Strange compulsions

"Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely."
- P.J. O'Rourke
(Spoken by Rossi in "52 Pickup," 4x09, Criminal Minds)

[Sorry, Linden -- you already got a chance to hear most of these earlier]

I was attempting to knock out an item on my summer to-do list: cleaning out my Gmail inbox. I've now got it down to 55 total emails, with 30... ok, now 31 unread. I always start this task late in the evening / at night, though, and so I hit inbox inertia much faster (aka I get bored and stop with my task part-way through). However... well, this one can be the first one I list, but it got me thinking about some of my other strange compulsions (or maybe not-so-strange? I'll expand as I go along).

It should be noted, these compulsions aren't terribly strong. In the sense that, if I don't act on them, I don't have a strong reaction to the inactivity (that may or may not be the right word here, but it's the closest I can think of right now), but I kind of like following through on them most of the time. Anyway. On to the list of things I can think of:

1) Ok, so I'm clearing out my inbox and I hit inbox inertia. Say when I hit inertia, the # of unread emails in my inbox is not a multiple of five. I generally prefer going back and paring the unread emails down until I do hit a multiple of five before leaving it alone.

2) I almost always count stairs when I'm going up or down a staircase. And if I've climbed it once, I tend to remember how many stairs there were. Not always, but often. (This is one of the ones I didn't think was too unusual, but people keep telling me that's strange. I guess not everyone counts stairs as they go).

3) Before starting up or down an unfamiliar staircase, I always try to assess whether it has an even or odd number of stairs, so I can decide whether to start with my left or right foot, respectively, because I like to land on my right foot. Ok, I'll concede, this one's probably pretty unusual, but I started doing it as a kid and thought it was cool, so the habit stuck. I used to switch feet partway up to ensure I landed on the right foot, but I don't care that much anymore.

4) This one was more when I was younger: When we'd be driving along a road at night, I'd always bounce my vision along either the tops of cars or the dashed lines between lanes on the road, because scanning my vision between the cars would involve traveling along the "empty" space instead of bouncing over it. I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense; these things tend not to.

5) When I walk on sidewalks, I used to try to walk across a square of cement in exactly two or three steps; if I was going to end up with half my foot on one square and half on the other, I'd try to stretch so my leading foot started on the next square instead. Don't do this much anymore, either, but sometimes...

I'm curious to hear about other people's compulsions and/or reactions to mine. Fire away!