What are you obsessive about?

For me, it’s my clock radio, which I use to wake me up in the mornings. My favorite radio station is sandwiched in between two other very powerful stations, and sometimes I can only get it in clearly if I jiggle the tuning knob just right. Some days, when the signal is especially weak, the simply act of turning the radio off and on again is enough to lose the signal.

So, before going to be each night I hit the “sleep” button to make sure the station is properly tuned in, and then hit the “snooze” button to turn the radio back off. And then I hit the sleep button again just to make sure that turning the radio off didn’t mess up the signal. And then I hit the snooze button to turn the radio off. Followed immediatedly by the sleep button, then the snooze button, then the sleep button, then the snooze button, and so on. Sometimes I do this 10 or more times in succession before being satisfied that the radio will really be on the right station when the alarm goes off in the morning.

So… what are you obsessive about?

Barry

Anyone care to answer this one for me?

:stuck_out_tongue:

Books. My books are filed on my bookshelves by genre, by author, and hard-bounds and paperbacks have different bookshelves. When I get engrossed in a book, there is no getting me out of it. I can’t hear anyone, I’m so caught up.

Oh, yeah, and this place.

My sister has that fridge poetry, you know, with the magnetic words. She keeps them lined up: verbs together, nouns together, and so on …

Germs. Not O/C obsessive, but gettin’ there.

Hands NEED washing before you touch food that I will eat. If you taste something, use a clean spoon, then wash it before you taste again. If you’re warming something in the microwave, do NOT touch it with your unwashed hands to see if it’s hot, or if you do, don’t expect me to eat it. ANd for crying out loud, DO NOT touch your hair, face, pets, scratch your pits and butt and then tell me “I washed my hands”.

My housemate does this. ALLof it. AND leaves bags and wrappers open on foodstuffs, doesn’t shut the freezer all the way and wastes food, which I pay for, because she’s ill, and on disability. So am I, but i’m not a self-cenetered lazy-ass slob.

Ranting?? I wasn’t ranting. Nope, not me.

Double checking if I have the car or house keys or hotel key card… or any necessary key!

I’m a bit obsessive about keys too. I have to stop and think before closing any self-locking door unless I have my keys in my hand. That includes car doors, even when I get a ride with somebody else. (That might be childhood trauma. Once when I was a kid, I was waiting in the car for my mother to get groceries, and got bored enough to go looking for her, carefully locking the door with the keys inside and the motor running. I had to walk 6 or 7 blocks home to get the spare set. In the cold. Uphill both ways. :()

Another thing is folding paper. If I see anybody fold a sheet without taking care to line up the corners, I have an urge to grab it and fold it RIGHT, DAMMIT! It hasn’t happened yet, but …

I’m obsessive about being clean.

I have to take a shower every day, even if i know that I will not be going anywhere at all. I have to wash all of my body parts at least twice. I don’t like to smell bad.

I’m constantly checking to be sure I have my keys, wallet and cell phone, even if there is no rational reason to believe that they are no longer in my possession.

I also have to be sure that all doors are locked before going to bed at night.

And germs…I’m not OCD, not yet, but if I shake someone’s hand (which happens a lot at work) I feel a strong urge to immediately wash my hands, and usually do so as soon as I can.

Taking my BC. Absolutely completely obssessive about it. I have nightmares over forgetting it. This one is soon to be solved. :slight_smile:

Washing dishes. Nobody else seems to rinse them well enough for me. I can’t wait to get a dishwasher and move past this one. Only it may make it worse and then I’ll just have an empty unused dishwasher. :frowning: Nah, my laziness will trump that one !

Holy crap.

Not only was I just contemplating starting a thread with this exact title (I kid you not), but my obession is also my clock radio.

In my case, though, it’s the alarm. Before I can sleep, I have to check it several times. I’ll check it to make sure it’s right, then lay down. Then get up, check it again, and lay down. Then I start thinking that I set it for PM instead of AM. Damnit! So I get up and check again.

Then I can usually fall asleep.

