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Sunday, May 1, 2011

I Sort My Skittles

So, today, I had to call one of my co-workers into my office for a reality check. No, I wasn't giving him a reality check. I needed one of my own. You see, every once in a while I realize I'm doing something very odd and I just feel it's important to acknowledge it and then, of course, move on.

The thing I was doing today? I was sorting Skittles. Yeah, the little fruity candies. You know... "Taste the Rainbow".  No, this isn't an ad for Skittles. I also do it with M&M's. I just consider it one of the many loveable quirks I have. But I do recognize that I probably should keep those quirks in check from time to time. So, I called in my co-worker who is a friend and was about to say something when he noticed that my Skittles were sorted on my desk by color. Not only were they sorted by color, but also by quantity... fewest to most. We both started laughing so hard, I was positive someone would pee their pants. I'm sure it was especially ironic considering the state of my desk. I keep telling people that their going to do a "Hoarders: Office Edition" right here in my office!

He said "Did you actually count them?" To which I replied "Of course not, I eyeball it, counting them would just be anal." Then we laughed again. But now that I look at the picture I took, I see I should've switched the green and the yellow. Clearly there are fewer green than yellow, but again, I'm just eyeballing.



Quite seriously, I think it's me just lending a hand to the Skittles quality control people. I love finding out if the colors are equally distributed in the bag. This almost never happens. It doesn't happen with M&M's either (of the peanut or plain varieties). Huh? I also like to find out if the colors from least to greatest actually make the rainbow that Skittles uses in their advertising. It's fascinating. Most of the time, this doesn't happen either, but when it does, I feel like a real leprechaun just left me a sugar and corn syrup pot of gold! Also, yellow seems to be the color that comes up the least and this is also true for M&Ms. Weird huh? In Skittles, the color you see the most of is purple, while in M&Ms, it's brown. I would guess that there's a corporate report somewhere that says Yellow #5 is much more expensive than say Red Lake #40 + Blue Lake #2  (the colors required to make purple). And brown... well, that's gotta be cheaper than all of the other colors, right?  

Skittles are healthy as well. It says on the bag, "EXCELLENT SOURCE OF VITAMIN C". It's in all caps like that so it must be important.

I don't know where this compulsion to sort Skittles came from, but I do sometimes wonder if I have a minor case of Asberger's syndrome which is in turn a mild form of Autism. Just so you know, my spell check thinks Asberger's should be spelled astrologer's or beefburgers. I'm not joking about this at all. I really wonder that. Statistically it's entirely possible, and I don't have impeccable social skills to boot. But what I lack in manners, I make up for in empathy, so according to WebMD, I'm probably just "quirky". I like that word better than "mental".

Judging by how I keep my desk, it could be my way of controlling something... anything in a complete state of chaos... NAW, that can't be it.

It might be that I just like colors. Most artists do have some bit of quirkiness. I mean Van Gogh actually cut off his ear for love... okay maybe that was on the "mental" side of the spectrum. But you have to admit that great artists generally have some "thing" about them that is different. I even had a college art professor tell me that I could be "normal" or I could do "great art" but that I couldn't have both. I'd choose to do great art.  It's up to other people to critique it. It might also mean I have to develop other quirks if I feel myself falling into a rut of normality. I just can't let that happen. Normality is a bit soul-sucking in my opinion. So for now, I'll stick with sorting my Skittles.

2 comments:

  1. My friend Tim is the same way! He has a pic up on facebook. He also has an office job.

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  2. Ha ha ha... oh Lori, I laughed my way though this post... HB

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