You know what’s great about those people who write for The New York Times? They are prone to blithely confessing things that if heard from someone sitting next to you on a cross-country flight would make you wish you could change your seat.
The kinds of things that make you think: freak.
In today’s Online Shopper column, Michelle Slatalla confesses:
I grew up in a family in which the mother used a sponge-head mop on the walls, the children were issued single-use bath towels each day, and the father, a pharmacist, wiped every square inch of the kitchen counters with isopropyl alcohol.
I was an adult before I realized that not everyone had a family bleach pot.
Some might call this obsessive, but to me it was just sensible hygiene.
She then goes on to relate that she has almost ruined the door of her “fancy Viking refrigerator” and insisted on ironing the “Thanksgiving tablecloth while it was on the table, leaving awkward iron-shaped imprints in the table’s lacquer finish.”
Thanks to her online sleuthing, she was able to repair her work in both these instances. But it kinda makes you want to suggest she seek therapy.
And she writes her OCD up in the Times, for all the world to see! You gotta love it.
UPDATE: It’s not about her cleaning habits. Here‘s what she wrote last week:
If I were to listen to my husband, my lingerie wardrobe would be limited to items like the Bunny set from Agentprovocateur.com, which involves suspenders and satin bows and more truss work than the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes I try to imagine having my same life — typing in the basement, driving the child to piano lessons, shopping for sloppy joe ingredients — while wearing Agent Provocateur’s Fifi plunge bra with black pleated tulle.
TMI!