and collected teddy bears, was suddenly arrested for embezzling a half million dollars from her office and was sent to jail. I have family members who one day heard a man speaking on the radio and decided to convert to his made-up religion, and are extremely devout followers in the "church"- a religion I have never heard of, and neither has anyone else I've asked- but they are devoted to it proudly and don't care that they've ostracized their children or anyone else in the family. I dated a really nice, humble country guy from work who one day attacked and stabbed to death a friend's landlord because the man was hassling his friend for the rent money. In my hometown, a very well-respected and handsome, wealthy pediatrician with a stunningly gorgeous wife, was picked up for soliciting skanky, nasty prostitutes in the downtown area. I had a very dear girlfriend who forced her suspicious husband to go on Prozac so he would stay doped up, while she carried on an affair. I knew a woman who had quit smoking, but would secretly pick up discarded cigarette butts from the ground and eat them. I knew a guy who was in his 40's, and going to his 7th college and working on his 3rd degree, because he still wanted his rich parents to support him so he didn't have to work for a living. These are just very common but odd instances I've seen in otherwise very normal everyday people I've known in my very ordinary life. My point is, you never know what is going on with someone, what's in their head, what they are capable of feeling or thinking or doing. You don't know what will suddenly make someone snap. You don't know when a quiet co-worker who is a perfect employee, is breaking the law during their off hours. I have my own issues, some that are very obvious to anyone who looks at me (I overeat a great deal), and some that are hidden away so deep that not even my husband knows (I am obsessive-compulsive, and have very violent daydreams). There are the secrets that you share with your closest girlfriends, and then there are the ones you want to take to your grave. For some of us, those dark secrets or strange behaviors end up getting exposed. For me, I am using this anonymous blog to expose my own.