A completely useful compulsion I have.

Huh... I do this too. I like the box to be balanced when I take it outta the fridge.

I do this too for weight distribution, but I don't make sure it's symmetrical. I'm worried someone in my family will be surprised by the uneven weight of the carton when they pull it off the shelf and drop it.

I do this because the weight distribution is even so i don’t drop the carton when grabbing it out of the fridge again
- Or you just put the heavy end facing the door of the refrigerator so you always are picking up the heavy end and not the empty end. It should be that way anyways if you're putting the eggs in the fridge because you'd also want to be holding the stable end of the carton and not the empty side.
  
  But what if all the ends are stable and there is no empty side?
  
  I used to do it that way but other people in the house dont so I’ve switched to spreading it out

now kick your egg balancing autism into high gear to start balancing electrons on atoms to discover new elements.
or balance the number of molecules to create a new type of crystal that cures cancer.
or...you get the picture.
- They clearly don’t get any other picture. No one balances eggs… EVER
  
  I balance eggs...

There's another way to egg?

Balance is everything, I don't want the carton to flip on me cause the eggs are placed randomly

I do that all the time. The eggs MUST BE balanced.

not autistic but I picked up a very unbalanced egg carton once and realized we shouldn't have unbalanced egg cartons. it's just sensible.

And if you are left with a prime number of eggs?
- 2 is a prime. I think you meant odd.
  
  Of course, how could I forget about the oddest prime!
- Always removed in two, there are. No more. No less.
- This is why eggs should be sold in packs of 15

How are you going to rearrange the eggs when you take out the next egg?
- you take out another egg
- Start from the corners one at a time.

T'was the tism m'lord

I usually create checkered patterns to keep a consistent weight balance and keep box strength strength against external force evenly spread.

I first heard of this a couple years ago on a reddit post. It had never occurred to me to think that an egg carton should be balanced, or to expect an egg carton to be balanced when I pick it up.
I still don't worry about the balance, but I get it.
I don't even take them out of the same lateral side of the carton, just pick at random
ooxoxx
ooooxx
- You'll bring chaos into your house rumba!
  
  I have a teen and a tween, we are at max entropy already

I kind of have both, just learn to enjoy the beauty of symmetry.

So you always have to take a multiple of two eggs? Well it’s unarguably visually pleasing

OMG, I do this too!

When I eat grapes, I like to eat two at a time, and end with an even number. I throw away the last grape if it's not an even number. Why? #JustAutieThings.

I keep the eggs away from the corners, most likely to get damaged imo

I only buy boxes of 2x2. I suppose the only way is to get all four out at the same time.
- I've never seen a pack smaller than 2x3. I buy at least two dozen a week. I make sure partial cartons are weight balanced though.
  
  Well, now you have :)

For me I have to take them out in an even number otherwise I will have a feeling that is going to hang onto me until I rectify it ASAP.
Also they must be taken out from one specific side and not the other. The balance must be maintained!

The other day, in another thread about eggs (damn we talk a lot about eggs lately!) someone mentioned a 15 egg pack. WTF is wrong with your countries!! The natural egg set is 12. a dozen! because, 12 is the logical... Because 12 eggs is... Hmmm. we don't have twelve fingers, or toes... Why dafuq do we use dozens? I mean, even decimal months make more sense
- EVEN NUMBERS ONLY! 15? Are you fucking kidding me? They come in 6, 12, or 18, or those big 30 squares. EVEN NUMBERS!
  Who packs them in odd must suffer the wrath of the gods of the autists!

I do this all the time but for some reason don’t feel compelled to drag the entire internet through my process to make me feel better every time…
Is ADHD supposed to be a social coping mechanism?
This whole sub is just bunch of folks complaining about habits…
Why is this an ADHD thing? Other folks have habits yet spare the world from suffering their internal mechanisms… Is ADHD just forcing others to hear your habits?

Relevant XKCD
- According to this I am chaotic neutral, not sure what that means? I aim to balance the weight evenly, when pulling out of the fridge, the carton stays level.
  
  I use Lawful Good for the same reason. Both keep the center of weight in the middle, but your method is more evenly distributed.
- There is always a relevant xkcd.
- Chaotic good here.
  Yep, I'm an Autist.
  ... Also had a mom with pretty severe OCD, so I always remember that 'good enough is good enough', in scenarios like this.
  EDIT:
  ... Also also, I find the lawful evil solution to be utterly diabolical and actually makes me angry just being exposed to it conceptually... which I guess does make sense, opposite sections of the chart.
  
  Did your mom also have a neverending project of slowly removing the old layers of lead paint from the inside of the house by scraping it off a little at a time with a razor blade?
- I disagree with most of those. Lawful neutral is evil for example, as it imbalances the carton away from the hinge.
  
  Knowing Randall, I wouldn't be surprised if he actually got his own DnD group, or conducted some sort of poll, where he actually asked people already in certain alignment categories to describe their own egg carton balancing patterns... or lack thereof.
  That would come closer to the actual alignments self representing...
  But also I have no idea, this is just my head canon now rofl.
- My wife insists on true neutral and I can't think of a worse way of doing it. I try to counterbalance with lawful good whenever I have eggs, bit I'm always playing catch up...
- TIL I'm true neutral. Always thought I was chaotic good.
- Per this example I'm lawful good

it's just sensible. if you take from one end, you run the risk of unexpectedly grabbing the 'light end' and accidentally dropping the partial carton on the floor next time you take it out of the fridge.
- Oh my god. This is beautiful.
  Thank you, fellow lemites. I have assimilated this autism into my own.
- Bam. Right here. It’s all about that weight distribution, simple as. First time I grabbed a carton by the light end, my stomach dropped. Not having that, no way.
- So always put the heavy (short, not long) end facing the door, so you always grab the heavy end, and never have this problem.
- This is why I do it. It's not necessarily symmetrical, just roughly even weight distribution to prevent a heavy side.

