I do the “check the alarm eight dozen times before falling asleep” thing as well, but I’m beginning to think that’s common for everyone.
Closing the toilet lid before flushing, or getting out of a public restroom stall ASAP after flushing. Inspired, of course, by this column.
The way towels are hung. The folded edge must be on the left, the edge without the fold must be on the right. There’s no particular reason for why which edge is on which side, but I’ll rehang it if it’s not right.
The way books are arranged on a shelf. The tallest book must be on the edge, with each book getting progressively shorter and/or smaller. If books are on both edges, then the two tallest go on the outside, and the smallest go in the center. (I have to stop myself from rehanging other people’s towels and rearranging their books!)
Use of coasters. Dammit, I don’t care if it’s a sweatproof glass, just get in the habit of using one! Always, always, always use a coaster.
I walk on your left. Don’t ask me why, but don’t attempt otherwise.
My eyebrows. I am “blessed” with my father’s big bushy eyebrows, and I am determined to keep them in their nice shaped line. I take a good chunk of time every morning and night checking for stray hairs and plucking them out.
Pushing in the chair when I leave the table. If you didn’t push yours in, I’ll push it in for you. The cafeteria in high school was upsetting; we had stools built into the table that couldn’t be pushed in. I’d try anyway, just about every day, out of habit.
Speaking of table manners, I always put a napkin in my lap. Always. Even at McDonald’s. It feels weird if I’m sitting at a table eating without a napkin in my lap.
I rewrite notes to myself too, Greywolf73, until I like my handwriting.
Ok, ok…I’m starting to scare myself. Tolja I was neurotic
Do almost irrationally strong preferences about the kind of clothes you wear count? If so then I’m obsessive about preferring jeans to slacks. I just hate slacks in general, partly because I have a hard time finding ones that fit well, and they always look so shapeless on me. Or maybe it’s just that I’m jean-shaped, and not slack-shaped. Khakis, especially, I dislike. They’re just so bland. Khakis seem to be what they put models in to advertise other garments like shirts or sweaters, because they don’t distract from the what’s being promoted. And I’m always losing things out of the pockets when I wear them. I suppose those are actually some pretty good reasons, so maybe it’s not so irrational after all. But I can’t think of anything else so minor that I feel so strongly about.
My backpack. My notebooks and folders and pencils and pens all have their spot, and if you open my bag to use something, I expect you to put it back EXACTLY where you found it.
Also, if I leave the house, even just to go to the store, I have to be wearing a necklace and bracelet. I have two piercings in each ear, and they all have to have earrings in them–if I lose one, I have to take out the other three.
The door’s have to be locked. I could be half-way to school, I’ll go back just to make sure they are still locked. Every night, before I go to sleep, all the windows have to be closed. I once saw a man try to go through my window while I was in there. Other people’s hands can not touch my food. It doesn’t matter if they were washed, the hands may not come in contact with my food.
The weirdest is that, if I bang my right hand on the door or something, I have to bang the left, or else it’ll feel weird.
I am pretty obsessive about things associated with my dogs. I must walk them every single day. Recently, I stopped going out in a deluge. I will walk them in rain even though I have a nice backyard and they have a doggie door.
If I am home, I will change their water bowls at least six or seven times during the day. If I see one dog hair in there, I change it. If I go to a friends house, and they have a dog… I change their water bowl too. If I go to someone’s house that I don’t know that well, I really want to change their water bowls but I resist the temptation. I have been sneaky and changed it when they are out of the room or something. :eek:
When a passenger rides with me, I accuse them of not shutting their door. I almost always ask “Did you shut your door? Sounds like it didn’t close.” People that ride with me frequently will sometimes ask me something along the lines of…What do you think I am, an idiot? You ask me that every time I get in the truck! I know how to close the freaking door!"
I go nuts if I lose something. I can’t stop looking for it. The value of the lost item does not matter. Even after I pretend to stop searching, my eyes are scanning and I am mentally retracing my steps, trying to think of a good place to look. It ruins my day and it makes other people crazy.
[Cue in: Dream of A Witches Sabbath from the Sleeping With the Enemy Sountrack]
The cabinets & the refrigerator: A little dust on top - no big deal. But every item had better be in neat straight rows with all the labels facing exactly the same way.
My CDs. They are on the racks in alphabetical artist/chronological order. If there’s any text on the disc, it gets put back in the jewel box perfectly straight. And my CD track database is kept up neat, clean & well organized with way more info than anyone could ever need.
The SCO UNIX inventory database at work. All 60,000+ items (block/brick/stone/etc.) have exactly 32 characters in the description field without any abbreviations or double spaces.
[/Cue out: Dream of A Witches Sabbath from the Sleeping With the Enemy Sountrack]
The door MUST be closed when I am in a room. It doesn’t bother me as much when am in a public place but when I am at home or at someone’s house, I cannot feel comfortable unless it is closed. I also can’t stand drawers, cabinets, microwaves, etc., being open without a reason. If you put something in there or took something out, close it when you are done!!
I have to turn off the lights or TV when I see that there is nobody in the room or it is not being used and I have to turn them off when I am leaving the room, even if it is for a second.
