Genetic Obsession

My father has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He’s never been officially diagnosed but you can take my word for it.

Most of my childhood was spent with his rearranging the small pieces of paper by my mom’s bedside. Or I’d be in my bedroom chatting with a friend and my dad would walk in to say ‘good evening’ when he came home from work. After he closed my door, he’d knock once more and pick up a random piece of thread or anything else tiny that might be on the floor of my room. He’d do this at least three times before he left completely. If a tiny plastic part of anything was lost he’d spend hours looking for the piece or get a new one made. If that was impossible, he’d buy it all from scratch. We never ever had any broken anything in our house. We still don’t.

My sister’s son, Jeff, must have somehow taken after my father. Today my sister dropped me off to hang out with the babies while she went off to run an errand. Jeff, Aksel and I put on a movie, Peter Pan, and played games while we watched it. An hour later my sister returned and Aksel ran to the door to greet his mom. Jeff walked up to me and motioned me to turn off the vcr. As I pressed the button, he yelled. I looked at his face, trying to comprehend what bothered him. After a few seconds he walked over to the vcr and pressed the eject button.

He was mad that I’d turned off the vcr without taking the movie out.

Once I took the video tape out and placed it in his box, he went off to greet his mom. On the way, he picked up her slippers.

There is absolutely no way a family member is allowed in the house with shoes on. Jeff will make sure the slippers are set in front of the door as the family member gets off the elevator. Last night, on the way to bed I passed by the hall with him on my lap and he complained that the door to the attic was open and wouldn’t go to bed until he saw me close it.

Since my father doesn’t live in the same house and neither my sister, nor my brother in law are all that tidy, it totally blew my mind to see how Jeff might be such a neat freak.

I wonder if OCD is inherited.

Either Jeff is extremely observant and is somehow imitating his favorite family member, which happens to be my dad or this need for order is something my father’s genes passed down to little Jeff.

It’s amazing, however, that the genes managed to skip right over both my sister and me.

Previously? Amerika.