Knackered Has the ABC’s of OCD with Benzos

     Hey there, Knackered here. The acrid stench from the alley bin hits Knackered full face as he drops his sack inside. As he slams the lid back down, his (selective) hearing loss attunes with a new noise around the corner.  What could it be?  

   The sound is definitely not from the usual lawn machinery.  It doesn’t have the sound of a motor; ruling out weed eaters, mowers, and leaf blowers.  Definitely too early for falling leaves…

    His curiosity piqued, he peers around the corner of the hedge to see…..a woman vacuuming her front lawn.  Knowing he must fulfill his interest, he walks a bit closer.  And he’s amazed at what’s on hand.  Here, in plain sight is a person who, no doubt, has a worse case of OCD than he does. 

   Overjoyed, he wants to reach out and hug her, but knows he must not. Weirdos abound these days and she could beat him senseless with one of the attachments. After all it’s likely that his germs would contaminate her, making things even worse.  

   Knackered knows the summer demands of dealing with these issues very well.  He has spent his summer days checking his foundation for ants, his roof for moss, and his lawn for dandelions.  It’s a full season’s work. Highly demanding, but necessary. Dealing with these many ‘what if’s’ is exhausting. Of course it is.  

   And winter is just as bad. He’s constantly looking for outdoor bugs that have wiggled their way indoors. Squirrels, bats, rats, and birds have never come to visit in his attic, but could if they wanted to.  One must be constantly on the lookout for such things.  

   He has less than fond memories of times when he required everyone in the packed vacation car to return home so that he could make sure that he had turned the hose off before departure.  And while there, the back door needed to be locked again, several times.

   The very letters OCD bring forth a host of other ‘alphabetical’ medical issues through the years.  The stuff of BH and MI is rife with weird alphabetical names.  And Knackered has been lettered with many of them.  Add to it all, BZ WD, and the list is finally complete.  

   Benzos, of course, were the answer for quite some time.  But now, the inverse is worse than anything that could be labeled with the alphabet letters. 

   These days, he is proud to say that he’s stopped doing many of these repetitious actions. Yes, he can’t even remember the last time he checked the car for new road chips and parking lot door dings.   He’s found that not washing them (cars that is) solves the problem.  Can’t see much of anything then.  It also makes a palette for his granddaughter to draw on. 

   Nowadays, he has better things to do. And although moving and life in general is out of the question most most days, he manages to get by.    

   Why, just this morning, his wife helped him wash some dirt off the gutter on the front of the house.  It could have been fungus for heaven’s sake.  Left alone it could have spread to the lawn.  And then…my god, he’d have to vacuum it.