i am neurotic.

Before I shut my car off the volume has to be turned to 10, the air conditioner set to cold (speed 1). Then turn the wheel straight and shut it off.

I must have pencil crayons lined up in the colour spectrum, otherwise I may miss the perfect shade and settle for a rubbish colour, where they are unable to be missed in rainbow order.

Whenever I walk over manholes, or subway grates, I have to hold onto the things in my pockets and my wallet. Tightly. If I don’t I’m sure something important will fall down it.

When I see something I like in a store and want to buy it, I have to go to almost every shopping center in town, to make sure that there is nothing better anywhere else. When I am fairly confident that there is nothing better, I go back to the first store and contemplate for 10 minutes. Two out of three times I ended up not buying.

Every morning when I wake up I have to clean my ears with two q-tips. Every time my ears are wet I have to clean it with two q-tips. Before bed, two q-tips. I go through 10 q-tips a day just cleaning my ears. I am so terrified of dirty ears.

I always eat all the broken bits of chips from a bag and indulge the whole ones for last.

If someone texts me a text that starts with a lowercase letter, I get nervous because that means that they deleted their original thought and maybe they’re keeping a secret from me or trying not to insult me.

I am constantly correcting grammar mistakes as people are speaking and texting.

Every time I notice a security camera I look directly at it and wink then continue to walk past. I wonder if anyone ever sees me…

Whenever I walk into a public restroom, I instinctively look around for somebody or something to assure that I am actually in the Women’s. No matter if I have the checked the sign outside twice already. No matter how many times I go into a public restroom.