Anality

This is another piece I wrote some years ago, when I came to "embrace" my "anality." :)

For some reason, many people seem to think that being anal-retentive is a BAD thing. No, seriously! I just recently discovered this. I have been a proud, card-carrying anal retentive for, well, for as long as I can remember (please put that tape dispenser back on the left-hand corner of my desk and at an angle, thank you).

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard two girls talking on the bus the other day and one of them said: “Oh, WAY. But he is, like, SO anal!” Then she actually shivered! Like it was a bad thing!

While I am perfectly aware that there are people who don’t have the talent for organization and orderliness that I do, I never assumed they would be so petty, so consumed with jealousy that they would actually try to make it seem like being methodical and systematic would be anything other than something to be proud of. PROUD, I tells ya!

Although I wasn’t aware of the term for it at the time, I was being derided for my comprehensive approach to everything early in life. When I was about 12, I recall making sandwiches with my cousin. We were both having salami & cheese with mustard. Well, my cousin spread his mustard on his bread before passing said mustard to me (if you want to call it “spreading,” he actually kind of just globbed some in the middle of his bread), and I, very smoothly and evenly, covered my own bread with a nice, level layer of mustard. As I reached for the salami, my cousin looked at me, grinning ear to ear, and said, “You missed a spot.” He was pointing at my newly-mustarded bread which I didn’t even have to look down at to know that I had NOT missed a spot; thus, very confused, I replied, “Um, no I didn’t.”

He then proceeded to laugh uproariously, while I debated whether or not he was insane. Looking back, I now realize that he was actually trying to make fun of me for ensuring that I would get mustard in every bite of my sandwich! Um, excuse me, but WHY put mustard on your sandwich if you’re only going to run into it occasionally during the course of eating it? (Yes, Sharon, there is a reason I’m having the class sit boy/girl, boy/girl. Because it just MAKES SENSE.)

Nowadays, though, our society has become so SLOPPY and DISORDERLY and, yes, LAZY, that they have to make fun of us organized folk to cover for the pell-mell, helter-skelter, lack of control they have over their own chaotic lives.

Of course, some people don’t understand the difference between managed, correct harmony and simple obsessiveness. My old roommate Sean, for instance. He used to think that HE was the one who knew all the correct “life’s rules.” HA! Like it really MATTERS that the back of the couch be aligned along one of the floorboards instead of simply straddling it. Is that not a STUPID thing to worry about? And this from a guy who could not get it into his head that when you’re done showering you pull the shower curtain closed! I mean, why would you leave it bunched up, exposing the bathtub? Not only does it incite mildew growth, it just LOOKS WRONG.

Finally, he would also actually group a soundtrack under the artist’s name even if he/she only sang 50% of the songs on the soundtrack, when most any NORMAL person would agree that the soundtrack is only alphabetized under the artist’s name if he/she sings at least 75% of the songs!
So then you can imagine, what with my fondness for ship-shape symmetry and orderly goodness, how fascinated and, yes, thrilled, I was to come across something so wonderful in a co-worker’s office as a color-coded filing system (for, you see, not only am I proudly anal-retentive, I REALLY like it when there’s some color involved--providing, of course, that the scheme “makes sense.”).

ME (your anal super hero): “Ooooooh,” I cooed admirably. “Love that color-coded filing system, Heather!”

CO-WORKER (Heather): “Oh, that?” she laughs. “That was Rob’s anality, not mine.” (Rob being Heather’s predecessor at work)

I had to scoff and shake my head at this charming little vixen (and you should see Heather, she is indeed a charming little vixen) for making up such a word. For, if anyone would know if anality were truly a word, it would be I.

So, in my best scoffing/”aren’t you cute?” voice, I said, “Oh, Heather, you silly, there’s no such word as ‘anality.’” And of course, with this, I rolled my eyes and patted her paternally on the shoulder.

But she smiled brightly at me, laughed herself in an almost patronizing way (humph!), and said, “Anality isn’t a word? I’m pretty sure it is.”

I gawked, open-mouthed, at her impudence. “Are you trying to tell ME whether or not a word relating to anal retentiveness exists?” My eyes bulged incredulously as--gallingly--she laughed again.

“Let’s just look in the dictionary,” she trilled and headed off for the Webster’s. Imagine my horror/surprise when she found this:

anality: the psychological state or quality of being anal

“See?” She smiled and shrugged, put the dictionary back, and then walked away as if it didn’t matter!