i am neurotic.

I wait to turn off the faucet at a public bathroom after washing my hands, so I can turn it off with the paper towel I used to dry my hands. I figure that the faucet handle must be the dirtiest object, because it is the last thing that people touch before cleaning their hands. If I forget to use the towel to turn the faucet handle, I sometimes consider rewashing my hands – just depends on the bathroom and establishment. In especially dirty bathrooms with only a hand dryer, I have actually left the faucet running.

I hate it when a friend asks to borrow chapstick. It’s not that I’m a germaphobe, but I don’t like it when they try to be “germ conscious” and run my chapstick onto their finger before applying it to their lips, it really grosses me out. I would much rather them put it on their lips it directly.

When I wipe the table after dinner, I have to make sure to wipe every part of it equally just so that no part of the table feels left out. I extend this sense of ‘object equality’ to other things such as making sure to use both of the CD drives on my computer equally.

I can’t stand when people put dirty clothes in the dryer to fluff them. Especially pants, that’s the worst. You have worn them all day and sat in so many places. There’s could be so many germs on them. Then you put your clean undergarments in there! I don’t fall for the heat kills germs anymore than I fall for the ten second rule. Don’t give that, well I’ll turn them instead out. Just wash them!

I must always shower with the door/curtain to my left and the wall to my right. In some showers, this results in my showering with the showerhead behind me – a ‘backwards’ shower. If I have been staying at a hotel or someone’s house where I had to take backwards showers for a while, I must take an extra long regular shower when I get home to make up for it.

I can’t blow my nose with a torn tissue. If the tissue rips when I take it out of the box, I just throw it away because I think it’s disgusting.

Sometimes when I take a poop, the stool will hit the water so forcefully that it will splash back onto my bottom… After this happens I get extremely depressed with the notion that all of those disgusting poo particles and filthy water are stuck to my cheeks and will transfer to my underwear, eventually spreading to the rest of my pants and that I’ll be spreading poo particles everywhere, eventually leading to an epidemic. So I HAVE to take a shower whenever splash-back occurs.

I share a bathroom with my older brother who is rather unsanitary. When I enter or exit my bathroom I take all my things in a little basket and store them in my bedroom. I cannot leave them in the bathroom. I also ALWAYS clean the mirror over my sink with windex after being in the bathroom for a period of time, even if it is clean.

I have a thing for smelling my hands a little too much. But that’s how I know it’s time to wash them. I bring them up to my nose constantly no matter where I am that now it’s getting rather annoying. I smell them after I wash them, too.

I have to brush my teeth in one consecutive brushing. If I take the toothbrush off of my teeth for even a second I have to rinse it and put new toothpaste on it because if I don’t it feels like I am brushing my teeth with a dirty toothbrush. I also can’t put on a pair of underwear once I take them completely off, even if I had only worn them for a minute or two.