Un-Birthday post

Do other bloggers do what I do? This post has been in draft limbo since November 15th. I tried to write an interesting post about my rather dull birthday, but the interesting part never seemed to come together, probably because, well, the day wasn’t very interesting.

I mean, I had a nice lunch with Sarah and the twins, and my coworker Jeannie (who is big-time OCD Girl) came by and surprised me with chocolate (always a big yay) and gifts, but it was the day I was completely–and I mean completely–alone at work, what with the entire department on a conference out of town.

Yes, everyone. The only other person in my corner of the building was an assistant. On the other side of the building.

So I tried to write a post, and it sucked, so I left it in draft, and then November became December, and now the post is utterly outdated. And it’s still boring.

So I think I’ll replace it with this one, which is far less boring. Then I can finally tell you about Jeannie, who could also be known as OCD Girl and be in the Legion of Substitute Heroes (some of whom had some awesome powers; man, those 1960s comic book writers were morons–I mean, Matter-Eater Lad makes it into the Legion, and the DC version of Iceman doesn’t? Come on). Where was I? Oh. Jeannie.

See, here’s the thing. The woman is a compulsive organizer. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She came by with a bag of Hershey’s miniatures, scattered them all over my desk and said, “See? I can be messy sometimes!” and while she stood there talking to me, she–without realizing she had done this–placed all of the Hershey’s miniatures on her side of the desk in neat little rows, six to a row, with four in the top row, centered.

The next day, she told me at lunch how she had proudly told her husband about messing up my desk, so I said, “Well, I don’t think you noticed you were doing this, but…” and told her. I was right. She was astonished. And disappointed.

Oh, well. Next time, I have a suggestion: Dump the chocolate and run. Then you can’t organize it. Sorta the OCD equivalent of a bag of flaming dog poop on the lawn, only without the grossness factor and, well, not mean, either.

Okay, so it’s not the equivalent of a trick that I never personally did, though I did know a few people I would have liked to have done that to.

On the other hand, I did lower a firecracker down to the exact center of my uncle’s open window on the floor below, measured the string, cut it at the mark, and then tied a lit firecracker and threw it out my window so the explosion would have maximum, optimum aural potential. Because my uncle was taking a nap.

Boy, did he yell about that one.

That wasn’t a birthday thing. That was just a minor skirmish in the war I was in as a teenager, and someday, I might actually write more about it. Let me just say that when told we were moving into a two-family house with my mother’s sister and her family, my brothers and I were horrified and begged her not to do it. She did. Thus began the five worst years of my life.

Hm. This is totally not a birthday post anymore. I shall stop it.