OCD

I admit it. I suffer from OCD. I won't leave the house until everything is checked five or six times. After that, I lock the door, unlock it and go back to check a final time. I worry about stupid things. Things that other people in their right mind tend to look at as a tiny spec of nothingness in their world of worry. I fret, whine and freak out about the toaster being plugged in when we never use it. My flat iron is always unplugged and positioned just right on the toilet seat so that it doesn't, by some freaky act of nature, fall into the trash can and catch on fire. I get eye rolls from Mark when I go to make sure the hairdryer is unplugged for the third time, making us 5 more minutes late.

I don't put collars on my cats because I'm afraid they will get stuck under something and the clasp won't break like it's advertised to do. I won't leave plastic bags out ANYWHERE. I leave the house everyday wondering if I locked the back door when I know I did. I for some reason can't help torturing myself all the way to work.

I recently saw a sign on some light posts in our neighborhood about a missing boxer. I immediately thought that this said boxer could very well have been stolen. Why not? People are desperate these days. Take a boxer, wait for a reward. Take a boxer, steal another one and mate them. Puppies equal money. Then I can't help but call my husband to tell him to make sure he keeps an eye on our boxer while she is outside. Someone could just snatch her up like that. I refused to think that it just ran away.

Yesterday, Mark and I were sitting on the couch and he notices a car, creeping, in front of the house. He starts to get paranoid, telling me to go get my camera. They could possibly be looking for Lola. The car turns around in another driveway and slowly goes the other way. He is still freaking out, holding Lola away from the window, frantically looking back and forth to see where they went. They could be stalking our dog.

Do you want to know what I said? Do you want to know what Ms. OCD/paranoid said?

"Stop being so paranoid. They are probably just lost if they turned around." Then I turned back to my magazine without giving it a second thought.

Now does this make any sense at all. I should have been up in the window with him getting a license plate number and making anonymous phone calls to the non-emergency police phone number. It's what OCD/paranoid people do. Right?

I sit back and think about these things and wonder to myself. I wonder why it's okay for me to be the freaked out one, but the moment Mark thinks something crazy, I look at him like he's just lost his mind.