Obsessive Compulsive

Do you know the TV show Monk? I don’t watch TV much outside of the NFL, but Akili gave Ron the first season of Monk on DVD for Christmas, so we have been watching Tony Shalhoub be Monk. Shalhoub is one of my favorite comic actors. In this show he plays an obsessive compulsive police detective who is unstable because his wife was killed by a car bomb and he never solved the mystery of her murder. Meanwhile, he has the worst ADHD on the planet and notices every painful minute detail of his surroundings. Why am I telling you this? Because as we watch this show, Ron laughs his head off at Monk’s quirks and general weirdness while looking pointedly at me because Monk’s weirdness is a lot like my weirdness. Not to the point of being scary (I think, God help me), but definitely to the point of being funny. I do have a habit of noticing minute details. And I do have a habit of wanting things put in their place, correctly, straight and tidy. I admit I’m obsessive compulsive about a lot of things, but I usually keep it relatively under control. I don’t straighten the pictures in other people’s homes. OK, maybe sometimes, like if I’m alone in the bathroom and no one can see me.
Last night we watched a Monk episode in which he has a romantic interlude with a woman who is entangled in a murder spree. She fears for her life so Monk offers to sleep at her house to protect her. To spend one night at her house, he brings two large suitcases. When she takes him to her guest room, he immediately unpacks a set of sheets. She says she just put clean sheets on the bed for him. He replies, “Well, as long as I brought my own sheets I might as well use them.” Ron probably lost four or five pounds laughing because I have done that and actually said those exact words. More than once. And the towels. I hate for people to have to do a load of laundry with my sheets and towels just for me to spend one night at their house. So I bring my own bedding and towels. Monk does it because he’s germaphobic. OK, I admit, either way, it’s somewhat bizarre behavior. I’m not as bad as Monk. But hey, I never claimed to be normal, whatever that is.