Yes, I KNOW they both weigh 10kg. But they’re different colours. And slightly different shapes.
Suspicious.
That one is black and this one is green, and the black one is wider than the green one with a smooth and shiny texture, while the green one is matte and having the texture of my bathtub which is finely polished stone because I’m fancy. So these two weights are not the same.
105kg baby!
The black side is heavier, spiritually, than the green side, and if I attempt to lift these weights in this configuration, the whole arrangement will throw my deadlift off balance, causing me to lurch diagonally forward with a barbell loaded to 95kg (more or less, but honestly who can say with the mismatched weights), over which I will trip and hit the metal frame with my face, gashing it, meaning I’ll need stitches — from a hospital, which is inconvenient — and some poor underpaid gym attendant will need to get the bleach out and scrub the area which now resembles the scene of some horrific and violent crime.
It may look to the untrained observer like I’m catastrophising.
Looks can be deceiving.
I’m just... particular.
Take the curtains. Are they closed? Are they? No, they’re not. Look! There’s a gap. TWO GAPS. One at the top, where the curtains meet: a little triangle of light. And one at the right-hand side, where the curtain should sit against the wall but currently is flapping freely, admitting the gaze of the rude passerby.
Yes, I know we live in a tiny village of 438 elderly white people, four children, two gays, one Japanese lady, and 12,561 sheep. Also mostly white.
But some of those people are Morris dancers.
And, okay, fine, they probably can’t see in from that angle but consider this: I also need to curtain the gap in my brain caused by the gap in the curtains which is causing me to wonder who can see in, and what can they see, and why are they even looking anyway, the peeping Morrises, all they’ll get is me in my jogging bottoms covered in crumbs watching Project Hail Mary for the fifth time.
Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!
Now let’s go outside, where I can teach you the ways of the washing.
The laundry goes out onto the rotary line in a very specific order. Undergarments on the innermost tier: socks, paired, and pegged from the toe using the colourful plastic pegs. Pants pegged from the edge, using the colourful plastic pegs. Bras pegged from the hook end of the band, using the colourful plastic pegs. Boxer shorts pegged from the waistband, one at each end, using — you’ve guessed it — the colourful plastic pegs. None of the pegs must be the same colour side by side, lest demons open up a portal from the washing machine and invade, Sunnydale style.
On the next tier, t-shirts, shirts, shorts, and leggings. Light outerwear. Pegged with wooden pegs. On the outermost tier, heavy items: jeans, trousers, jumpers, pegged from the lower legs with wooden pegs.
Bedding and towels have separate rules, which I am not at liberty to share with you right now, but which — I have it on good authority — keep the space-time continuum of my life running smoothly.
Some might think I’m a control freak.
They’re probably right.
But we all have weird rules about something. Don’t we?