Being Anal

I was reading a thread on a forum the other day about the things that people are anal about, it made me laugh out loud because the very first post could have been describing Robbie.


"....he emerges from the bathroom holding the toothpaste asking who has failed to squeeze from the bottom of the tube!"


As I read on I realised that so many of the posts could have been describing Robbie. Someone wrote about their partner driving them mad by constant checking and commenting on railway and bus timetables. Surely there can't be anyone else as bad as Robbie for doing that - or do all train planners take their quail maps to bed with them?


Another common theme was having to have tea or coffee made in exactly the right way. Robbie is impossible about the way his coffee has to be made and he criticises me every time I make coffee for him, so I find it easier to let him make it himself.


Robbie even has strong opinions about the loo roll! According to him it unrolls more efficiently if the end is on top rather than underneath. I don't think I even notice which way round it is, why would anyone obsess about anything so trivial?


In the interest of fairness I should perhaps admit to the one thing mentioned that I am obsessive about - black ink! Blue ink should never ever be used, black
looks so much nicer. Robbie is into pens in a big way, especially Parker pens, he could talk forever about all the different designs - and if anyone borrows his pens it is a hanging offence!


When I first met Robbie I thought it was odd that he counted the stairs every time he went up or down, but I soon realised that was mild, Robbie counts everything. This evening I caught him counting the increasing revs on the washing machine spin cycle, he could tell the speed just by listening to it and when it reached the maximum speed of 1400 he got so excited - seriously weird and more than a little autistic!

Too Much Detail

I am used to Robbie's odd little ways but I still find them frustrating at times. Who else would count socks into and out of the washing machine? When Sam provided 23 socks to be washed he did the full Sherlock Holmes to establish why there was a missing sock. He counts the stairs every time he goes up and down and he times almost everything he does to the second - he knows exactly how long it takes him to bath, to get dressed, to feed the cats etc. It drives me mad and he knows there is an absolute ban on timing activities that involve me! However last night he took things beyond the limit, he had counted and itemised all the items that had to be washed up! Then a little later he spotted the new bottle of washing up liquid and went into ecstasy about it. He is very fussy about washing up liquid, it has to be his preferred brand in the correct shaped bottle with just the right amount of 'squirt' but this met with his approval because it was retro. He walked around the lounge admiring the bottle and pointing out different fonts and remembering the various TV adverts. We all had to admire it, then he sat at the table with the bottle in front of him still admiring it. Then he announced that he would take it to work to show everyone; you have been warned, if you see Robbie armed with a bottle of Fairy Liquid - run!