Things I Dislike: The Sensory Processing Issue

As I was compiling my current list of things I like and dislike, I noticed they were pretty heavy on the things that involve the five senses—mostly things that irritate my five senses. I guess that makes sense (lol) — your senses are your primary way of interacting with the world, so if there are things in the world that are bothersome, you're going to experience them through your senses! So today, I bring you a special edition of Things that Annoy Me: the Sensory Processing Issue!

• Touch - Paper Straws

  You've probably noticed that there's recently been a lot of backlash against plastic drinking straws. People are pulling them out of turtles' noses, coffee shops are ceasing their use, and cities are banning them en masse. Even where plastic straws are still legal (like where I live), I've noticed that restaurants are becoming more conscientious about their straw consumption—now servers are asking if I want a straw when they take my drink order. I'm pretty excited about this development, because obviously it's a step forward for the health of our planet! What I'm not excited about are the paper straws that some places are using as an alternative. There is something about putting a tube of paper in my mouth that just makes me cringe! It's like the oral version of fingernails on a chalkboard. I can't deal with the texture—the way the paper becomes soggy and clings to my lips, the way it collapses just slightly too much when I touch it, the way it rasps if it encounters my teeth. Ugh! Do I want a straw with my drink? Not really. But especially not if it's paper!

• Smell - Smell of fabric softener

  Fabric softener is one of the many things that Millennials are supposedly responsible for killing off, and I count myself proudly among their ranks. I'm not exactly anxious to add more products (and thus more cost and more effort) to my laundry routine, but I also simply can't abide the smell! I can't count the number of times I've acquired some used clothing and had to immediately bury it in my laundry pile because of its weird aroma—not the disgusting stench of B.O. or mildew or whatever you'd expect from secondhand clothes, but rather the overpowering smell of flowers and synthetic chemicals! Blugh! Sometimes I have to wash my thrift store finds twice before their scent is reduced to the point I can wear them.

• Sight - Fluorescent colors

  One of the things that makes me me is my penchant for everything colorful. In almost all situations, I eschew neutral hues in favor of the bright and brilliant. Sometimes this makes color coordinating my various possessions a challenge, but for the most part, the more colors I see, the happier I'll be. The exception is highly saturated fluorescent colors. There's something not just off-putting about neons, but downright distressing! I have bought clothes online that looked pastel on screen, only to find them veritably DayGlo in real life...and I hated them so much that I actually found myself getting angry every time I tried to put them on. Needless to say, I purged those items from my wardrobe pretty quickly. Fluorescent colors have their place—mainly under a blacklight—but for everyday purposes, I prefer that my eyes not be assaulted by such intense hues.

• Taste - Uhhh...

  Taste is probably the most difficult of the five senses to use as a basis for hating something, because it is in fact too simple. There are only four tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter (OK, and umami—you explain that one; I still can't figure it out!), yet when we say we describe the taste of something, we're really describing a complicated melding of taste, smell, and touch. If I wanted to take the easy way out, I could probably just say, "I hate the taste of bitter things," but since everybody basically does, there's not much story value in that. Let's talk instead about how a good taste can go bad—namely, when sweetness is used unsuccessfully to make something repulsive more palatable. Cough syrup is the classic example.  All the sugar in the world can't hide that fact that what you're consuming is a nasty non-food that basically tricks your body into doing things it wouldn't otherwise do. Cough syrup is gross. So I can't understand why drug companies take perfectly good tastes (sweet) and flavors (fruit) and ruin them both by combining them with medicine. It will never work. There's no getting around it! Stop the madness!

• Sound - basically all movie sound effects

  I do not watch a lot of movies or TV, but thanks to living with someone who does, I certainly hear a lot of them. Sometimes, my boyfriend will be watching something in his room, and the sounds of violence will start drifting out into mine. At first, I don't even notice, but then it just keeps going on and on—one minute, two, five. So many explosions! So much screaming! I don't know how he can tolerate watching it, because just hearing the noise is enough to make my cortisol levels rise! Actually, I have this theory that watching movie violence is less stressful than just hearing it, because when you can see the action, you can also see the good things that might be happening to mitigate the violence (e.g. superheroes arriving to save the day), but when you're listening, all you hear are the sounds of horror. So if you're watching a violent or otherwise disturbing movie and you have other humans in the house, help them keep their sanity by putting on some headphones!