7 weird facts about me

I know this meme hasn't really been in motion for a long time, but as I never got around to share 7 weird facts about me and my life when it was popular, I'm doing it now.

1. I'm addicted to using Q-tips/cotton swabs in my ears. Cleaning my ears with a Q-tip is among the five first things I do every morning (waking up, getting out of bed, peeing and brushing my hair are the other four) and I do another round before going bed. I hate the sticky feeling of not having cleaned my ears.
   
   
2. When working at my computer I always keep programs opened in a certain order; Outlook, Windows Media Player, then Internet Explorer followed by Acrobat, Word and Excel. When I use any of our other work-related programs, they go after Internet Explorer. If I already have one of the latter programs open, for example Word, and need to open our special programs, I close Word and reopen it after the other program has been set up.
   
   
3. I have gotten locked up in the city library once!
   
   I taught myself how to read when I was 4 and I've always loved books. Growing up I was most often found with my head in a book. I read anything really; romantic and tragic stories à la Virginia Andrews, thrillers and scary novels á la Stephen King or mysteries à la Enid Blyton or, later, Agatha Christie.
   
   One Saturday afternoon when I was 15 years old, I was curled up in a couch in the kid's section of the city library when I noticed it had gotten darker around me. I looked up from my book (I believe I was rereading either Thursday's Child or Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild) and realized that there were no lights on in the library. I also noticed that it was awfully quiet. I couldn't hear a thing.
   
   I got up from the sofa to find the whole library deserted and the main doors locked. After having walked around trying to find a janitor or something that would let me out, and after having checked my pockets for change so I could use the phones and call for help, I checked one of the entrances next to the main doors and found it to have a lock I could open without a key. I stepped out, waiting for an alarm to go off and was surprised to find that there were none.
   
   I guess not many people can claim to having been locked up in a city library! (Ten minutes before closing the library everyone was, politely, told to get out of there. I showed up five minutes before closing thinking they were open for another hour. I used the side entrance and slipped right into the kid's section and didn't see everyone moving towards the main exits... As I was sitting by the window I got the light from outside and didn't react to the fact that they put out the lights.)
   
   
4. I can't ever become a blood donor as I was infeceted by malaria in the mid-90's while spending time in East Africa.
   
   
5. I have a thing for the white stuff on citruses and the "strings" you can get on bananas. I can't stand the texture in my mouth. I peel all the white stuff off. It takes me superlong to get a clementine, mandarine or an orange ready for me to actually eat it as I pick and pick. And pick.
   
   
6. I eat meat. But I don't eat meat that I have just seen close to a bone. I cut the meat from my pork chops ½cm from the bone. I don't do chicken drums or wings. I do breasts.
   
   I guess seeing meat close the bone reminds me of the fact that what I'm eating used to be alive. I have a hard time eating fish if there's skin left on it or, even worse, the fish is served whole; with the head, fins, skin and everything.
   
   
7. When we're on the subject of things I can't stand; I'm utterly disgusted by worms, snails, slugs, jelly fish, leeches, eels, octopuses, squids and anything slimey like that. It doesn't matter if I see them alive or dead, in reality or in pictures. I get goose bumps. And shiver. And have to look away. (Not as much with the worms as with the rest of pack, but wet days when the pavement is full of worms can leave me teary and very upset.) Watching underwater programs on TV, I have to hold the remote in hand so I can switch channels when they get to the eels, giant jelly fish, octopuses and squids.
   
   I don't dream nightmares (can remember three that I've had in my entire life), but some of the worst things I can imagine in life would be getting a bucket of jellyfish, slugs, leeches and squid thrown over my head or being forced to stick my hand in a barrel of octopuses, eels, worms and snails. (Just thinking about it here gives me goose bumps and makes me shiver...)
   
   Rhubarbsky used to have a picture in her banner of a snail climbing up a shoe. I'm sure most people found it cute. I read her blog posts from my Google Reader so I wouldn't have to go to her blog...
   
   I have once stepped on a slug and instantly thrown up.
   
   This summer, I stepped on a slug while barefoot, and ended up crying in our shower while franticly trying to get the slime off of my foot and from between my toes. We had guests.