It was a recent reddit thread, but I thought it was pretty creative. I am going to admit something that I dont think I've consciously considered before, let alone admitted to anyone else that I do. I dont have many vices. I drink occasionally and every once in a while I'll have a cigar. But I dont smoke weed and I have only briefly sampled a few other drugs, which I just never found much interest in. However, my biggest vice is I have a nearly insatiable sweet tooth, I always have. I have been making a real effort over the last few months to cut junk from my diet. I have successfully carved out soda except for a brief relapse over the weekend and maybe a pack of sour patch kids. However, when my addiction was in full swing, I used to pull the following maneuver. I would go into a grocery store or gas station, find the candy or junk food that I was craving and bring it up to the counter. Now, an adult man buying candy by himself is a bit odd, or perhaps I am too self-conscious, but nevertheless I am ashamed. So I would go up to the counter with the candy, engage in brief eye contact with the clerk and make some quip about how my wife is pregnant (shes not) and was craving candy or that Im getting it for my niece/nephew (they dont have teeth yet). We would both share a chuckle and then I'd go sit in my car and eat it like a piece of shit. Now I carry a pack of Listerine pocket strips with me everywhere, so when I get a hankering, I just pop one in and it usually fixes it. Usually. I'm getting better. I'm really trying. Focus: What (non-sexual) thing are you trapped in the closet about?
It was worse when I was pregnant, but it's still a weekly occurrence. I hide the wrappers in my console until I get to work and then dispose of them there. I'm sure there's a psychological reason for this - like a dog burying its shit in the sand - but I just can't give up the McMuffin.
I secretly love reality TV. I've come to accept this part of myself and I'm no longer ashamed, but it's still not something I discuss too freely unless I know I'm in a safe space. It started with Project Runway and America's Next Top Model in high school, and then obviously I've been watching RuPaul's Drag Race since day one (and managed to write a final paper about it for one of my classes in college, thankyouverymuch), and while I knew it was a little silly I didn't feel too bad about it. But then the summer before I graduated, when I was living in a sublet with these two very basic girls during an internship, they introduced me to my gateway drugs - Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. (...They were from New Jersey.) It all kind of went downhill from there. It got REALLY bad when I was working with Planned Parenthood and would come home full of sadness and rage and all my proper intellegentsia TV just made me want to die even more than I already did, so I just started seeking out TRASH for some escapism. And it was WONDERFUL. I can't remember many, but basically any Bravo/MTV/VH1 show, especially if they were some random flash-in-the-pan thing that lasted a season. It was during that time I started watching all of the Bachelor franchise because I figured if the type of girl who was my coworker at Planned Parenthood could watch it, then certainly I could watch it, you know, just to laugh at it. But no. Then I started to CARE. Now I'm in it so hard and I can't get ever get out. I don't have cable and have to put in the effort to actually seek these shows out myself via other sources, which makes it even worse, but it does reign it in a bit for me at least. I'm sure if I had cable I'd accidentally/mindlessly get sucked into even worse shows and much more of them. At least now I have a not terrible cycle of one or two shows per season. And it means I'm not wiling away my days with marathons of any of those HGTV or Food Network shows (although I've enjoyed the occasional episode of any of those that I've seen here and there) and I've never seen one single episode of any Kardashian show. But does that mean I'm above those people? No. No it doesn't.
Same. My Texan accent is something I only try to allow people to hear intentionally. Certain words like "y'all" are simply forever part of my vernacular but the drawl is usually hidden, until I'm angry. CSPAN. I'm a cspan junkie, and just...listening to the Washington Journal brings me JOY because hearing the people call in...yiiiiikes.
My drawl is dormant...until I'm buzzed or being all "folksy" and shit, coercing someone into doing crazy stuff with me. Oh, you're on ECMO and the vent and don't wanna do anything? Let me get all Texan about how my mama is from the same small town and how this shit would nevvvvver happen there. Before they know it I'm their new best friend. Or so I'd like to think. Half of them probably hate me, but the end justifies the means. My closet behavior is.....every time husband goes out of town I get a Kroger margarita pizza and a bottle of wine. I'm so fat that I can tear through both by myself while watching shitty chick flicks. I secretly love it.
