OCD R somebody else
In response to a heartfelt plea, I shall now list and describe all my personal OCD tendencies in loving detail.
Or I would, except that I can’t actually think of any. It’s not that I’m suspiciously stable. I check things like plane tickets repeatedly and obsessively – every time I book a trip, I am quite, quite convinced that I’ve made a horrible muddle and will wind up at the airport on the wrong day, forced to pay a fortune in idiot tax to get where I need to go. (I will only calm down when the trip is successfully completed, in fact. It makes no difference how many times I compare diary and tickets; I never quite believe that they match up.)
Similarly, knowing perfectly well that I’ve already triple checked that I’m carrying wallet, mobile, tube ticket and keys won’t stop me checking again as soon as it pops into my head that I need to be sure I have all those things.
I don’t really have any weird compulsions, though. Although it distresses me to be in possession of two partly used items such as, oh, shampoo bottles, or ballpoint pens. (The pens one is a bit of an issue, working in an office, because of course people are always walking off with my pens and leaving theirs. It’s simply not possible to use up pens in an orderly fashion.)
And I take colour coordination very seriously. So I’m absolutely on Anna’s side regarding the T-shirt/duvet clash. I also have to stop myself staring pointedly at, oh, say, anyone wearing brown boots with an all-black outfit. No matter how cute she may be and how much I envy her dinky little waist and shiny red hair, and how stylish she is in general terms.
Just as a for instance, you understand.
Similarly, I like a clean desk, and a clean PC desktop. But I’m not anal about it. Not really. I mean, if any misguided freelancer happens to sit at my workstation when I’m out, and if I come back and notice that, I’m not going to spend more than, ooh, twenty minutes neurotically cleaning up. At most. Probably.
While I fully empathise with the tic recently described to me by an anonymous friend (who may or may not be Anonymous), of lining coins up so that the heads all face the same way, I’ve definitely never done that myself. Definitely not. Nor have I ever sat at a restaurant table carefully arranging the salt and pepper pots, cutlery and other table furniture so as to (a) align with the floral print on the tablecloth, and (b) leave the minimum space between them. Ever. You hear me? I don’t do that. That would be weird.
But while I’m on the subject, there’s nothing at all weird about folding up tissues before and after you blow your nose. It’s just neat.
So there.
5 comments:
Oh dear. If it weren't for the "u" in color, I think I could have confused this for something written by my wife.
Idiot tax. That's the one I hate to pay. You have a knack for casually tossing out phrases and concepts such as idiot tax. I read and think, perfect. Without you these things would continue their unnamed, unidentified existence while I muddle through the day longing for enlightenment. Thank you; thank you.
Okay that might have been excessive but you get the idea, yes? I do enjoy the little brain-droppings you scatter through your posts.
:-) Thank you very much.
I'm a triple(ahem, quadruple) checker too. and every single day, without fail, once I step out of the house - even when I only needed to bring a piece of paper and I have it with me - I feel as if I forgot something or left something behind.
brain-droppings, totally not as gross as it sounds. *thumbs up to Scroob*
Ah, see, it's not just having to have the heads in a stack of coins facing all the same way. That's just being neat.
No, no, it's more a case of lining them up so precisely that the ridges on the outside (said ridges have a name, and when I was younger and into collecting things, I knew what it was) are all perfectly lined up.
Obviously this only works on coins of the same denomination.
And there should only be one stack of coins, see? Largest coins at the bottom, smallest at the top. It does bother me immensely that the government doesn't see fit to size their coins according to denomination. I mean, it's ludicrous to have a 10-cent coin smaller than a 5-cent coin. How on earth can one stack coins properly?
Right, now excuse me while I get back to combing the tassles of my rugs into parallel lines.
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