What Are You OCD About?

Mother Nature sure does love to throw me a curve ball every now and again. This winter it seems like she’s been especially intent on just screwing around any way she wants. On Friday, I again didn’t think I was going to make it up to St. Cloud because of the weather. In the morning, I awoke to 6-8 inches of new white slush/snow blocking the roads in to work. Because I wasn’t going to play Mother Nature’s game anymore, I worked from home. HAH! Take that you evil wench! Seeing that I had beaten her, she decided that the sun must shine and the snow would melt away, and that it did. So much so, that the roadways were perfectly clear for me as I took off for St. Cloud in the afternoon.

I spent the weekend up at Kristin’s place. It was the last weekend of her spring break so she didn’t have to worry about getting homework done—just taxes, her FAFSA, and a scholarship essay. Other than that, we spent most of the weekend just hanging out. We shopped for Ryan for his birthday, since it is coming up in like a week or so. Considering how hard he is to shop for, I was amazed at how much stuff we actually found for him. I’d list it here, but Ryan’s been known to read this site on occasion (ha ha Wurbo, thought you could find out what we got you, didn’t ya?).

Some of the other wonderful things we did was watch our quota of saved up Smallville episodes and catch a few movies. We watched both The Order and Matchstick Men. Surprisingly, for once we managed to watch two pretty good movies in a row. Usually we get a crappy movie for every couple of good movies, so I’m sure that one of the next movies we watch will suck. The Order had received terrible reviews from just about every source I had read so I didn’t expect it to be any good, but I actually thought it was a very good, but somewhat slow-paced film. The only drawback is that the end of the movie made it feel like this wasn’t really a self-contained movie but a start to a mini-series or tv show. I really think that a continued storyline would make for a great tv show or comic book.

Matchstick Men was pretty good. Nic Cage, who isn’t really one of my favorite actors, plays a great obsessive/compulsive character. The storyline looked like it would be interesting, and it was, but about 25 minutes into the movie I had the end already figured out. One line gave it all away, and I think without it the ending would truly have been a surprise. Here’s the line, now you can only guess how the movie ends. As Nic Cage is teaching his new-found daughter how to con people, he starts to tell her the rules, “The first rule of making a con is to make sure your mark isn’t conning you while you’re trying to con them”. That’s not a direct quote, but it’s close. Hmm…I wonder how the story will end?

If anything, it was a great movie to watch simply for Cage’s OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) character. It actually started me thinking about people who are OCD about different things. This got me to thinking even more and I realize that I’m pretty sure each and every one of us is a little OCD about something or other in our lives. Personally, I know I get a little OCD about my comic collection. Each one needs to be properly protected while I’m not reading them. I need to complete entire series. I can’t have only a few issues of a series because I won’t have the entire story and I need entirety—I need completion!

Some people would probably marvel at how meticulous I’ll be with my comics. Each one put in its polybag. The polybag must have a board in it for stability. The flap of the polybag must be folded over into the comic in a specific way—absolutely no taping the bag shut! Once they’re protected, they’re grouped by series in boxes that allow the comic to stand upright. These boxes are then labeled and placed on a shelf. The room it’s in can’t be too dry or too damp, nor can it be too cold or too hot. If any of these conditions aren’t met, I get a little bit irked and I’ll have to make it so that it conforms to my standards.

So what are you OCD about? How you keep your clothes organized? Taking care of your vehicle? Playing video games all the way through? I know I have many other small OCD tendencies. The only thing that keeps me from having to see a shrink about them is that I don’t develop some nervous tic or fly emotionally out of control if something doesn’t go right.

I wonder if it is possible to actively develop a nervous tic. Think about it. Let’s say every time I see an unbagged comic I blink my left eye and nod. I have to actively do this to start out, but over time I wonder if it would just naturally stick. I might start to do it without noticing. I’d like to know the answer to this question, but I don’t actually want to develop a tic. So, do I have any volunteers that want to try it for me?