A Little to the Left…

Unbeknownst to many people who don’t live with me, I have a secret…despite my laidback persona, I do have one “anal-retentive” tendency:  I have a “thing” for symmetry.

No one will ever pick up a newspaper I’ve finished reading and find it scattered about, put back in the wrong order, folded (in any place other than the middle), spindled or mutilated…if somebody wants to piss me off, they’ll fold section A inside section C.  What kind of barbarian reads the third section before the first one?

This makes me uncomfortable...

Not being a very organized person, I have piles of stuff sitting around my house.  To the untrained eye, they are just piles – do not be tempted to mess with the order of the piles – they are like tree rings, the oldest stuff is at the bottom of the pile.  I have a photographic memory in that I “see” things in my head where they are…I will remember that a certain piece of paper is an inch from the bottom of Pile A.  If you move it, I won’t know where it is…and I will hunt you down!

When we planted the garden in the spring, Dad decided that he would plant peas in a “bunch” rather than a row…the idea was that they wouldn’t need to have support, because they’d “lean on” each other.  Huge fail!  Weeds everywhere…I refused to go near them!  My peas were in a traditional row, relatively weed-free, and were very tasty…

Loading and unloading the dishwasher is something that seems to require a lesson in our household.  How hard is it to put things in the correct rack (tall glasses on the right, shorter ones on the left)?  Food storage containers give me fits – we have several different sizes and shapes…is it asking too much to pile the rectangular dishes together in the cupboard, without popping a round one on the top?  Mixing bowls should be stacked in order of size with the largest ones at the bottom, and plastic ones should never be mixed with glass!

The correct way to store mixing bowls...

When I fold laundry, each person has separate piles for each kind of clothing: t-shirts, tank tops, sweaters,  jeans, shorts, underwear, hoodies, and pyjamas.  The girls have recently started wearing mismatched socks…I think they’re doing it on purpose just to bug me! 

When I go to the doctor or the hairdresser, I often “straighten up” the reading materials…Sports Illustrated and Cosmopolitan should never be touching each other!  Neat piles of magazines organized by title is preferable to one massive mound of paper spread all over the table!

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Customers in the bookstore who don’t put items back where they found them make extra work for me.  If I see a book sticking out an extra inch on the shelf, I spring into action!  Ditto on the displays…can’t they see that I’ve left 3″ between each book?  Four inches on the left and two inches on the right just doesn’t make sense…

My “thing” for symmetry also extends to numbers:  I like even ones.  If something’s on sale, I’ll buy two, or four, but never three!  I don’t even like to have an odd number of comments on my blog posts: people comment, I answer – that’s how it’s supposed to be!  Even numbers.  Please don’t comment on my answer with something I can’t follow up on (you know who you are, TS!)…

So, there you have it…writerwoman61 is really a freak with some major control issues…

P.S. Back in 1983, my now ex-husband and I decided to get our ears pierced (at the same time).  Since it cost the same for him to get his one ear done, we decided to get his extra earring put into my ear.  So, I have one hole in my left ear and two in my right.  It evens out the fact that my right leg is about an inch shorter than the left one!