I feel so normal now that I've read that many of you have the same little twitchings of anal-itching OCD. Now I wonder if you have the same bizarro fears of the improbable happening, or weird I'm-afraid-of-heights-but-let's-jump-off-that-cliff-anyway compulsions. Let us see.

I haven't always been total socially-phobic spazmo. This is a recent development. Hormones? Age? The later stages of syphilis? You decide.

I blush, sweat, and exude some kind of toxic sludge if I get cornered by someone I have furtively developed a crush on. Kind of like what happens if you pick up a slug or a grasshopper and it spooges all over you. Is this a defense mechanism...?

I think this stems from my horrid 4th grade crush on Ryan Ohls, which was found out by the creepy, cootie-linfested Ben Schenk, who had an unrequited crush on me. So he proceeded to call me on the phone, at my grandmother's, and ask me to go with him, while impersonating Ryan Ohls, and then hang up on me. How he even got my grandma's phone number, I will never know. I suspect he was in cahoots with Claire Hansen, who also hated my guts for no good reason. I should have put Nair in her shampoo bottle.

When I'm driving, I'm afraid I will leave the window down or cell phone off the hook and someone will accidentally overhear my horrid singing.

I think this is my 6th grade choir teacher's fault for making us sing in Hebrew. This just sounds stupid. Especially to a 6th grader.

I squirrel things away (in the desk, my pockets, etc.) Am repulsed by the pack rat thing but I do actually think I might "need" it later. This includes Post-It notes with indecipherable squiggles on them which I cannot make out later even though it is my own handwriting.

This is Mrs. Weems fault, for giving me poor penmanship marks in 2nd grade. My lettering was PERFECT. Uptight fucking cunt.

I keep receipts until the ink either fades away or the cat pees on it.

I blame the cat, for peeing on it.

If you give me something to hold, I will refuse because I will the find the most improbable way in the world to lose it. For example, what happened when I took the hall pass from Mr. Wise in 7th grade and somehow managed to flush it down the toilet. It was one of those clip-on jobbies and it fell right off my shirt exactly one nanosecond before I flushed. Try explaining that one to your teacher in front of a classroom full of heckling peers.

I blame Freud.

There is a part of my brain that thinks it can't control what comes out of my mouth. Consequently, I fear the office paging system. That small part of me wants to scream, "PENIS! PENIS! PENIS!!! HAIRY SACKS! BIG, FLOPPIN' UDDERS!" over the intercom and then flee the building at high speed.

I think this stems from my nightmare adolescence, when my 8th grade Cuban Spanish teacher, Mrs. Steele, asked me how to say peenus in Espanol. Which was my worst fear, considering my pubertating brain was constantly muttering, "penis. penis. penis," to itself, anyway.

By the way, she had a really heavy accent, and what she actually was looking for was cacahuetes. Peanuts. Peenuts. Peenus. See...? I wasn't the perv.

But I think that part of my brain died that day after it turning about three shades of purple, plaid, and black from the horror. Then it fell out.

Do you fear this sort mishap or is it just me and penis...?