Moderate OCD

You guys really made me feel better about my TV volume number thing. But that one was just a feeler to see how much ridicule I might get. But you were too nice about it so here is another one, probably more disturbing...

I need things to group into base fours by hopscotch-counting from left to right.

I'll do it with letters in words; for example, the word four: I start with F then skip to U then back to O and finally to R. If a group of things does not end up dividing by four I make a bang sound in my mind for the remaining. I have done this since elementary school.

Sometimes I tap my fingers in that order. Pointer, ring, index, pinkie.

There are five bulbs on my lamp. So I get in a full four-cycle, then one, then three vacuous bangs in my mind.

There are four straps that hold together our window blinds... Awesome. There are twelve Christmas tree ornaments hanging on our wall... Totally awesome. There are six buttons on my TV panel... Two mental bangs.

The other set of window blinds in my living room are wider and have five green straps... crap. So sometimes I cheat and pull other pieces of the blinds into it to get a base four set, like the angle twister stick and the two pull strings -but it's less satisfying.

Windows are a big one because they are so obvious. I love it when the little panes add up in fours and when the sill has four parts. It is torture when there is a perfect window...but then there are only a group of three of them!

Oh yeah, and when I count out the stuff, I push down the pinkie toe of one foot then the other as I go (starting with the left toe). That is a big part of it.

Sometimes when I am reading and my mind wanders, before getting back into the topic I'll base-four hopscotch-count the words a little (with the toe pushing too).

The stuff I count out doesn't have to be regular things. I do it a lot with corners, like the corners of this computer monitor right now. Top left corner (left toe), bottom right corner (right toe), bottom left corner (left toe), top right corner (right toe). Then top edge (left toe), bottom edge(right toe), left side (left toe), and right side (right toe).


So what do you make of that? Do you do anything similar? Am I nuts?
-John