Hand washing. Nearly OCD about it. Having contacts, then kids made me this way.
**Never ever ever leave the faucet running while you brush your teeth. ** This drives me nuts.
**All shoes must be corraled into the same location and matching ** Naturally, with a daughter that lives for wearing everyone else’s shoes, I have very few matching sets in this house.
**Counter tops must be clean ** I haven’t seen them in years, but I am really working on not letting this one drive me over the edge.
I’m also germ-phobic and I wash my hands several times a day. Call it OCD, call it what you will, but other people can’t seem to get over the fact that I’m constantly washing my hands.
Oh well. I’ll be the one laughing when they get some weird hand disease.
-Syko
“My cat’s breath smells like cat food.” - Ralph Wiggum
CD Must Be In Their Cases At All Times, Unless They Are In The CD Player. This is just good, common sense. If you don’t put it back in the case after you’re done listening to it, how do you find it again? My wife simply cannot reconcile this fact into her CD listening routine. Drives me crazy. Plus the fact that when she wants to listen to a song, she wants to listen to the song repeated, preferably 20 times in a row. I enjoy that Alient Ant Farm song, too, sweety, but not 20 times in a row!
Sphincters
My work bench. Surface has gotta be clean and all tools back where they’re suppossed to be.
Gas tanks below 1/4. Just pull over and fill-up, would 'ya.
Top of the list is the hand thing. I can’t STAND to have anything on my hands - it creeps me out in a huge way, so I’m pretty pathological about handwashing as well.
#2 is certainly teeth brushing - as soon as I think about my teeth I have to brush them, which winds up being 7 - 10 times a day, usually. However, dentist trips are a breeze.
I like my house to be clean. It doesn’t bother me if it looks lived in, but I cannot absolutely stand for it to be dirty, I’m talking about dishes in the sink, carpets need to be vacuumed kind of thing. Just ask my hubby. It’s the only thing we really fight about. He’s a slob from birth.
Rule 1) The car/house keys have a designated home, when not in use, they belong there, not under the couch cushions, in the bathroom, on the floor, or in the front door lock.
<sigh> I used to be anal retentive about a lot of things…then I had kids.
Now I relent, compromise, and just plain let it be.
Otherwise I’d be insane by now.
Everything has to be a mess. Otherwise I can’t find anything. Whenever I need something, I remember “Oh yeah, I was near the armchair last time I used it” and I’ll look near the armchair and voilà! It is found. Whenever a little cleaning up goes on, I can’t remember where everything went.
And CDs belong in my CD book. It’s a lot easier to have all of your CDs at disposal rather than having to look around for the case.
The inside of my car has to be clean. It drives me bonkers if there is so much as a raisin on the floor. This means taking several trips to the vacuum cleaners at the gas station. I don’t have a particularly nice car or anything, and I am not a neat freak (much), I am just really anal about my car.
Also, I have to fold my clothes a certain way and if they get messed up in my drawers, I will take them all out and refold them. I am not a neat freak, I swear:D
[li]The aesthetics of note-taking. If I’m taking down notes for a lecture and I make a mistake, I re-write everything afterwards so that nothing is crossed out on the page. I can never study properly because I’m too busy taking pretty notes.[/li]
[li]Clothes. I can’t go outside in clothes that don’t go together. Just popping over to the supermarket? I don’t care - just let me slip into my Dior souliers. Once (under extreme duress) I drove my sister to the post office in tracksuit pants, my school shoes and a an icky t-shirt. I crouched down in the car the entire time she was dropping the letter off, terrified that someone I knew would see me.[/li]
Perfume application. One mediumish spray on my neck, use my wrists to wipe the excess off, then rub them together.
All music must be in its proper case/sleeve and be returned to where it belongs. I can’t stand when people mess with my albums/cds/tapes and just leave them all willy-nilly.
The cordless phone must be on the charger every night when I go to bed. I don’t care if it charged all day, it better be working when I pick it up.
I, too, wash my hands constantly, but I work in a hospital, so it kind of comes with the territory.
I’ve got a lot of the symptoms of O.C.D. I didn’t really put it together until a year or so ago, with the help of a friend who has a child with both T.S. and O.C.D.