Car doors. I have central locking but I have to check each door (and the main one twice) every time I lock up. I also check the petrol tank to make sure that it is locked. Then I look at each individual lock just to make sure again! It’s something that I would like to be able to stop but I do it everytime!

mp3 collection. I think I been through this one, but I don’t get tired telling people about my quirks :slight_smile:

c:/mp3/artist name/album name/track number - artist name - track name.mp3

and every track has the same tag arrangement :slight_smile:

I need help :slight_smile:

I actually DO have OCD and although it is not severe, I have a huge problem with writing stuff. Typing is no problem–it’s when I actually try to handwrite something that I get all obsessive. I check and recheck what I’ve written and I rewrite things over and over again until it’s “perfect”. This includes grocery lists and reminder notes to myself, which don’t even need to be rewritten. Needless to say, it’s very annoying and I tend to type things way more than simply write them out.
I also check and recheck the doors at night to make sure I really have locked them.

Other than that, my other big obsession is BOOKS. I collect them obsessively and probably have enough books to open up a small library. I knew I had a problem when I’d buy a book and not realize I’d already bought it before, until I started reading it and thought, “gee, this story sounds familiar!” I’ve done that more than once, I’m ashamed to admit.

I always check, re-check and check again my clock radio. I make sure it’s turned on and that the time is set correctly. I make sure I don’t have it set for PM, and I make sure that at night it’s set to PM and not AM (unless it’s after midnight).

The same goes for programming the VCR. After the program is set I’ll go back through and make sure all the settings are correct: start time, end time, channel, date, speed, (which must be overridden to SP since it defaults to SLP, which I hate because of the lower quality). I make sure there’s a tape in the VCR. The tape is wound to the beginning and does not already contain something I don’t want to tape over, or is cued to a point where I don’t record over something already on the tape.

I always make sure my toaster oven is unplugged every morning before I go to work. One time I left it plugged in and I was gone for two hours, coming home to a house full of smoke and a toaster that was nearly on fire. After nearly burning my house down I became quite obsessive about this.

I’m obsessive about checking my pulse. I like to make sure it’s still ticking away, especially if I feel dizzy or if I feel any pressure, tension, aches or other discomfort in my chest, any sort of deviation from a normal, comfortable feeling.

I used to file books and CDs alphabetically, but I decided I didn’t have the time for it anymore, and now both collections are a random, disorderly mish-mash.

Most of the time on the job I can leave for my breaks, lunches and to go home at the end of the day on time. That said, I wait until my watch is on the exact second for these things. For example, at precisely 9:00:00 AM my watch beeps its hourly chime and I promptly get up to get a drink and some chips or a candy bar.

When seated in a restaurant I like to be able to see the door and see the people who are coming in. If I am in any room, such as at meetings, I will sit so that I can see the door and see the people who come in. If I sit the opposite way I am very uncomfortable.

Yeah, there’s a little bit of Rain Man in me.

I am obsessive about being & smelling clean, and looking “presentable”, even if it’s just to walk to the mail. Pretty ridiculous but I have a lil self-esteem problem and I need to feel like I look my best no matter where I go.

I don’t like to leave wrappers or food around either… OH and BRUSHING MY TEETH! I MUST brush my teeth before bed even if I am at a party , and I’m drunk, I always brush, lol.

Having clean hands. Not manic compulsive about ‘germs’ as all, just really hate getting my hands sticky.

Bedsheets. They shoud be snug, with the feet and lower corners tucked in so that you can turn in bed but not have the sheets come unfurled and tangled around you. I am completely obsessive about this, which results in interesting, um, shared sleeping moments.

I used to file my CDs alphabetically and have my pre-set car radio dials in ascending order, but have purged those quirks.

Heeeeey, I do that! :slight_smile:

Mine is clean feet, mine and other people’s

Nothing that I can think of. Wow. I am completely obsession-free. Or just slow.

That thing with the keys/locks/doors y’all are writing about isn’t obsessive – it’s just good sense! Same with toaster oven: I wish I were more obsessive about things like that – as it is, my SO makes sure that everything is turned off and the door is locked every time we leave the house.