Have y’all ever met someone who just has a weird habit or two? You know, like somebody that sucks their teeth, or snuffles constanly or scrapes their foot while they are sitting down at the table for no reason? Well Mr. Grover Sessuls has him a habit kind of like this, only its kind of normal but weird at the same time.

Mr. Grover loves sunflower seeds and he buys them by the pound bags. By pound I mean five pound bags, when he can find them. He carries a set of jars in his truck; one for fresh seeds, and one for shelled seeds and the third jar is for the hulls. He will sit in his truck for two hours and shell those seeds before he starts eating a one of them. And he doesn’t eat the seeds first, which is weird because everybody sucks on the shell and opens the seed and eats it. Not Mr. Grover.

He eats those seeds preshelled out of the jar and actually sprinkles extra salt on them like that, after he has shelled a lot of them. He then takes the other jar of shells and sucks on those, and I have never really heard tell of anybody else eating them that way. He enjoys doing that, and he is generous. He will always give you a handful of unshelled sunflower seeds so you can eat them the right way. He says its just a hobby of his, but I say its just a habit he picked up somewhere.

Speaking of bad habits, there is this one kid we know at school, Charlie is his name I think that goes around muttering to himself constantly. I don’t think he realizes he is doing it. He doesn’t have any enemies, and his home life seems like it is good. He isn’t poor or rich, he dresses OK and has plenty of food at lunchtime and snacks too, but he is always talking to someone you can’t see. He kind of tries to hide it when someone is around, but most times he is in a lively conversation with an invisible person in low tones you ain’t part of.

Shady has several bad habits, but the funniest one he has is that he tries to imitate the engine sound of every vehicle he likes that drives by. And he can mimic most of them pretty well, at least well enough to where you can tell one vehicle brand from another, at least I can. He always points out what brand of vehicle he is pretending to sound like. He can do this like he is a cop car, ambulance or fire engine and you can actually tell which one he is doing. It can get unnerving at times, and downright irritating, but he does it all the time.

Uncle Muddy was pulling his leg, and told him to imitate one of them newfangled electric cars. So he came back a week later and was making the noise of that electric car! I didn’t know that those cars made a noise, and apparently Uncle Muddy didn’t either. So now we get to hear Shady whine and carry on like that too. Oh well, a feller has to have his fun however he can get it, as long as its safe and don’t send you to hell, like Mamaw always warns us.

Mamaw says he had better start imitating the sound of a rake, a shovel and a broom since he doesn’t like to do chores. That line always makes me laugh, and Mamaw laughs at herself too. I figure he will grow out of it when he gets older, but it is what it is for now and I guess folks just oughta let others alone about their little schizms. I probably have plenty of things about me that annoy other people. I know one is that I talk too fast, and too much. I try to slow down and not do it but I am just wired like that.