weird jollies

let's talk about weird things that make us happy.

when i was in high school, i would sometimes take a little square of aluminum foil to class in my backpack. when i'd get bored, i would take it out, crumple it up into a ball and then spend several enjoyable minutes smoothing it back out to flat perfection (which was ironically my middle school nickname) with my fingernail or other implements. insta-stress relief.

another one that i love is pulling off the protective plastic film that comes on new things: screens, digital clocks, appliances, whatever. bonus points if you never realized you even had a protective factory film on there and then i come along like 3 months later, spot it, and whoosh it off--leaving a pristine surface beneath.

egg shells. whenever i cook eggs, i take the empty broken shells and wrap them up in some paper towels and then crunch the mess out of them. the sound and the tactile sensation of this is SO PLEASING.

i found a new one a few days ago: efficient lint removal.

my most favorite new shirt, an ombre tiered ruffle tank (from my all-grown-up makeover post) was pilling like crazy. it was generating so many pills that pfiezer was getting nervous about their market share (oh, man. i really just said that).

so many ruined tiers...so many salty tears.

at first, i thought it was because i usually wear a long necklace with this top and maybe the links were snagging it. but even after i reaccessorized in the name of blousal longevity (i'm such a martry, i know) the pilling persisted.

in the name of being a grown up and trying to take care of my belongings, i purchased a lint shaver thing from amazon for $7. i had very little faith since i remembered my mom having one of these when i was little and it never worked (though to be fair, i think i was using it to try to shave my stuffed animals).

it arrived and i laid out the patient on the operating floor. the prognosis was grim: it looked like a thrift store cast off, all fuzzy and sad.

i cranked the little fella up and ran it over the surface of my first tier.

i mean it was a jesus-meets-leper kind of transformation. complete restoration and healing!

the process of slowly canvassing the entire shirt surface and leaving behind a snail-trail of perfection was pure ecstasy.

my shirt was brand new and all the evil linty minions were banished!

of course i had to pull them out and see just how many stowaways had been piggybacking around with me on this ONE SHIRT

i went on a one-woman blitzkrieg against all the pills in our house. the satisfaction i felt from this task can only be described as "borderline OCD."

so spill it: what are the weirdest, most random things that de-stress or strangely please you? let not make this something freaky-naughty, people; i am talking about G-rated random as hell things. plushies can just sit this one out, because that's not what we are looking for. (again, thank you 30 rock for that vocab nugget...never thought i would need to use it in a sentence).