Fold It In

Compulsions, paper...and me

I used to doodle a lot. Back in the olden days when we all talked on landline phones that had a curly cord connecting the base and the handset, I could easily keep the handset in place between my ear and my shoulder (causing an inevitable crick in my neck, if the call was long enough) while casually and mindlessly drawing endless stars and hearts on a scrap of paper.

I doodle much less often these days. Mainly I’m at my desk and on a work call when those stars and hearts appear on pads of paper, practically without my even realizing I’m drawing them.

Over the past few years I have added another mindless activity I can do with very little thought: folding.

I’m not talking about super cool origami figures, either. Sure, I can fold an excellent frog out of a rectangular piece of paper (or an index card): my skill where that is concerned comes from years of practice when I was teaching second grade Sunday School at our temple. The ten Passover plagues were more fun to teach every year once I started bringing a couple hundred green index cards into my classroom. After giving a few demos (how to fold and how to make them jump) and daring the class full of eight-year-olds to create a paper frog plague, I ran out of index cards every time.

Ribbit! I’ve still got it.

The kind of folding I do these days simply makes paper smaller before I throw it away, with very little rhyme or reason. Among many other used paper products, I do it with straw wrappers and—oddly—paper plates. Even used paper cups aren’t safe from my compulsive folding.

Anyone who goes out to eat with me will experience my happily chatting with them while absentmindedly folding my straw wrapper into triangle after triangle or just over and over on itself in rectangles or squares, or rolling it up and then unrolling it, pressing it flat again before folding it in some other way. Often I will rip it up into little pieces and then slide it to the side of the table when I have exhausted all options. I cannot remember the last time I removed a paper wrapper from a straw and set it on the table, unbothered. It’s been years.

At home, Jim and I usually break at noon on workdays to eat and watch an episode of “The Daily Show” or some sitcom together. Lately I have caught him watching with amusement as I, within a minute of finishing my lunch, fold my paper plate in half, and then in half again, and then in half again, usually finishing up by folding the top edge over to seal in any crumbs that may be trying to escape.

One day he said, “Is that a turtle?”

“No,” I laughed, putting my random creation in the palm of his outstretched hand so he could take it to the trash along with his fully intact paper plate.

I’m not sure if the folding is a nervous habit or if my hands just need something to do at all times. Maybe those are the same. No matter what you call it, it’s become a compulsion. It occurs to me practically daily that I should probably invest in a package of colorful origami paper so I could at least learn and practice some new animals or other fun shapes. Someone somewhere is probably collecting paper cranes, right?

But that seems like a commitment and money that I don’t need to spend. Frankly, I need to bring home another craft like I need a hole in the head. I’ll stick to paper wrappers and plates but reserve the right to change my mind.

I might have a Michael’s reward to use up, after all.