You try to take the egg carton out of the fridge and it's unbalanced ONE TIME...
- The problem now is living with someone who doesn’t do this and then you expect it to be balanced because you take the time and effort to be precise as a show of appreciation for the others around you so they don’t befall the same fate that YOU now must suffer as you discover the eggs are now unbalanced and they spill all over the floor, because they didn’t happen to hyper focus these exact thoughts and how could they be so inconsiderate after you put in so much effort to focus on this to prevent this exact situation
  Bro life is too exhausting wtf
  
  I also like to maintain balance in containers as well for just these reasons, but after years of living with people who didn't share that preference, I learned to lift a container in place, then pull it out. That way I am cognizant of its balance before taking significant risk.
- Eggs all over the floor! Especially if the carton is also not quite hooked shut, or slightly creased.

I do this and I am not austic.
I might have picked it up from this guy.
- Yeah, this is a common sense thing. If you don't balance the mass the next time you pull it out of the fridge there's a good chance the imbalance causes the carton to twist or to bang it on something on the way out.
  
  If your carton can physically do that, then either your carton is paper and not carton, or your eggs have stones inside them.
- I’m not autistic or OCD, and I do this too. It’s just common sense and mildly entertaining.
- Is he Adrian Monk's cousin?

I do also balance the carton. Not always absolute symmetry but don't want someone to drop them.

YOU'RE A GENIUS ! I take eggs out starting by one end and it always feels super weird to have an unbalanced carton, I'll have to try your method.

I think with this carton you can get a weight-balanced arrangement for any number of eggs except one and seventeen. So whatever you do at the start and end of the carton, it better involve at least two eggs

This is the way!

I'm positive there is a correlation between ocd and autism. This seems like it's hinting at a more ocd thing. Still it's not entirely irrational itself.

Ngl I'm too lazy to do this and just take eggs out from right to left. I always put the carton back in the fridge the same way so the weight is always on the end I grab.
- Are you a lefty? (Left-handed, I assume you're politically Left because you're here)
  
  Lol nah I'm right handed. But to get the geometry right, my fridge is on the right side of the kitchen, and the door hinge is on the right. So the eggs stay on the left side of the fridge closest to the rest of the kitchen counter tops. So the carton comes out and goes back in the same orientation using my right hand. Meaning I'm always grabbing the heavy side with the eggs.
  I'm still careful anytime I'm grabbing the carton just in case, but so far no dropped eggs in the house

When it must be inbalanced due to the number of eggs, as long as the extra weight is towards the hinge then it retains the safety benefits of being balanced.
Since I get eggs while holding the carton I tend to take from the 'outside' row first, starting at the ends, and work my way into the center by the hinge. This puts the weight in the hand I'm using to hold the carton and works well even for 18 and 24 count cartons. If I set the carton down before yoinking eggs, I would go for more balance.

I guess a three-egg omelette is out of the question then

Huh, maybe I should give it a try…..

Symmeggrical

Whoa look at Mr moneybags here, flexing with an 18 eggs container
- Per egg it is cheaper than buying the dozen.
  
  For regular commodity eggs, the cost per egg is exactly the same between 12 and 18 packs (at least at my grocery store). However, with eggs being so expensive, I've started treating them as a luxury good, and so I took a look and noticed that the prices of the fancy eggs haven't increased nearly as much (on a percentage basis) as the basic commodity eggs. I've also noticed that with the fancy eggs, you actually do get a small volume discount for buying 18 instead of 12. Therefore, the skyrocketing egg prices have actually caused me to buy fancier eggs and more of them at a time, LOL!
  Before:
  12 normal eggs: $1
  18 normal eggs: $1.50
  12 fancy eggs: $4+ ( 4x "normal," too much of a price premium)
  Now:
  12 normal eggs: $5
  18 normal eggs: $7.50
  18 fancy eggs: $10 (1.33x "normal," a small enough premium to say "might as well get the better quality")
  
  buys the entire US egg industry
  technically cheaper than buying cartons

I remember my sister dropping the last of the eggs casue one side was heavy. She was so upset.
Why do this.

It makes the carton easier to handle and less likely to tear and drop.

I take supplements in the evening and it got so boring taking out the pills from top to bottom, left to right. So now I'm doing various patterns, usually symmetric.
Thanks, now I feel not quite so absurd.

Cool. Now if you were to stack these eggs in 3D, would you create an hcp or an fcc lattice?

Apparently seating on aircraft is allocated similarly.

Tend to get eggs in a box of six: front corners first, then the rear corners and then the centre eggs.
I'm not in America so my eggs can live outside the fridge, it's mostly about making sure someone doesn't knock the box and crack an egg accidentally.

I always take them out symmetrically and front row first, if possible.

Perhaps this person would be better employed as a tanker mate; that's bang-on distribution to avoid hogging or sagging.