As I opened up the template to write this post, I looked to my left at the wall of the apartment that I’ve been in for 6 months now and noticed for the first time the clear outline of the bottom of a flip-flop on the wall and a smashed bug underneath it. Further evidence that my apartment is too big for me. How the hell do you miss this attractive relic from the last tenant? And how many men have found their way back to my web of sin only to see this footprint homicide on my wall and think that it was me that did it and left it there, completely fine with a mosquito-corpse on my wall? FML
Anyway…this revelation will either work for or against what I was meaning to post today.
I’ve tricked you all into thinking that I am this smooth smoldering temptress, and oh trick you I have! The fact is that I am actually very OCD and particular about the most random shit, and this is most evident at work. I know this as fact because my co-workers point it out to me all the time whereas the dead mosquito has not said a word to me about it.
Despite my OCDisms, I am a Supervisor and I need to demonstrate excellent customer service at all times and blah blah, and this can really cause a rift in some pretty internally tragic ways.
Here is a top five list of the pet peeves that send me into an OCD meltdown at work that I keep under wraps. This is a therapeutic post, of sorts…
#5 — Vibration
Sometimes I think my life should be a sitcom because of all of the ways I seem to surround myself with precisely everything that drives me insane, but I don’t know that anyone would see the humor in it besides the self-loathing side of myself. Of course the sound of vibration drives me crazy, and so of course I want to work in a store that sells vibrators. This makes complete and total sense. There’s something about the buzzing sound of vibration that just rings in my head, especially when a vibrator is going off against a surface, which is an interesting parallel to everyone that comes in to play with the toys, as they seem to love the sound. I try my best to slowly, calmly, walk to every vibrating toy and turn them off as though it’s just a part of my job, but inside I am yelling at myself to “WALK FASTER! DON’T YOU HEAR THAT?! SILENCE THE GRRLTOYZ SILK EGG NOW!!, otherwise known as this cool cat:
#4 — Hair
I don’t really like “potty humor” (farts, etc) but I don’t really care about it. I pick up garbage off the sidewalk outside the store all the time with my bare hands and throw it away and don’t give it a second thought. Things that my co-workers attempt to sweep up, I just grab and throw away, I don’t care. But HAIR. HAIR. Hair grosses out my every last shit! I wont touch it, and if I have to it’s with a napkin or something, and I always wash and then Purell my hands right after. I don’t know how it happens but everyday I find long strands of human (I assume) hair stuck to our demo toys and it sends the creepy crawlies right up my spine. Some might be grossed out by the 9″ thick phallus laying on the table, but not me. The thin brunette strand that has clung to it like a barnacle is what sends me packing. The other day I had a primo spot on the J train and some short Cousin It decided to stand with her back to me in a way that made her nasty ponytail touch my arm, and I had to move. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. Yuck. YUCK.
#3 — TOUCHING ME
(p.s. how perfect is this picture?)
There are two and only two types of humans; the type that think it’s ok to touch people they don’t know, and the type of people who know that the first type of people are barking mad. It manifests in many forms. Some people touch your shoulder as they say “Excuse me” when they have a question, others reach over and touch my hand or arm as a sweet gesture to say “Thank you”, and both are equally nerve-wracking to someone with as many socio-issues as I have come to realize that I have. It’s not that I don’t enjoy human contact, but I am a selective germ freak (i.e. the trash on the floor that I don’t mind grabbing, vs the hand you just touched me with that may have been grabbing subway poles, picking noses, being coughed on, etc etc etc. Etc x 1,000 billion). DON’T TOUCH ME.
This is probably the most comical situation I find myself in, because it really makes me nervous. When people insist on being 3 inches from my face when they are talking to me my brain puts all bridges and tunnels inside my head on Orange Alert. There are a lot of things that are going on here. For starters I am always convinced I have food in my teeth, even if I’ve checked recently. Secondly, I’m not prone to bad breath but I am certain the second I am a close-talker is going to get all up in my grill. Thirdly, I am a hippie and can totally feel your crazy energy invading my aura and it rattles me. It rattles my cage, baby. Sometimes it’s really tough because you have these really sweet shy customers that just want to whisper their issues and questions to you because they don’t want the world to hear, and meanwhile every sky scraper inside of me is crumbling into dust. It sometimes results in me just walking them around constantly and showing them every piece of merchandise in the store in an attempt to create some space if only for a moment.
In a perfect world…
#1 — Popping Gum
Y tu, Dietrich?
My dad never hit me, but the verbal abuse that I was on the receiving end of if I made any noise or opened my mouth when eating was pretty much the equivalent of a body slam. Mind you he would eat breakfast unabashed in his white briefs, but I digress… After my brain washing regarding eating habits and manners as a child, it’s really difficult when people commit the ultimate crime in oral mastication: Popping their gum. This should be considered a hate crime, because the people that do it around me must truly hate me if they can keep doing it despite the obvious sadness in my eyes. I think it might have something to do with being raised in Los Angeles too. The type of girl that chewed gum with her mouth open and then popped it loudly and then exclaimed “It’s FUN!” when people protested the sound… Yeah. There is nothing positive about chewing your gum like that and then adding insult to injury by making a loud popping sound. These are the same people that spend 20 minutes popping bubble wrap, as if anybody wants to hear that.
Well like I said, I really have to let these pet peeves slide when at work, but it does feel good to share. Now that you all know me for the raging psychopath that I actually am, I feel very content. This is what a psycho-criminal feels like when he is first put into the straitjacket. It’s real, it’s real…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bury a mosquito in the toilet.
