And really, how could I have been so in the dark about my tactile tendencies?

I touch everything when I’m shopping. When I was a kid I used to drive my mom crazy touching all the clothing in stores, especially silk and satin (fabrics which really gross out my mom for some reason). I’m still the same today. Chris and I’ll be walking along in the mall when suddenly he realizes he’s walking alone. Then he’ll usually hear a high-pitched “Ooooo!” sound behind him, just to turn around and find me petting old-lady clothes. True stories.

I also get a really strange sense of satisfaction out of peeling things. Many different things. Some aren’t so bad – like clementines. I like it when a clementine is so easy to peel that you’re able to remove its whole peel in one piece or motion. Ahh… life’s little pleasures. Another category of things I like peeling are protective stickers. You know, like the ones that come on your new cell phone’s screen or on mirrors when you buy them. I love those. I die inside every time someone peels one off in front of me. I could never deliberately buy a screen protector for any of my gadgets because I just want to peel them off. Just last week, Chris had to reprimand me for peeling the protective coating off the PayPass machine at the Time Hortons down the road from our house. Well if you think I have issues now, wait ’til you hear about the other thing I like to pick: scabs. Yup, I’m a scab picker. Not only do I compulsively peel my own scabs, I am also completely willing to pick the scabs of others. Needless to say this has lead to many simple lesions such a mosquito bites to get blown out of proportions and lead to permanent scarring (is that redundant?) when really, if I had just shown some scab-picking restraint, it wouldn’t have left a scar. I’m pretty gross.

I wonder if there is a philia associated with my extreme tactile tendencies? My google-fu is failing me.