i am neurotic.

I must change the sponge every time I do the dishes. I hate sponges, and our dishwasher is broken. It makes me gag, and I’d rather leave the dishes in the sink for a week before I use an old sponge. Even though that has probably more germs sitting there.

I hate big spoons. It doesn’t matter if every piece of silverware in my house is dirty except for the big spoons, because I will literally wash all the dishes in the house so I can avoid using a tablespoon, and use my teaspoons instead.

I can’t stand handling drinking glasses with water stains on them.  Doing so causes the hairs on my arms to stand up and it sends an unpleasant tingle down my spine.  It gives me the willies.  I can’t empty my parents’ dishwasher because then I would have to touch water stained glasses.

In the morning, I must coordinate my coffee mug with what I’m wearing. I have considered changing clothes when I feel like using the obnoxiously large one, but instead I just figure the universe would rather me not drink obscene amounts of coffee that day. It’s more important that I match.

In the case of glass cups, I can and will not drink out of those with grooves, rivets, markings or carvings. I do not drink without a smooth glass.

I have to press the refrigerator or freezer door eight times and count out loud after I have closed it, just to make sure it is “really” closed.

Whenever I go out to eat at a restaurant I can not put my silverwear onto the table for fear of germs. I withhold putting my napkin on my lap until there is a plate or extra napkin i can safely and cleanly put my silverwear on. the waitress put my spoon on my table before i could grab it and i had to hand sanitize it.

I have a fear of being whipped with tea towels. If someone is drying the dishes and it looks like they are starting to get ready to use the tea towel as a whip I cower away and sometimes scream at them to stop. I always got a panicky feeling when people started tea towel fights at camps. I know it doesn’t hurt that much but I just can’t stand it!!

I read a book when I was a teenager where the “villain” killed some people by putting ground up glass in hamburgers. The glass apparently caused internal bleeding and all of the people who ate the hamburgers died. Reading this caused me to develop an intense fear of eating glass. Whenever a glass breaks in my kitchen, I must wash out every glass before using it, and inspect each one very closely afterwards to make sure none of the broken glass is in any of the-non broken glasses. I do this even though the non-broken glasses were safe in the cupboard the entire time.

All my coffee mugs have to face the same way on their hooks. My husband and kids will turn some of them just to aggravate me. >:-(