How "The Shining" gave me a bizarre habit.
When I was about 7 years old my parents had sent my sister and I to bed and started watching "The Shining". As a curious, mischievous seven year old I wanted to know what was so particular about this movie that I had to go to bed. So I snuck out of bed and watched the movie from a gap at the top of the stars. I was wondering what all the fuss was about until the bathroom scene. That was possibly the first time I saw a naked woman who wasn't my mother. And then it all went wrong. Somehow she turned into a bloated, rotten hag who rose from the bath and reached for the film's protagonist. I silently freaked out, crept away from the stairs and returned to my bed.
And that's where my habit began. From then on I could not enter our bathroom at night without first reaching around the door frame from the outside and turning the light on. Then slowly peering around the corner into the bath to make sure there wasn't a naked female corpse in there. When I deemed it safe to enter I would do so. My little heart would be beating like a fucked clock everytime, expecting something to either grab my hand or jump on me as soon as I entered. We moved house 2 years later and the habit came with me. Didn't really shake it until I was about 12 and to this day I have moments of reluctance upon entering a bathroom. Of course I'm old enough to know better now.

Not really sure if that's a true bizarre habit or an example of why film certification is a good thing.

Incidentally I also have the "double touch" thing everyone else seems to have. The wife has an OCD about the number 3 (like third item on a shelf, checking a door three times etc..)

And we once drove an hour away from home before the wife became convinced she'd left the iron plugged in. Back we went.
(Erasmusmicroman is inside your T.V., Mon 5 Jul 2010, 16:41, Reply)