[Note: This is a pretty random post. It's just the somewhat confused tale of an evening that I spent doing something other than coding, which is something we should all do more often. Coding is great, but there are all sorts of wonderful and horrible things out there in the physical world. You owe it to yourself to get your forehead licked by your best friend every once-in-a-while (if that last bit interests you, then you ought to enjoy this post).]

Well, Felix and I finally got DSL down at our music practice space. I just set up the wireless router, and this is my first post from what is, undoubtedly, the greatest challenge in my OCD life.

Here's the story...

Felix came over tonight to drop off my copy of the key to our space. It's a copy of the main key - the one with "DO NOT MAKE COPIES OF THIS KEY" engraved on it.

Oddly enough, it took Felix about two months to find someone willing to make a copy for me. We don't understand what the big fat hang-up was, but these things happen.

Anyway.

I've had a wireless DSL router sitting in a bag for a month. Because Felix has a completely different schedule than I do (he's a waiter (makes good money (has a lot of fun (stays out all night)))), I hadn't had a chance to install it until tonight (when, for whatever reason, our schedules finally meshed and he was able to give me my key).

So, I went down to the space. Got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk for a while, eating a sandwich.

What happens? Some weird guy comes zigzagging towards me. I stand my ground because I'm eating a sandwich, and don't feel much like moving.

But he keeps coming...

Zigging...

Zagging...

He's sweating like someone in one of those stupid horror movies where everybody goes into some jungle to find some mutant alligator (or whatever) so that they can kill it before it breeds and brings more alligators of an undesirable vintage into the universe. His eyes are a little droopy. By his appearance, you'd think he would be feeling pretty poorly, but no - He's smiling.

"He's smiling," I said to myself. "I wonder why he's smiling. He looks like... like..."

Like a man with a plan - That's what he looks like.

And he had one. Oh, yeah - He had one.

He did the one thing that you don't want to do to someone who has OCD.

You know what he did?

Didn't say anything, either. Just zigged and zagged away, quietly laughing.

I mean, that's like freak-out territory for someone like me. It's hard enough to shake hands with someone relatively clean looking. Being touched by someone who's obviously recently escaped from Dirty People Anonymous is not cool. Not cool at all.

So I went inside. Went to the stairs. The stairs were locked, and I needed a key to them. I didn't have it. I had the key to our space, but not to the stairs (why are the freaking stairs locked?).

Getting a little frantic. Sweat beading on my forehead. All attention turned towards The Spot where I was Touched by the Weird Guy.

Realized I'd have to take the freight elevator. Started pushing the button. Elevator wasn't responding. Sweat coming in greater quantities now...

Reached in my back pocket and pulled out the collection of personal cleany-wipes that I keep on hand for just such occasions. Stood outside the elevator, energetically ripping them open and swabbing The Dirt Wound.

Elevator finally comes. For reasons far beyond my comprehension, there is a bunch of trash sitting unattended in the elevator. Whatever.

So I'm in the elevator. I take one look at the buttons and decide that there's no way in hell that I'm touching those things. I manage to figure out how to work the controls with my foot while scrubbing my Filth Spot with the cleany wipes, hoping that there aren't any security cameras hidden in the elevator (not because I don't want to get "caught" - I just don't want to wind up on America's Funniest People Who Have Irrational Fears of Microbes).

Finally get to my floor. Feeling better about the Typhoid Tattoo I've recently been given, but am now faced with a new problem: The elevator door won't open, and the up/down controls are no longer responding.

I mean, what's going on here? Pig Pen assaults me when I'm outside, I have to ride up an elevator full of trash, and then I find out that I might have to spend the night with it.

I call Felix, tell him what's happened, and he comes around to unbolt the door from the other side (why was the door bolted?).

We go into the space, and I set my stuff down on the couch. But, do you know what else is on the couch? I'll tell you: Somebody's underpants.

Yeah - Someone's white(ish) briefs are sitting on the couch.

I began to understand why people might choose to go around bolting doors in the building.

I got over it, though. "It's just some unknown person's tighty-whities," I said to myself. "It's totally normal to find that sort of thing on the couch."

Things calmed down. Feeling better. Router installed, DSL working, Rory's plugging away with his laptop.

Then, a great thing happened: Friends Adam and Rosie came over. Other friend, Matt, came up, and brought two more friends with him. I wrote a song last week while in the shower, and everybody agreed to play it tonight. It sounded great; much better than the tiny noise that it was in my head. We played for a couple hours, and had a great time.

Just when I thought the night was going to end well, Adam, and a rather sweaty Adam at that, grabbed me, pulled me close to him, rubbed his sweating head all over my face, and then licked my forehead. He thinks that he can cure me of OCD by covering me in fluids that even his body didn't want to hang on to.

Here's some news for you, my friends: You can't cure OCD by rubbing your personal fluids on the afflicted. It just doesn't work.

I'm back at home now. I shampooed with Bactine tonight, and am feeling better now.

Time for bed.

Coding in the morning.