Paranoia Activity

My husband married a nutcase.

I am paranoid.

Example 1. On Tuesday I drove home wearing only one boot.
I was wearing a skirt and tights with adorable black slouch boots. I had been wearing these boots for at least nine hours. As I was following a line of cars downhill through a stop sign I suddenly felt something underneath my small toe in my right boot. It was moving. It was touching me. My heart started pounding and I tried to pull off my boot but I didn’t have time before I needed to brake again.

All this time my brain was trying to understand the sensation next to my toe… obviously it is a spider with a large body. It may be partially smashed as it seems to have stopped moving… it will soon emerge from my boot, run up my leg and bite me on my stomach and I will cause an accident in westbound traffic during traffic hour. I waited as five more cars went through the intersection. When I finally made it on the freeway I yanked off my boot, shook my foot, and turned the boot upside down waiting for the horrendous creature to come out. There was nothing. But the seam at the toe of my tights was oddly near to where the damn bugger had been.

Example 2. Someone is always breaking into my house.
It doesn’t matter the time of day. Someone is breaking in. When I was taking a shower tonight I could hear my doors opening and closing. I heard someone talking to someone else. They were rummaging through my purse.

When I lay in bed at night I can rationalize any noise I hear into someone invading my home. I got used to the noises in my condo after four years, but we have been in this house for only six weeks and every noise is new and scary. I make Brandon keep a landline in the house in case we need to call 9-1-1. In addition when I am scared I practice saying my address in case I need to use my cell phone—I wouldn’t want them to delay in finding me because they can’t trace my call. And in case you are wondering, I am always safe if it is raining.

Example 3. My house will burn down as a result of me leaving my flat iron plugged in.
I am afraid of burning down the house when I leave. Part of my charm is that I will check that I have unplugged the straightener two, three or four times before I leave the house. On the first anniversary of my marriage this paranoia/OCD resulted in me and my husband being locked out of our condo at 10pm while it was still 85 degrees out. As you can imagine, my husband was less than pleased.

I think Rachel from Friends burned her apartment with her curling iron, but that was on TV. I am pretty sure that it is not even possible to burn down a house with my flat iron.

I am certain that life would be more comfortable if I could just be rational. Unfortunately if my track record holds strong, there will be examples four, five and six to follow this post any day now...