First of all, let’s get this straight. I was probably born to be royalty but something went wrong somewhere. Either I didn’t read the fine print at the bottom of my birth contract or I was swapped at the hospital when I was born because I have always strongly believed that I was not born on a day that was meant to be spent doing menial jobs at all.

So having said all this, I’m trying to figure where my sudden Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has come from. Actually I know it’s not sudden; it’s just that because everyone around me has started noticing and commenting (as opposed to noticing and giggling behind my back) I’m beginning to take notice. To me it’s all in a day’s work. I’m forever trying to clean up. I don’t know what it is about me these days but I seem to want to do the ‘white glove test’ on every surface and the back of peoples’ ears.

The East FM studio is an example. I get to work and the first thing I do is whip out the anti-bacterial wet wipes and wipe the surfaces. I carry a thin paintbrush in my bag to gently remove dust from the keyboard keys and the faders. When Bernard comes in to vacuum the place I make him stand in the corner and do the vacuuming myself in the studio. Erica gets to stand on a side and hand over her cloth while I dust the monitors and surfaces myself. Bernard and Erica find me amusing when I do that. The rest of the 3^rd floor thinks I border on OCD but I have a thing for being in a clean environment. I put papers straight, everything in a line, I get worked up if things are not in the right place and the list goes on and on.

So why am I like that? Honestly speaking I was never like that. I was as messy as the next teenager when growing up and as long as I could hide my mess under the bed and cram clothes into cupboards and my room looked clean I was least bothered. I know why I am like that. I actually have a lot of nervous energy in me and because I’m not the type to work this out at a gym (because I’m bloody lazy) I just get hold of a duster, Pledge, and a whole plethora of cleaning chemicals and start cleaning surfaces.

Not too long ago I decided to turn the furniture around in my home. I have been pretty distressed about something and I have always found that working hard to the bone until I drop dead into my bed at night seems to give some sort of respite to my negative feelings so off I go moving sofas and desks and chairs and whatnot from here to there.

The good thing with all this is that the home environment starts looking new and fresh. Things are in different places so you kind of enjoy being in the new set-up at home. The bad thing is (with me) that I get bored very quickly and soon enough find the need to change things around again. I guess the emotional stress in my life allows me to keep at this game of Musical Furniture and Clean Your House ‘Til You Drop to use up all this nervous energy pent up in me.

Some people meditate; some draw, some run, some work out, and some go for retail therapy… I’ve tried it all and find that cleaning up works best for me. There’s nothing like scrubbing the stains out of something and see it restored to former glory. If you have done Psychology 101 and have some knowledge on my strange behaviour I’d love to hear from you to let me know what I’m all about. What’s with all this cleaning???!!!

I better shut it now or my boss is going to put his thinking cap on and do a reshuffle at work and put me in the Cleaning Department. I don’t mind as long as it comes with an ‘upper 6 figure salary’.

Never mind. I just heard him mumble ‘Fat Chance’. Bah.