OCD

One of these days, when I can find motivation enough, I swear I am going to have myself tested for OCD. I may not be at the level of Monk, but by golly I’m getting there.

What has brought this to my attention is a bag of M&Ms, which I’ve been eating while working on the Great American Novel™. I just now caught myself doing something that is so bizarre it really gives me pause to wonder about myself. Again.

I have been sorting the M&Ms. Not in a conscious sort of way, but in an absent-yet-obsessive-minded sort of way.

What made me realize I was doing so was when I got down to the last two M&Ms…and they were different colors! One orange, one green.

This development caused me to freeze in my eating as though I were presented with something like, “Do I want to eat raw trout, or suck down an uncooked egg?”

I have now discovered that I like to eat M&Ms in a very specific way: two at a time, and they must be the same color. Honest to God, I have been sitting here sorting the damned M&Ms by color and lining them up, two by two, for devouring, and never noticed I was doing so until the Great Orange and Green Fiasco.

I still haven’t eaten them. They are sitting on my computer desk. Mocking me. Refusing to conform and be the same color. Probably have micro-cameras hidden in them, which are recording my refusal to eat them for the amusements of the masses, too.

Uhhhhhhhhh-huh.

Hokay.

Right.

In other news, I must also now acknowledge that I have been washing my hands so frequently that I am developing cracks in my fingers (because when I use moisturizer, my hands immediately feel “dirty” again and I must rewash them) and have begun using Clorox on everything I suspect might possibly have a (gasp! horror!) germ on it. This is because I have suffered through more bouts of gastrointestinal distress in the last three months than in my entire life beforehand. Even during pregnancy, I have not spent so much time inspecting the rings around my toilets.

So now, I’m paranoid about germs. I’m convinced that the Cruise Ship Flu has entered my house, probably on the doorknobs, and must be eradicated via the prodigious use of bleach! HA HA! TAKE THAT, you nasty GERM, you!!

So. With that, I am going to eat the green and orange M&Ms at the same time, just to prove that I can. Then, I’m going to rotate the laundry.

Then, I’m going to wash my hands because I’ve just put dirty laundry into the washing machine and God Alone Knows what manner of germs might have been on those little shirts and underwear…