OCD SFPD

I've taken a recent liking to the show Monk, which is about a genius SF detective who is obsessive-compulsive and has a personal nurse to help him deal with all those OCD tendencies. Despite his disorder (which started after the unsolved murder of his wife), he gets sent on cases that require him to be in sewers or deal with rather amusingly unsanitary conditions. I think I really take to his character because he notices little anal details that I would too (except for the ones that would eventually solve the case).

Heck, I probably have OCD. But we all have our little quirky habits. Routines or regular preferences that we do, whether it's because we can't stand it when it's not that way or because we feel just that little bit more comfortable when it is. I've already written about my Starbucks cup routine, and there's lots more I haven't yet written about. What are some of yours?

6 comments:

Mike said...

Where do I start?
Oh oh.. I got one.. When I am in need of using toilet paper, I always make sure I take even number of sheets because they fold on the perforated line neatly.

And.. My insistant effort to get rid of water rings in front of me on dinner tables.

I'm sure I'll come up with more later..

Ben said...

Haha ... I never really noticed this every-other-square of toilet paper perforation thing. I have my own quirks about TP, but that's for another day.

When I'm at a restaurant, the ice water always condenses on the glass and creates these "rings' on the table. These are the ones you are so insistent on removing. Except, I like to then lift my glass and create another one adjacent to the first, and a third next to the second, and so on, until I've created a lovely pattern of rings. (This works better if the restaurant uses a paper tablecloth, because the water soaks and makes the rings nicer.) Sometimes hexagonal, sometimes just a square, sometimes an arc. 'pends on the mood.

Mike, you and I could probably spend frustrating hours at the same dinner table. Let's see tonight.

When using my laptop (resting on the Griffin iCurve laptop stand) with my wireless keyboard and mouse, I like to make sure the wireless keyboard keys are laterally aligned with the laptop keys. By that, I mean that the Y key on the laptop keyboard and the Y key on my wireless one line up in a vertical line. And the ENTER/RETURN keys line up too, and the TAB, etc. Even though this means my wireless keyboard's numerical keypad sticks way out on the right and gives my mouse less room to play.

What can I say, I'm a freak. OCD.

Fumbling said...

6" rule. Glasses/cups must be at least 6" from the edge of a table/surface or I lose it. Bathroom counters have to be sparkling clean, ditto for bathroom floors. Seeing hair on floors particularly behind doors and in corners makes me gag. I recently developed a new checking problem, always doubting that I turned off the stove after I leave the house.

S said...

Mike says:
> I always make sure I take even number of sheets because they fold on the perforated line neatly.

You don't mean "even number of sheets" then, you mean 2^k sheets where k is an integer greater than 0. Because otherwise, your second fold would be between the lines.

I don't have a lot of OCD patterns anymore, but I used to have to peel the labels off of everything. Things just looked better to me without a label.

The applications must be in a certain order in my taskbar. The tabs must be in a certain order in Mozilla.

Cindy said...

I always squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom instead of from the top like most people. I actually roll it upward as the toothpaste gets empty. Ha Ha, I guess I’m cheap!

Anonymous said...

Does needing to have your toilet paper roll facing 'out', as opposed to having the TP come out of the roll hindered against the wall considered OC, or is it just proper etiquette?

JON