Bad Habits

It is amazing how many bad habits you can pick up if you really put your mind to it. In the past year I have adopted smoking, nail-biting and knuckle-cracking, a formidable list indeed. Add to these the things I do that make other people illogically mad such as leaving the milk out (pisses off my sister), wearing odd socks for no reason (infuriates my mother), and cleaning the bathroom (severely tries the patience of my slovenly roommate) and you will recognise me as a most annoying person indeed.

I work hard at it though. It's not a title to be undertaken lightly, especially in this age of road rage and high stress (and other modern ailments that I cant be bothered thinking of). Lately I have been experimenting with both hair-pulling and an affected facial twitch, which are testing very well in study groups. These habits are perhaps less annoying than borderline-insane and as it is politically incorrect to mock the mentally unwell, I am overshooting the mark a bit.

What happens however when one ceases to find pleasure in one's own bad habits? What happens when one's bad behaviour is considered as usual and is no longer condemned or even commented on? I dread the day when my sparking of a ciggarette or glugging of alcohol in the early afternoon does not evince a sufficent wince of disappointment from my mother. In such an event, I fear I would be forced to resort to even more gruesome and offensive shock tactics to attract (admittedly, negative) attention to myself. If you hear in the future that I have become a born-again Christian or joined Fianna Fail then you will know that things are very dire indeed.