For as long as I can remember I have been this way. Anal-retentive. A know-it-all. A perfectionist. And seeing as how I have been this way for such a long time, I know no other way to be. My earliest recollection of this syndrome was going to Friends houses and tidying up their rooms. Needless to say I didn't gain many popularity points for this behaviour.
Now, being a perfectionist is an easy feat when you're solo. No one can comment on you insane habits. Well maybe the cat starts to give you odd looks and the neighbours avoid you but generally you can exist in happy oblivion.
Then, kaboom a spouse to the equation and you life suddenly gets very complicated. I mean, I do still maintain that I am fairly easy to live with? Apparently not.
The first real adjustment I had was sharing a bed. Though simple as it sounds I had a real tough time adjusting to this. The odd allowance being made for "sleepovers' post marriage, carnal passions and all, but this arrangement was going to be long-term. How do you share your bed with someone else when you've spent the last 5 years mastering the art of cocooning yourself up in the duvet and 4 pillows. It is an art, really it is. But alas one that Husband 1.0 did not appreciate. To this day he will swear on his granny's grave that I still exhibit this behaviour.
Another terribly OCD trait I display is I cannot bear to open packets, of anything, with the label upside down. I swear the crisps taste different. But then again true to my perfectionist self I usually dispense said crisps into a bowl as I cannot bear the awful rustle of the packet every time I grab a handful.
I sort my undies according to type, size and degree of nakedness. I honestly do, you can come and check at any time. There they all are, black with blacks; creams, beige's and other "fleshys" all folded cup over cup; and virginal whites on a crisp, neat pile.
I pack rolled up newspapers into all my boots and arrange them in order of "leather-ness".
I pack teh trolley with military precision when I go grocery shopping.
I cannot sleep if there is a crack in the curtain. I can see the light poking though even when my eyes are closed.
I was so bad that there was a time when I arranged my books in colour order so that they created a rainbow of spines on the bookshelf.
I cannot bear to have fruit and veg in the same drawer in the fridge! I am not really sure what they would get up to while I wasn't looking but you never know.
I have an inane fear of running out of lip gloss and as a result own more tubes than I can ever use before they expire.
I cannot sleep on an unmade bed. In fact I will make it before I get in to sleep. Which leads me to another dilemma. In our co-habituating, his majesty and I have come to an unwritten schedule in the mornings and it would be that he would disembark the coils and head off to shower whilst I made the bed and weekends the roles would reverse and he would be left to make the bed. But me being me, an untucked corner, a crease, a squiff pillow case and I would be stripping off the lot and starting again. He later confided that he simply stopped trying in light of my unattainable standard of bed-making!
I cannot fall asleep unless the maximum amount of electrical appliance have been shut off. I swear I can hear the hum of the DVD player in the lounge 5 houses down!
I am fixated with the towels. They have to be folded and stashed in the basket (sans rail) like little perfect sardines!
And the loo paper. I am sorry but its got to come up and over, not out and under! Really, I can't bear giving the loo roll a yank and the whole lot goes merrily rolling of the roll (no pun intended!). Up and over, people, up and over! Honestly how difficult can it be.
And if you think these OCD tendencies are restricted to home, pfffffffffft, NOT! In what would have been my longest job, I displayed the same shocking attentiveness.
In part I think my behaviour stems from my maternal grandfather. A Polish POW who survived the holocaust and spent many years on the line in Europe. You see, my grandparents would come and stay and as all parents do, mine would play the "grandpa" card on us with regular alacrity. So when we had made our beds my mom would send grandpa up to check them, which sounds harmless. But, he would produce from his pocket a coin of no particular importance, and then bounce it on the bed sheet. Now, in the army the inspecting officer would come round and do this on your bunk each morning and if it wasn't up to parr your bed would be stripped and you'd have to start again until the coin would produce a suitable degree of bounce-back. I can still remember the first time my grandpa did this to my bed - it was winter and we had on our thick flannel sheets. The coin hit the mattress with a disillusioning "thuddd". And before my eyes he stripped the bed and made me start again. It was also during this visit that I learnt what a "hospital-corner" was! To this day I will regularly carry a coin in my pocket to bounce on the bed. Don't tell my mother but I still do it to her beds when we stay there! Naughty, naughty!
Now after reading all of this you may start that old yarn that I get myself into an overwind about all these seemingly meaningless rituals which not only waste time but will inevitably shorten my life, but ha, bully for you! I am quite happy being this way, and as previously mentioned, I know no other way to be.
I stick to the firm belief of "disorderly space, disorderly mind".
His majesty has been exceedingly patient with me, or me with him, the jury's not yet out on that one! A case of whose training whom I ask?
To coin the old cliche' - I am still a work in progress, watch this space.
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