I didn't know eating fast food was weird until I moved away from home. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. We only had one restaurant that wasn't a fast food option. I got to college and my roommate told me he didn't eat fast food until he was 16 and got his drivers license. His parents didn't allow it. They also thought I was disgusting for eating at the Chinese buffet. I literally had no clue these were white trash activities. I'm 32. I had no idea adults were embarrassed to buy candy bars. Focus: when I'm alone I listen to a lot of shitty nu-metal albums from my formative years. i listened to Chocolate Starfish and the hot dog flavored water in its entirety on the way to work the other day. I loved it. I hate me.
I've never been ashamed to buy a candy bar. Maybe more vice than closet behavior. . But if you set a bag of Black Forest Gummie Bears in front of me, you'll end up with an empty bag speedy quick. I am eating from a 1.5 lb bag right now.
I am the same way. I have watched Survivor and Big Brother pretty regularly for the past 7 years or so. Like so many others, I watched the first 3 or so seasons of both shows and then got bored with them. But then when I got towards the end of undergrad and out in the real world I started watching both shows again. They have become an escape for me, and since I don't have the attention span to get into most shows that are critically acclaimed they are a nice complement to watching sports for me. I also just got home from the Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional concert. It was awesome!
I am lactose intolerant, yet I can't go to Starbucks and order a soy iced mocha. My friend Lies thinks this is funny as hell, but for whatever reason I just can't do it. I order an iced mocha and hope there isn't too much milk in there and if there is, well shit happens. That and I like girly country songs, I really am ashamed of that.
Not so much a hidden vice but if anyone opens a bag of lollies in front of me I'll devour them. Same with any sort chips or junk food, I just don't buy any of it because if I buy something I buy more than one and eat it all at once.
This. I have a real heavy Texan accent. The kind you hear in bro-country songs where the singers force it because they aren't native. If I'm at home, it's a King of the Hill episode. It's taken a conscious effort over years to will my writing into not reflecting that. If I'm hanging out casually with someone who's from the same area, I'll let it slide. But in a professional setting, besides "y'all," the accent is off the table. 'Ain't' is part of my hourly vocabulary, but it ain't part of what I'mma take to work when I'm tryinna soun alil better roun the edges. They tenyu judgya n shit for that kina crap. How I talk ain't a reflection of intelligence, jus a reflection of ma laziness. An I kina take pride init when I'm jus relaxin. Also, someone mentioned chinese buffets. I've always been curious, but never been to one. My step father owns a food distribution company (those big trucks going to grocery stores and such), and they shared with me why those chinese buffets are always so cheap: if a truck breaks down and their freezer/fridge unit causes the food to go below a certain holding temp, the FDA won't "approve" it for resale and the big chains won't buy it. Most distributors just donate the legally "spoiled" to a local farmer at that point -- the food isn't bad, it just isn't technically for human consumption but the livestock are perfectly healthy with it. Better than throwing it away. However, the less than scrupulous food distributors sell those *spoiled* items to those chinese buffets, who purchase them for cents on the dollar. Still want to eat at a chinese buffet though. Just out of morbid curiosity.
What's crazy is over the years I've managed to reconfigure my vocabulary to dump words like "buggy", "trash bag", and "fixinto" because they're so poorly received. People on the east coast bust my chops time to time if they hear my accent peep through and that confuses me because "warsh", "bawdimoor", "hup" Are not words. Other closet thing for me: Old Luke Bryan songs. Like "don't want this night to end" and "tailgates and tanlines" old. 2010 Luke Bryan. It's shameful.
What do other people call trash bags? I know I'm going to get looks when I use buggy and fixinto, but I had no idea trash bags was a Southernism.
I went to Camden Yards in 1993 the weekend before they hosted the All-Star game. My buddy that drove up with me was from that area originally, and he just kept saying Balmer Oreos, which I thought was hilarious.