Obsessive Compulsive Cleaning Disorder

image credit

I have developed OCCD (Obsessive Compulsive Cleaning Disorder). 

It's a recurring affliction I have, this time triggered by play-date with my bestie and her gorgeous little girl. 
My friend and her husband are major perfectionists, I am too just quietly, but they're way better at it than I am P.C.(post child).  But maybe it takes two perfectionists per household to make it really work well; though Mister Frenchie experiences random acts of tidiness, the clean thing pretty much eludes him. I always notice there's so much dog hair coating our wood floors that we could make a whole other dog, whereas he doesn't at all. He doesn't seem to feel the crunch under his shoes after mealtimes like I do.

Any way after traveling to 'The Mall' in my friends pristine-could eat off the carpet BMW, not to mention having had coffee in the showrooms they call home-looking out onto manicured perfection of their garden....I felt the vague murmurings of another attack coming on. 

My darling humble friend doesn't see it, but take it from me and other visitors, her home is a credit to her and something we all dream of but cannot emulate without gargantuan effort, hired help and the sending off of our husbands on long business trips. And maybe sending off the kids too.

Her home is wall to wall serene functionality and perfected designer beauty. (I can actually hear her gagging from two suburbs away now) And as I mentioned,  the floor in her car is cleaner than our dining table. Needless to say she doesn't have a shedding dog in the back shaking himself silly or slobber-coated frizzbees, sandy shoes, random packaging or remnants of several car-picnics either. 

So instead of writing after our playdate, I washed, and polished the Toyota, blitzed the garden, attacked cobwebs, swept the trampoline, I filled cracks in the bathroom, took the wall lights apart and washed those too. I even ran around the laundry skirting boards with a nail-brush.

Historically I have been prone to irregular bouts of OCCD. I remember a time long ago when the moment mine or even my flat-mate's visitors finished a cup of coffee, the cup would instantly disappear only to reappear seconds later washed dried and back in the cupboard like a magician's trick. Sometimes I would even hover if I knew they were almost finished.

I had a problem then and I knew it. Eventually I had to put dirty cups around the room and leave rings on the coffee table for days as a kind of tolerance therapy.

You want another scary confession? For the first few years we had Pinkster, I used to rub the poor Orange Dog down everyday with a microfiber-mitten and a spray bottle of water and vinegar . My excuse was allergies...

Well I don't know if I should be making such a blog-fession about this but I figure if I can’t be cured at least I should be laughed at...

Ooh that reminds me I haven't given the dog a sponge-bath since, what? Yesterday!

image credit

another Multitasking Mummy linky