Quirky Superstitions

A friend of mine said she described me to another person as being “quirky and eccentric.”

Well, I’m certainly not eccentric. I don’t have enough money to be considered as such. The difference between “eccentric” and simply “weird” is based upon income. You can follow the psychological definition of a mental status by finances. Rich equals “eccentric.” Middle income can be considered “weird” or “different.” Poverty level is “insane.”

I’ll take “different.”

But I’ll grant her that I may be quirky at times.

And some of that quirk comes from sports, I’m sure. There are quirky superstitions sports fans have to follow in order to lead their team to victory. You know — don’t talk about an ongoing no-hitter; wear the lucky pair of socks, pants, hat, etc., during games; sit on the correct side of the couch when watching games on television; park in the same spot if you can when attending games live. The list goes on.

And in my case, and this may be the quirky part, it carries over to the replay game I love and write about. There are several obsessive-compulsive things I do during games. For instance, I roll the dice on a computer mouse pad. If the dice goes off the pad, it doesn’t count. Dice have to stay on the pad.

If a pitcher in my replay games gives up six earned runs in six innings and I take him out, I won’t write on the score card the “6-6-6” he earns for the number of innings, runs and earned runs. I’ll leave the runs off first and write in the walks and strike outs first. Can’t be summoning the devil with the evil number during replays, now.

Also, I won’t leave in the middle of a game that I’m playing. I stay to the end, and at times that’s difficult when it’s 2 a.m. and a game goes into extra innings. It’s also becoming a bit more of a task since my last doctor’s visit. The doc put me on a diarrhetic to help get fluid off because I’m old and a fat ass and yada yada... The point is the pill has a tendency to create situations. Nothing worse than a rain delay in a game, if you get my drift. 

I also compile the games’ final scores, update the standings and keep up with the little statistics that I do the same way after every game. The routine is compulsive, but I figure it works since I’ve been playing APBA for 35 years now.

So, it’s superstitious, quirky, weird, insane. But it is what it is and I’ll continue doing it the same way. I’m hoping one day I’ll make enough that my actions are considered only “eccentric.”