I hate it when i write something and it is longer than a page by like one word or one sentence. I usually end up writing some unneccessary crap just so that the word or sentence would not be on the page all by itself.
I constantly check to make sure that I have not lost my earrings but thats because I have lost all of my other ones and these are the only ones I have left.
And that’s just the beginning.
Me, Obsessive- Compulsive? Nah…
This was an issue for me in my teen years, but it didn’t last into my 20s.
I am easily and deeply upset by tardiness, my own especially. I had 2 alarm clocks in college, one battery-run and one electric, in case the power went off. I have a tiny pocket watch on my keychain, set to 5 minutes fast, just like my wrist watches, cell phone clock and car clock. The alarm clock is ten minutes fast.
Anyways, I too can not be late. School starts at 8:15, and it takes me five minutes to walk to school, but if I tell myself I want to be out of the house by 7:45, I will freak out if I’m not. If I set a time for myself, even though I have tons of spare-time, I will rush in order to get out by that time
I am neat and orderly. Which is okay, mostly, except for the part where all the knives in the silverware drawer have to face the same way in their slot. That’s probably going too far.
If I suddenly went blind, I’d still be able to find every single thing in my house because I am so committed to having a proper place for everything and everything in its proper place.
Bra and panties must match, unless I’m not wearing a bra.
On the other hand, I’m really loose about a lot of things. I don’t mind getting filthy dirty doing outside chores and make spontaneous plans easily. In my opinion, being so organized about the basics frees me to live life. In the opinion of certain friends and relatives, I’m horribly inconsistent out of meanness.
Only one obsession that hasn’t already been mentioned: pet hair…
My sister has four cats. While visiting her, I went to a fair amount of effort to avoid touching anything that might have cat hair on it (which was, basically, everything). I even wore my shoes in the house, so I wouldn’t get cat hair on my feet.
I washed my hands a lot while I was there.
The same thing happened while visiting a friend who had dogs in her house. At least cats don’t slobber on you… although one of them did vomit on the carpet.
I do some of the things other people have mentioned. I do the same things with car doors. If it doesn’t sound like it closed tightly I’ll ask the other person to check and close it again.
I have always kept my radio station presets in ascending order. That will never change.
I’m also obsessive about trying to find something I’ve lost. I cannot relax if I know something I should have and should be accounted for, isn’t. Like jacksen9 mentioned, it doesn’t matter what the value is. I’m terrible to be around if I am looking for something (aside from all the swearing and hollering I resort to after awhile).
I also orient CDs in their jewel cases so that the label is perfectly straight. I just wish I had the time to keep my collection alphabetized and listed in a database like I used to have.
I hate seeing double spaces in a document. I know that using two spaces after a period is a holdover from the typewriter days, but with proportional fonts being used it isn’t necessary. I always strip them out whenever I receive a document someone else wrote.
Question for silenteyes: Does your word processor have widow/orphan control? I know Word has this option (I think it’s enabled by default). I use it since I find this sort of thing annoying myself.
If I see a calendar that is not on the current month I’ll go nuts until I change it. Every time I go to my mom and dad’s house and it’s around the beginning of the month I’ll see that they have not yet advanced their calendar so I usually end up doing it myself.
You mean I’m not the only one? Thank God… Although, to be honest, this particular obsession has lessened as I’ve grown older (I’m now days away from being 37 and it’s almost entirely gone). So maybe there’s hope for all of us!
My radio presets are in ascending order as well, dwc1970.
All of my books, movies, and cds have to be put on the shelf so I can read the title by tilting my head to the right. It actually makes my head hurt for a second if they are turned the other way.
Things need to be in even numbers and same or matching colors. For instance, if I have a bag of M&M’s, I eat them in pairs, according to colors. If a certain color has an odd number, I put that one aside until I have a collection of odd ones. Then, I will match them up.
Knives, forks, spoons, any silverware has to face the same way, like blade facing away from me.
It bugs me when people crack the spines of paperbacks. I only half-open my own so that they can be kept in pristine condition for as long as possible. Some of my books barely look as if they’ve been read. It always upsets me though when the spines of thicker books inevitably get cracked or when I put something into my bag and it gets caught in the pages of a book and crumples/ dog-ears them.
I also can’t STAND it when people don’t put CDs back into the box after using them. THEY’RE NOT INDESTRUCTIBLE!!! :smack:
I hate when people leave things out of the fridge (refrigerator) like milk, butter, mayonnaise etc. My brothers were terrible for this and have left me with a lifelong irritation as regards those items which must be refrigerated.
I also do the alarm clock thing and the keys thing.
I also carry my mobile phone in a special pocket in the strap of my backpack and I’m always checking to see it’s still there and hasn’t fallen out - I guess that one’s not too obsessive.
I’m also obsessive about getting at least 8 hours sleep a night. I hate being tired but sometimes I’m trying so hard to get to sleep I end up keeping myself awake. I think I read a column on the SD before though that said the body doesn’t need to make up for lost sleep all the time and can mostly ‘jettison’ lost sleeping hours. Since then I’ve been a little bit calmer about it and it seems to be true. I guess being a little tired once in a while isn’t the end of the day.
