As a kid, I was and am now an “Obsessive Compulsive” (among other things). One of the things that used to really get to me was “smooth things”. For example, before the first day back to school, our mother would buy all our school supplies and put them in our Grandmother Ollie’s bedroom. The room was empty because she only came to stay with us in the summer because she was a housemother at Miami University at Oxford. As soon as I found the school supplies, I would immediately open all the jars of paste and take the applicator under the cover and rough up the smooth top of the paste. When Tim and Sue would discover it, they would complain to our mother and say, “He did it again”! To this day, I often wonder why our mother didn’t just hide all the school supplies somewhere (or at least the paste). I would also do this with new peanut butter jars as soon as I found a new jar. Even with medication, I still have some “residual” effects today. One of them is the new peanut butter. As soon as I open it, I still have to take a knife and rough up the smooth surface. At least now, I wait until I use it to do this! Aha, I’m making progress. The only reason I don’t still rough up a jar of new paste is that I haven’t used any since grade school. It’s a wonder that as a kid I didn’t go into the store and open up all the paste and peanut butter jars and “rough them up”! Thank goodness I didn’t. Can you imagine, as a minor, what my “rap sheet” would have said: Reason for arrest- Roughing up the smooth tops of all the paste and peanut butter jars though out the whole store! Another one of my compulsions then (thank goodness not now, even though I’ve thought of it), was to punch out the cellophane “window” of macaroni boxes. As a kid, I would wait until the macaroni was below the “window”, and then punch it out. When my mother poured it into the boiling water to cook it, it would all fall out of the punched out “window” and go all over the stove and floor! My mother would give a crying sound and say, “That kid”!  And we wonder why my mother, father, Uncle Ned, and Grandmother Ollie all drank! When my mother would get mad at me (which was quite often), she used to say, “You’re enough to drive a preacher to drink!” It’s a wonder that I don’t drink, smoke, or swear. In fact, none of use kids drink, which I think is ironic given the circumstances, we grew up in. Ironically, I don’t drink, but I've caused many others to drink. I probably don’t punch out macaroni “windows” now because I do all the cooking. (Although whenever I cook macaroni, I keep a whiskbroom close by.) I slave over a hot microwave 10 minutes every day. I’m on my 3^rd Psychiatrist and they probably all have had to buy an extra filing cabinet just to keep my records in! J  Oh well, at least it provides job security for Psychiatrists and file cabinet companies as well as the pharmaceutical makers. Well, now, after I post this story, I have to go shopping at Drug Mart to pick up yet another prescription and some other things. Oh Oh, all of a sudden I have the compulsion to add a jar of paste to my shopping list! Here we go again!!! (I think I’ll buy 2 jars of paste and then “rough them up” and give one to my sister and the other to my brother. I guess some things never change!!!

For another story on this same subject check out “Smooth Moves” Hmmm, I sometimes seem to be repeating myself! Hmmm, I sometimes seem to be repeating myself!