Things must be zipped up. Fanny pack, which I wear when not in the house, shoulder bags, etc. MUST BE.
If I step away from my car, even for 30 seconds, I lock it. That’s mostly the result of living in NYC, where 30 seconds can mean that your car is gone, gone, gone baby. But it does get insane when I’m building the Steadicam in the morning at work, and am incessantly locking up the car.
I like to work clean, when doing the EMT stuff. ( god help you if you stop by when I’m baking, it’s a war zone in the kitchen. ). I go through LOTS of gloves, and wash hands incessantly. I also carry ON MY PERSON small sized BioHazard Red Bags, so that as we work, I can place anything bloodied or soiled into a Red Bag. It’s not protocol; I just can’t stand having anything like that not in a bag.
There must be many more, since the Wifestrocity claims I am a total pain in the ass to live with, but I can’t recall any others right now. 
Cartooniverse
Sandwiches must have the ingredients centered, and any condiments must be spread to every tiny bit of bread surface.
CDs must be in alphabetical order by artist, and then in order by release date.
I’m also pretty nutty about the water running while you’re brushing your teeth. The water serves no purpose while your’e actually brushing. It’s just running! Being wasted! Mr. Killdare does this just to watch me drop what I’m doing to slam the water off.
Also, I can’t sleep until I’ve checked to make sure all the doors are locked.
There Can Be No Trash In The Car. Dust is OK; it doesn’t bother me much. But paper, cups, candy wrappers, etc. MUST be taken out and thrown away the next time you exit the vehicle.
All Dishes MUST Be Washed Before Going To Bed. If there’s so much as a dirty knife in the sink, I can’t sleep. I don’t know why. It’s just the way I am. If there are dirty dishes, they have to be washed and in the drainer before I go to sleep. Even if it’s 2AM.
Zap!
Two-way light switches There is the “main” switch that gets used most often, then there’s the one on the other side of the room that hardly ever gets used. The main switch must be down for the off position, like a regular switch. People like to play tricks on me, but I’m on the ball, mister.
Telephone cords The wall phone in the kitchen has an extra-long handset cord, and it…bothers? irks? ok, it disturbs me 
when it’s all twisted up. I have to grab the phone and twirl it around so that everything is right in the world.
And check my name off for the handwashing thing and CDs having to be in a case, with the label right-side up and centered.
[sub]Yes, I’m a freak, but apparently I’m not alone[/sub]
I’m pretty much a hard-core slob, but MY SOCKS MUST MATCH. If they don’t when I pull them out of the drawer, I’ll spend as long as it takes to find a match. My wife can’t match socks by any means except approximate color, so I spend way too much time looking for mates (of socks, that is…apparently not enough for the other kind.)
But what about that thrill of seeing just how many miles you can get out of one tank of gas? You are missing out on one of the joys of life.
This is a continuous point of strife in my house. I will put the peanut button on the toast in great globby chunks. My wife must spend five minutes insuring that every exposed area on the toast has exactly the same depth of peanut butter on it. We are no longer allowed to apply anything that spreads to each other’s bread products.
Yes, exactly! Otherwise, how do you find that one CD you’re looking for?
Oooh. Don’t even get me started. My main vehicle is the pick-up truck. Inside = trash-free, dusty, but trash-free. My wife drives the car. Paper (i.e. junk mail) due for recycling goes at her feet. Usually an open bag of candy somewhere on the passenger seat or the floor. Empty water bottles strewn about. A few hair brushes and pony-tail holders scattered about for good measure. Various wrappers and trash wherever. Let’s just say that “I need the truck today, can you take the car?” makes me shiver.
Count me in the CD crowd, I’ve already gone over my methods in the “Tips for Melancholies” thread.
About the only thing I’m anal retentive about is my bowel movements. I’m very well house-broken and rarely have any accidents. . . . .
Oh that other meaning.Practically nothing, I’m very easy going.
Well maybe the car keys thing. I put mine on the key rack. My hubby just throws his anywhere so he’ll grab mine when he needs to make a quick trip then he just throws those anywhere then I’m late for work cause it took me 20 minutes to find my car keys.