I was catching up on some reading, and burst out laughing when I came to Gwen's entry for February 25. She wrote about her fear of little bits of paper and stickers. Exceptionally funny to me, this was, because my husband has the same fear. He can't handle stickers coming in contact with his skin. If he buys a shirt with a sticker on it, he'll get me to remove it. When we were at the grocery store recently, he made me return the cart I'd chosen and get another; there was a price label on the handle of the first one! If I ever want to torment him, all I have to do is put a sticker on his hand; he doesn't want it there, but he doesn't want to touch it to remove it.

While it's fun to tease him over this little neurosis ("Honey, look! A Scratch 'n Sniff!"), I do have to admit to having more than my own share of them. Little personality quirks and irrational fears. For instance, it's rather a miniature ordeal for me occasionally to walk into a shadowed room. Chalk it up to the Blair Witch Project; I'm terrified of seeing somebody standing and facing a corner.

I don't like our garage. To be exact, I don't like being in our garage with the doors shut. If the garage door is shut, then the on to the house has to be open; if the house door is shut, then the garage itself better be open. I can't have all escape routes cut off; there's something very scary about that. And don't even ask about what happens when both doors are shut and the lights are switched off.

I can't have my feet uncovered in bed. Something might come up and grab them. Interestingly, Eric doesn't like the covers over his feet, so we play some great games of tug'o war at night.

I can't sleep with the bedroom door open. For some reason, I'm convinced that if an attacker comes into my house while we're asleep, the sound of the door opening will give me an edge. I don't like the idea of somebody being able to slip in silently. I also hate hearing house noises when the door is open. This isn't such a big deal when Eric is home and using his apnea mask, but when I'm alone, I not only pull the door shut, but compulsively check it a few times.

I can't handle the sound of silverware scraping a plate. This is Eric's favorite with which to torment me.

This one is my newest, and stupidest, one. We were pulling into our driveway the other night, and playing our "What Would You Do?" game. I asked him, "What would you do if you came home late from work one night, and I was apparently not home, but there were words written in blood all over the garage door? Like, 'REDRUM, REDRUM'?" He laughed and shrugged; I can't look at our garage door at dusk any more.

Eric has other neuroses too, which I don't have the least compunction about revealing here to the millions (well, maybe just a touch). Everything that comes into our house is immediately granted a personality, which makes it impossible to throw them out when they've outlived their use. Clothing, especially, is inexplicably dear to him; when we bought new socks a couple of years ago, I wanted to throw away all his old and holey ones. I managed to get them out of the house, but they now reside in the trunk of his car.

Compulsions seem to be genetic in his family, though. His brother, as a child, could only chew his food in exponentials of two. ("The real pain," he stated quite seriously, "was when I would chew past eight, and then had to go to sixteen chews. And if I missed that...") Their mother has the typical fear of leaving the stove on, so she constantly goes and checks it, even when she hasn't been cooking.

What fascinating new neuroses will our children develop? What will have them terrified at night, and leave us boggled about how to help them? I think I've developed a new fear...

We're getting ready to go spend the day at the county Odyssey of the Mind tournament! I'm so excited about this. OM was such a big part of my youth that I can't wait to share it with Eric. I hope he appreciates it as much as I did.

I also hope I'm not going to see a ton of problem solutions designed by parents...Arrgh. Here's hoping for the best! Now, I wonder where I put my old OM T-shirt?