Stupid little traditions.

When my now-wife and I lived in New York City, I walked past Gramercy Park every day on my way to the office in Union Square. For no reason at all, I always went around it counterclockwise. Going to work: counterclockwise. Coming home: counterclockwise.

I never broke the pattern until our last day in New York, just before we moved to Los Angeles. My wife hadn’t even noticed I was doing it until I told her.

That’s the ideal stupid tradition: unnecessary, mostly private, and delightful.

I have another one with the woman who cleans my teeth. I started seeing her about a year and a half ago, forgot her name somewhere along the way, and we have now gone so long without using each other’s names that I’m curious to see how long we can keep it going.

But my favorite started when our dog Graham was a puppy.

We took him to Petco for bones and decided to make him a tag. The machine gave me two lines. I put “Graham” on the first. I didn’t have anything useful to put on the second, so I typed “The Dog.”

Graham The Dog.

Every tag after that said the same thing even when I started laser-cutting them myself. Then some friends adopted a cat named Vito, and naturally his tag became:

Vito The Cat.

None of this matters. That’s exactly why it’s good.

Start a stupid little tradition of your own, or tell me about one you already have!