O.C.D.

Everyone has it. Just a little. Or so says the literature on the subject. To some degree, everyone obsesses compulsively about something. Even you fall somewhere on the scale, from insisting on a certain brand of raisin bran, to being utterly paralyzed by a perceived need to keep flushing the toilet until the toilet paper roll is spent. Maybe you function normally until confronted with a cheesecake, the deliciousness of which you are deprived by your morbid fear of its "texture." Or perhaps you carry hand sanitizer in your purse. Obsessive Compulsive traits of one kind or another are universal. It unites us as a race.

Hence, rather than be ashamed of myself, I can rejoice in the O.C.D tendencies that may in fact constitute my only common ground with humans being.

Like you, I am unable to concentrate in my house if there is any kind of mess of any kind. Kind of kooky, huh? Like how we grab for the Windex when there's a fingerprint on the fridge? The daily vacuuming? The bleaching of the tub calking? Clean is better than dirty. Clean is better than dirty. And poor as we are, our houses might not be luxurious, per se, but they can at least look and smell decent. It's nice that we have that in common.

And I'm with you on the car foibles as well. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has almost crashed his car as he tried to pick up a napkin on the floor of the passenger side. Spots on the window. Spots on the window. Don't touch the glass, why do people insist on touching the glass? Is there a possible reason on God's green earth why people need to touch the glass? I think a lot of you may feel an obsessive compulsion to sully a beautifully clean and transparent substance with your bodily oils. Obviously, you have a problem. But nothing we can't handle together. This is about solidarity. Just keep your damn grubby hands off the windows and, hey, no problem!

You're probably going to be relieved to know that you're not the only one who feels a compulsion to tuck people's tags back into their shirts when they are flouted. Flagrantly or negligently isn't the issue. Tags belong on the inside. Perhaps we can commiserate about that time we followed the pretty girl around the store, but didn't dare say, "miss, your tag is sticking out" for fear that she might think we're flirting? It warms my heart to share with you the joy one can only feel when the scissors we carry for this purpose are called into action.

There may be a couple of people out there who don't understand the drinking fountain problem, but they are the few. So let them drink from the tall side and pass blithely on. We'll understand with relish the majority's desire to drink from tall side, then small, then tall again, and then--walk away--no--small again--finish where you started--tall one, followed naturally by small, back again--go now while you can--tall, tall again to break the pattern--go--but wait, the small one--no--walk--forget it if you can--run--run away--ETC. Luckily, they're usually porcelain or stainless steel, which are pretty good about concealing fingerprints and the like. I knew you were thinking that. We're not so different, you and I.

There are so many other little innocent quirks we could bond over, even celebrate. Of course, there are people who don't understand. Filthy, lazy people, who need help. Thankfully, they are in the minority. The research seems to say so. For now. But who cares? Just knowing how many of you there are out there, and how much we have in common, is life affirming. This solidarity goes beyond mere statistics. It binds souls together.

I don't want to overstate it.

Suffice it to say, it makes me feel better about the inevitable day when we can really join hands, and hearts, and rise up against the brazen, brutish heathen hoards polluting the planet and exterminate them once and for all.

That's all.

Let's Pop!

[Having taken time off to care for the Wife, who has been cured by the world class surgeons at Stanford, we can now return--to anything but politics.]

We hereby nominate Kesha, sorry, Ke$ha, for the title of "World's Worst Person."

That's right. She beats out Olberman, Cheney, Hannity, Michael Moore, and that cretinous, anti-semitic old lady in the white house press corps. Given the competition, it wasn't easy, but our girl won us over.

And before handing her the award at the World's Worst Person Awards ceremony [dubbed the "worpies" by the pop culture mags] here's what the vapid celebrity presenter will read from the cue card:

As if making the "S" in her name into a dollar sign wasn't enough, the recipient of this year's award has earned it with every unspeakable line of her inane songs, and the mindless videos that punctuate them. For flaunting her disregard for the most basic elements of hygiene--yes, you can actually smell her boot-feet stank through the internet--for the lyrical conceit that tricked a million 13 year old girls into thinking that waking up in a stranger's tub and substituting whiskey for toothpaste was in ANY way less than ABSOLUTELY VILE--for holding up Mick Jagger as a standard of desirability for the sake of a vacuous attempt at rhyme--and finally, for driving it all home with a catchy tune that poisons the mind for weeks after hearing it--we are proud to present Kesha--sorry, Ke$ha--with the 2010 World's Worst Person Award!

Music will kick up as a disappointed Iranian dictator nudges the head a drunk-out-of-her-mind Ke$ha from his shoulder. Hearing her song, she'll kick into party mode and skank up to the podium. Unaware of what she has just won, she'll shout "AFTER PARTY AT THE NEAREST CLUB!!!!!!! PICK ME UP AROUND BACK!!!!!! Wooohoooo!!!"

We'd apologize to her fans for insulting her, and through her, them. But someday, she'll treasure this award as the only proof of her career. So, rather than apologies we offer our sincerest congratulations.