I sometimes wonder if OCD is part of my makeup. Or should that be, as one lady explained to me, CDO? What would that be: Compulsive Disordered Obsession? Might work. For now I’ll just settle for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Anyway, I find reason to think I have some fairly harmless obsessive forms of behavior. For example, without thinking about it, I might sweep the crumbs off the kitchen table into a napkin and deposit the crumbs in the waste basket…even if the table is in someone else’s house. (I think I have managed to embarrass my wife a time or two.) And I certainly clean the tables in restaurants if they need it. (My desk is a different matter entirely. It has jet age decor: everything at my finger tips.)
I will admit to wanting the dinner plates, the saucers and the desert plates all lined up according to size in the dishwasher. Much, much faster to unload that way. I also like all the teaspoons in one spot in the dishwasher with subsequent utensils all bunched together in the appropriate bins. That also makes for much faster unloading. I’ll stop my description of loading the dishwasher right there. I’m sure you get the idea.
And back in the days when I carried book matches, if I needed a match, I always took the right one in the front row first followed by the one on the left side of the front row. Subsequent use of the matches followed the same pattern. I guess I have this unconscious need for balance. Balance is good.
I have a theory about all of this. I think I was born left handed, but Ida Troop, my grandmother and Wanda Troop Collins, my mother kept forcing me to use my right hand. I can still hear them saying, “It’s a right handed world.” Maybe my mild OCD behavior is simply a way of asserting control of my life in spite of Grandma Ida and my mother. Maybe.
I’d love to hear any other theories readers may have.
Rod
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