I have a mental… um… thing that I basically inherited. I am not implicating any one else to suggest my condition is inherited, but there is someone with pretty much my same genes, and she also has this affliction. I am not certifiable. I’m not like Adrian Monk (look it up… he’s funny). I just have a somewhat irritated internal response when things aren’t right. Most of them are stupid. Let’s look at an example. In general, when we go to the garage/basement, we turn the stair lights on upstairs, turn them off downstairs, and then do the reverse when we climb the stairs. This typically happens in pairs. As a result, the upstairs switch will be in the “off” position when I approach it. If it is not, because of asymmetric trips downstairs or something, I will walk down or up the stairs in the dark to ensure the light switch is in the proper position. Bite me. That’s who I am.

Close to ten years ago, I was trying to revamp the water system in our neighborhood, and decided to number the wells instead of calling them by the adjacent family name. That was not OCD, it was just trying to keep up with owner changes, and sometimes explaining to new people why the well was called by the name of someone that left in 2005. Everyone agreed, and a friend of mine said he would pick up some numbers and mount them to the well houses where the numbers could be seen from the road. When I drove home soon after that, I saw on Well #4 that the number 4 was proudly established on the front of the well house… and it was off center. I told him he did that on purpose just to mess with me. He laughed, and said maybe. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but it really did bother me every time I drove around that corner.

Which brings us to now. If I haven’t complained about it, yet, I bought a cheap hog feeder on Amazon (I know, what an idiot) and despite all the great reviews for it, I found it horrible. The pigs have been wasting a lot of food. I decided to order a real feeder from a real company. I was willing to buy used, but it is next to impossible to find one of these used. I imagine this is one of the side effects of the industrialization of raising hogs in the United States. At any rate, my local feed store found one, and ordered it for me. They even cut the price by about %15.

They told me it had arrived (earlier than I expected) last week, and I asked if I wanted it assembled. I knew it was coming unassembled, and he said they would put it together for $50. I had gone through the instructions, as poor as they were, and knew how involved it was. So, it sounded like a good deal to me. I am not going to get into the difficulties this created… different topic. As I watched these two young men hurrying to put the final pieces together… they thought it was final… I watched one guy take the label you see in the picture above and carefully arrange it on the dial. He seemed to be intent on getting it right where he thought it should be. I am truly unsure what his goal was. If you haven’t picked up on why it triggers my OCD, I hesitate to tell you. Once you know, it will drive you nuts, too…

The dial is intended to  tell me how far above the bottom hood inside is to regulate how much feed the hogs can pull at a time… from 1 to 12. The top flange you see drops into one of the slots to keep the hood from further moving. The NUMBERS SHOULD LINE UP WITH THE SLOTS IN THE DIAL! THEY DON’T! I even thought of contacting the manufacturer and seeing if they would send me another one. I started to try to take it off and reapply it, which was never going to work.

In the end I decided it would be “growth experience” for me to deal with it. Secretly, I figure the ink will fade, and I will go over it with a Sharpie. I’ll put the numbers where they dang well should be.