Quirks and Closet Monsters

Quirks. Everybody has them -- little personality kinks, oddities of temperament that cause us to wonder exactly where we, as individuals, fall under the normal bell curve of human strangeness. (Am I the only one who is twisted or is the boat of life filled with wackos?) I'm talking about the kinds of foibles that, among the broad strokes, don't matter unless you happen to be accused of serial murder, in which case everyone says, "Ah, yes, of course. We should have suspected she was a sociopath. She knits sweaters from her cat's fur, for Crimeny sake!" (Just for the record: I don't do that. No cat. Can't knit. Swear to God.)

There is this one thing about me, however, that I'm sure will end up in the prosecuting attorney's body of evidence if anyone ever discovers where I've stashed the severed heads. I figure it's bound to come out eventually, so by way of introduction, and in the spirit of the I'm-OK-You're-OK Zeitgeist in which I grew up, I share with you my strangest eccentricity:

I can't sleep if the the closet door is open.  Never could, not even as a child.

Back then, it was because of Closet Monster. He materialized every night, as soon as Mom flicked out the lights. Through the crack in the closet door, I could feel him staring at me from those darkened depths, his coal-black eyes burning holes into my tender, young flesh. Sometimes I could hear him breathing -- a low, hungry, wolfish pant. I knew his plan: he was waiting for me to slip off into dreamland so he could come out and swallow me whole. The only reason I am alive today is because I would, within seconds of Mom's departure, leap from bed into the center of the room (thus avoiding the clutches of Under-the-Bed Monster), run to the closet, slam the door closed, then leap back into bed and dive under the covers (because, as I'm sure you recall, children hiding under covers are impervious to physical harm.)

When I moved out of my parent's house, Closet Monster stayed behind, as did Under-the-Bed Monster. I believe the two, along with Garage Monster and Woodshed Monster, formed a cartel with the goal of consuming future grandchildren. Now I live in a house that is 99% monster free (there's one in the attic, but I never go up there so it doesn't matter). Still, I find it impossible to fall asleep if my closet doors are open. Worse still, this quirk of mine has metastasized to subsume all open closet doors in my house, as well as open bureau drawers and open kitchen cupboards. If they no shut, I no snooze.

As would any practiced neurotic, I have invested shamefully immoderate quantities of time cogitating on the marrow of this quirk. My free-associative self-analysis has led me to conclude that it no longer has to do with monsters. Rather, I have surmised that the roots lie entangled in those nourishing my visually-oriented, nit-picker sensibilities -- the same ones that can't stand to have little puddles of water left standing on the kitchen counter. (Pardon me, one moment, while I shudder at the mere thought of them.) My conclusion, therefore, is that I am suffering from Clutter Aversion Syndrome.

Further introspection has led me to implicate Clutter Aversion Syndrome in a number of my other hang-ups. Chief among them is the whole soup-can-alignment thing.  I think Clutter Aversion Syndrome is also manifested in my abhorrence for extra spaces left at the end of paragraphs in word-processing documents (those of you in the copy-editing world will, no doubt, empathize). And, it's probably also responsible for the eye-twitch I develop when (like) listening to (like) people -- typically, vacuous, gum-snapping, cell-phone addicted, 20-something Paris-Hilton wannabes wearing those ridiculous bug-eye sun glasses -- who (like) litter their speech with (like) the word "like." (Ya, know?) And while I'm thinking of it, perhaps this also accounts for why I require that the toilet paper always be hung with the business end out in front of the roll, instead of back against the wall.

We're not talking OCD here. I don't check, a million times, that the lights are off before I leave the house. I don't count out the same number of Cheerios into my bowl every morning. I don't wash my hands until they're raw and bleeding. I don't floss every damned day... oh, wait, yes I do. We all do, don't we. And we never lie to our dentists about it. Right? (Just nod "yes" and smile.)

So, this closet door thing is harmless, really. Just a minor eccentricity. I'm not a wack-job. I don't need to be medicated. You don't need to warn your kids away from me when we meet in the park. And my "alleged" stash of severed heads is not from dinner guests who failed to close the kitchen cupboard after getting themselves glasses of water. Really, it's not. (Again, just nod "yes" and smile. And maybe back away slowly... No sudden movements.)