I keep getting things out of proportion, especially if I got my attitudes about something in childhood.
I keep finding myself wasting my whole lunch hour at the Post Office line to get 1¢ stamps, so I could use up my old few 33¢ ones. But then I buy some $2 greeting cards I’m not sure I’ll ever use.
I’ll put leftover bits of onion in the freezer, when the freezer baggie costs more than the bits.
I’ll waste a special trip to the library to renew a book in time, just to avoid a fine that’s less than the gas for the trip.
I’ll cross town to use a $1 coupon for chips. Again, the time and gas for the trip outweighs the savings.
Grammar, spelling and punctuation. I don’t demand it of others, but I hold myself to strict standards. When I make a grammatical error in speech, I go nuts when I realize it too late and can’t go back to strike or edit the spoken words. Spelling and punctuation are easier on the mind except on message boards, where once you hit the submit button your mistakes are preserved in electronic amber.
Inaccuracies in print bug me, too. In Douglas Coupland’s novel Miss Wyoming, some of his characters are moving around in Ohio but his geography is completely inaccurate. Plus, one of his characters mentions that she was in the Girl Guides when she was young. Sure, I know Coupland is Canadian, but his character is American so she should have said Girl Scouts. Sloppy editing! You call yourselves professionals?!? If I’d overlooked that as an author or as an editor, I’d still be beating myself up. What can I say? I’m an artist. I’m sure painters and dancers and the like have similarly strict standards for themselves.
I guess I don’t sweat much else. I’m pretty relaxed, on the whole.
It used to be my black and white kitchen floor. I cannot keep it looking clean. I hate the damned thing. This spring I’m going to either paint it or use some of those stick down tiles. I’m going to either black and dark green tiles, black and dark red tiles or painting it a solid dark green or red. I’m sick of it!
Oh yeah, when my daughter does the dishes she won’t wash the silverware. It drives me nuts! I’ve even threatened to ground her for it. She’ll do it then but only if I specify…“Sissy, do the dishes for me this afternoon and the silverware!”
Dishwashing: I scrub dishes by hand then put them in the dishwasher. Twice the water and energy, but scrubbing is the only thing that really gets off crud. The dishwasher just sterilizes in water hotter than my hands can take.
Buying anything: do I really need it, is it really worth the money, blah, blah, blah. Stupid, nitpicky and I still do it anyway.
Borrowing anything: drives me nuts. Can’t rest easily while I have it, can’t wait to return it–whatever “it” may be.
Honestly, I’m pretty laid back. But a few small things itch at me.
Count me in on grammar/spelling. I tend to be really bad in French classes, where I know the teacher is probably sitting there correcting my every mistake silently while I’m speaking.
Talking to strangers.
Getting on to my residents for violating quiet hours. I’m in fits and giggles 'till 10:59, but at 11 PM I turn into the proverbial Evil Bitch RA. I hate the transformation
Writing holiday cards. My friends are all in that fun 18-25 age range, and many of them are trying out different religions and belief systems, and sometimes even “Happy Holidays” becomes a touchy greeting.
Trying to blend in during class when I haven’t done the reading.
Figuring out when to cross in the crosswalk in front of the parking garages - trying not to cut any drivers off, but not wanting to wait forever, either.
If a tear off my copy of the receipt, am I smart for not creating a stupid extra step for the clerk, or stupid for throwing them off their routine?
If I buy this copy of Fight Club with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton on the cover, will the clerk think I’m just a semi-literate schmuck who only reads books that become movies? Is there an unobtrusive way to indicate I read Palahniuk’s other books first? Oh well, I just won’t buy it.
I guess I’d better have that official transcript I ordered held until that solitary B gets bumped up to a B+.
Is what I’ve written really worth reading? Will anyone find what I’ve written interesting or amusing? Naw, I won’t post this crap. (I’ve noticed many here and elsewhere don’t have this problem.)
Another freaking 95? When was the last time I got a 100? How am I going to make up for those occasional 80-somethings?
Should I correctly pronounce a foreign name in the middle of an English conversation? What if it’s an English conversation with a native speaker of said foreign language? Not a problem with romance languages, but those aren’t my thing.
If I call this girl about homework I missed because she’s the only person whose surname I’ve learned all term, and is therefore the only person whose number I can look up, will she get the wrong idea and think I’m pursuing her? Does the fact that I’m worrying about this mean that some part of my brain IS interested and I don’t know it?
What if not liking this boring. pretentious art movie means I’m not as smart as the people who do like it?
What if the reason that practically everything I like isn’t popular is that everything I like sucks and I’m the only one who hasn’t noticed?
As you can see, my brain is a teeming mass of perfectionist neuroses. Now I’m going to make myself hit “submit.”
I am a lousy housekeeper and completely indifferent about all things in the domestic realm. Except I’m extremely fussy about how our towels get folded. No idea why.
If I see kids clothes on sale I always buy something for my son whether he needs it or not. We have enough socks and superman undies to last us till he’s 45, but hey, he needs them. Then later, I kick myself for spending the money.
I too wash my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Whats the point of having a dishwasher and dishpan hands?
I say yes way too much to people and then wonder why I said it.
I wash my bed linens twice a week. Partly cuz I love the feeling of fresh sheets but partly because I just think I should. They can’t possibly be dirty, I shower in the morning and bathe at night.
I think I was the only person at my school’s dining hall to always have the fork on the left, and the knife and spoon on the right, even if I was just having pizza, and didn’t need the silverware anyways.
I’ve been known to get quite agitated at salt and pepper shakers randomly situated on the table.
I compulsively wipe dust from things, especially other people’s things.
Mostly, though the only stuff I sweat is little drops of salty water.
Out of nowhere, I will dredge up old memories of confrontations I’d had with store clerks (etc.) which I lost. I will envision that know-nothing lady at the DMV window who didn’t know how to read the DMV’s own reports but still insisted she knew more than I did about my registration history. I will imagine myself saying the “right” things I should have said at the time. I will imagine myself slapping said store clerk silly. I will imagine myself taking a 12-gauge shotgun to said clerk’s head – no, first I will pin said clerk to the floor and shoot his/her arm or leg, so that he/she will know excrucuating pain and fear right before I blow his/her brains all over said floor. I will raise my own blood pressure several notches with these musings.
My small stuff is mostly work-related. No matter what I’m doing, it has to be as correct as I can get it, and it drives me nuts when co-workers don’t place the same importance on correctness that I do. The funny thing is I haven’t had a job I cared about in ages, yet I still feel compelled to do my best work all the time. Something wrong with this picture.
My car is a total disaster. It has clothes,spo rts gear, soda bottl es, wrappers, you name it, you could probably find it in my car. But you won’t find anything in my glove box. Nothing at all goes in there except the manual for the car, the registration and my insurance card. I cannot have anything else in there, just incase I need to find my car’s paperwork.
Speaking of resetting clocks, here it is that time of year again. This time, though, since I’ve already admitted it’s a quick task, I’m not going to let myself sweat it.
However, I just read a whole lot of other new things to sweat about!
I worry about pretty much everything, but I actually called up the power company the other day because my bill didn’t get here on the day it was supposed to, to make sure I wouldn’t miss the payment. On the same front, I call up bell every month about a week after I mail in a payment just to make sure they received it. I could literally go on and on for ours, seeing as I’m an obsessive compulsive.
