I remember being a young girl who celebrated in tidiness yet detested tidying. They still tell the story of the picnic we had in the early 80's. I was seated next to my cousin Jean, younger by a year. They still tell of my horrified expression and refusal to eat because Jean was such a sloppy eater and I was duly turned off.

I displayed signs of my inherited OCD early in life, though it took the better part of two decades to come to terms with the fact that I was everything that annoyed me most about my mother.

She might not have been successful with her overprotecting, but at least she bore a neat freak. My aunts reflect wonderment that Charlie and I learned to climb stairs before reaching adulthood, not to mention that Mom broke down and bought square, 90° cornered end tables before we graduated high school. She had an unjustified fear that my brother and I would fall into injury. Unjustified, totally. Well, I did fall down the basement stairs that one time when I was six and landed myself a black eye. I'm sure that looked fishy at the emergency room.

"...and, how did she get that shiner?"
"...uh...fell down...the stairs? Yeah, go with that."

Oh, and not to mention, I did crack my head open over that large, floor-standing clay jug with a minutely chipped lip. I was a real trooper when they stitched me up though. Mom didn't allow me to leave my padded room for what seemed like that whole summer, though.

But anyway, my childhood grace is neither here nor there. The point is that I came to display the very neat freak tendencies I loathed as a child.

I hate, really really hate, an unmade bed. It bothers me most severely. Miles didn't get it. I would make the bed just before turning in for the night if it, for some unforeseeable reason, hadn't been made by that time, because I needed my bedclothes straight and crisp before crawling between the covers. His position was that if you don't make the bed, it's ready for sleeping already. Miles wasn't known for his neatness. I never led you to believe this was so, did I? No, I believe I was quite outspoken about the messy one.

I hated, really really hated, an unmade bed even as a child. Competing in the hatred rating race, was the act of making the bed. This caused quite a conundrum as one might imagine. So what did I do? I slept atop the covers beneath an afghan—note: I'm referring to a blanket crocheted compliments of Aunt Debbie, not a foreign dude.

Each morning I would neatly fold the blanket and place it at the end of my bed. Somehow this seemed more agreeable than pulling up sheets and smoothing covers. I don't understand it either, I'm just saying that's how it was. Eventually, and the change happened so gradually that I couldn't say for sure when it happened, I began sleeping under the covers, and making the bed mere moments following my exodus.

It's all very automated and I'm less human and more mechanical when it comes to areas such as these.

However, lately I've noticed a fall back to old patterns. I sleep curled into a parallel-positioned body pillow, two queen sized feather pillows beneath my head...oh it's luxurious. How could one think to ruin such a harmony by involving the sheets? No, better yet to huddle beneath my favorite blanket, a woolly bouclé throw, and then a short, wall-hanging-sized log cabin quilt to cap off the assembly. The alarm sounds, I fold the quilt, draping it artistically over the chair to lend to the air of inviting comfort I like to keep in mind when decorating. Next I fold the bouclé throw, padding to my quilt rack and hanging it pristinely from the front-most rung. then, I fluff the pillows, feel my way through the turns of the foundation, and find a light switch.

Most of this occurs before I've even been granted realization that a new day has come. The nonsensical is derived from an inner source of contrived volition, which perhaps makes it all the more pathetic.