dysfunction diagno(o)sed

i sat and twiddled my thumbs.
i looked at the newspaper lying all awry on the table. looked away. i took three deep breaths and looked back. i tried auto-suggestion, self hypnosis and some rudimentary mental tai chi. it didn’t quite work...

i found myself getting up, folding the newspaper neatly, along the right creases, removing the dog ears and putting it away in a stash. i adjusted the stash so it was all at right angles, made sure none of the newspapers stuck out.
(now hang on a minute here... this is not normal. panic. am i ill?)
as luck would have it, a couple of days later, while pottering around the wicked web, i stumbled upon ocpd!

obsessive compulsive personality disorder. (cringe and squeak) i think i have it!

i am obsessed with right angles, i like things that tessellate into grids, i like neat straight lines, i hate full ashtrays, i cant sit still if there are creases on the bed, wet bathrooms and muddy footprints give me huge ulcers. if i see anything lying around at an angle, i just have to get up and straighten it so it aligns parallel to something, before i can breathe regularly again. if i see chairs pulled out, i have to put them back in, pillows and cushions simply have to be patted back into place, at all times… gees, i feel sick just writing all this! i am a freak, eeps.

you can well imagine the toll this is taking on the husband. the husband prides himself on being an organized, clutter-free, cleanliness freak… until i came along and riddled gaping holes into his little pipe dream.
by the time he’s smoked one cigarette, i have gone and emptied and washed the ashtray and put it away neatly in some corner; he’s just gotten up for three seconds to take a leak or stretch his legs, and i have rearranged all the cushions back into neat tessellations; he’s cooking and i am hovering over his shoulder, cleaning the kitchen platform every one minute… somebody just tie me up!!!

the husband’s caught on real quick. we are in the middle of a heated argument, and we are just about to drop the cool, sarcastic, rational, tempered tones and launch into a screaming match (er… i mean, me screaming and the husband icy calm), it looks like i am going to win this round… when the husband casually leans over and spills some coffee deliberately on the floor… my senses take this is in, in a slow-mo-matrix like visual, i can see the drops falling on to the clean white floor, they go splot! splot! splatch! (like in those nat geo specials?), i see the stain spreading… the points i have scored in the argument go stutter and kaput, the next thing i know, i have got a cloth in my hand and i am on my knees cleaning the floor… the husband goes, “touché” and exits the argument with panache that puts johnny depp to shame.

my friends have taken to calling me kavitybai. i am ribbed all the time about the disappearing ashtrays. the bums even come home and drag a finger on a forgotten, remote corner, and say, “just look at all this dirt, you forgot this spot”, and stand back and chuckle as i do the entire mopping routine again.
this has got to stop i realize… i am tying myself into knots trying to ignore that fuzzy dust ball that is canoodling around the house, making graceful arches and twirls. i am trying so hard to ignore it, that all i can think of is, how hard i am trying to ignore it…