High School Daze.

I know I've struggled with being a germaphobe for at least the last 20 years, but I'm not quite sure when my OCD took a sharp left and really, really became hardcore.

Like, when did it really became life-alteringly bad? You know, I remember back in high school, I was a pretty damn hardcore germaphobe. I remember being a fierce handwasher, and I remember just as fiercely refusing, to the detriment of my all-important school popularity, to share my hairbrush. But then again, I also remember using the water fountain *shudder*, something I'd never in a million years do nowadays.

Is that the jankiest photo editing you ever done seen? lul.

I do remember noticing and being utterly horrified concerned about the actions of others. I remember telling you guys about how my friend Joy would say she didn't need to wash her hands after using the school bathroom because, inexplicably, "she had already showered that morning." As if showers "stuck."

O_O

I just--I mean--I can't--I--I--

Anyway. That kind of thing drove me nuts. It grossed me out beyond belief. I remember being disgusted when I'd see fellow students walk out after not using that gritty, sandy pink powder soap (remember that shit??)--

--to scrub up after using the bathroom. But my gross-out didn't practically disable me. Whereas nowadays, if I was hanging out with someone who didn't wash, I would either need a full-on Hazmat suit in order to continue our day date/play date, or I would have to bid them adieu for the day and go home and take a rape-shower.

Back then, I would just think, "You are a sick, gross individual, and I will not share your Funyuns at lunch time. Carrying on." And I would. I would carry on. Without dwelling. WITHOUT DWELLING.

And back then, in high school, I had approx. 790 homework assignments per night. It didn't help that I was in Advanced Everything. Advanced Placement English. Honors History. Honors Science. Calculus in 9th grade. Gym Class for Superstars. Just kidding about that last one, I was a fat lazy fuck.

I took home about seven enormous, giant, three-pounds-each textbooks per night, plus my hugely overstuffed binder, plus all manner of extraneous shits. I was also playing it cool by carrying my backpack on one shoulder as opposed to wearing the backpack properly on two shoulders. And FORGET the strap that went around your middle inn order to evenly distribute the weight so that you would not end up a hunchback. First, my middle was far too large in those days for such shenanigans. Second, I mean, come on, fucking DORKY. I mean, shut up.

I have a point somewhere, bear with me.

So...cutting to the chase, I took home with me book after book of homework, and never once did it occur to me to disinfect or Lysol or Clorox off the covers of textbooks that I was using. (1) Because my BFFs Lysol and Clorox wipes hadn't been invented yet, dammit; and (2) because it just didn't goddamn occur to me. Because while I was germ obsessed, I wasn't That OCD yet. This was both good and bad. Bad because I surely brought home myriad horrific high school germs with me and unwittingly shoved them up my nose and got sick, but Good because I wasn't a raging paranoiac yet.

I blog about this now because, the point is, now I AM a raging paranoiac. What am I to do when Maya or Naomi is in school and, every single day of her life, brings home 6 or 8 textbooks plus a PeeChee or Trapper Keeper or two? 

Shall I Clorox off those bitches before I allow her to run some mathematical proofs? Shall I spritz them with Lysol before I allow her to calculate the circumference of whatever the fuck? I just don't know.

I am glad on one hand that my OCD wasn't quite this bad during my high school days, but now it IS this bad. So what am I supposed to do when my kids are in junior high or high school? It's bad enough now that one of my children is in PRE-fucking-SCHOOL. But I can deal with wiping down a lunch box and quarantining a backpack like it's got the bubonic plague. But when it comes to math textbooks and history textbooks, shit, son, am I really going to say, "Hi honey, welcome home, I made you some snickerdoodles, now let's use some medical-grade CaviWipes on your English lit book before we get started on your homework?"

It's s hard. I do, but I don't, want to pass on The Crazy. I do, and I don't. I don't, and I do.