OCD

I do believe I have made my first contact with someone who has a true Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder.

As lass from Italy is here doing some research in our lab and I can safely say she has been the topic of gossip between my good mate and office buddy, (in the interests of keeping her idenity a secret we'll call her 'Curly') after about the first week.

The first thing we noticed about her behaviour was that she rarely eats. Her head being bigger than her neck should have given the game away, but sometimes, I'm just no that observant. (No comments from the peanut gallery on that score, thank you very much!) While we're all hoe-ing away at our food during lunch, she has one of those dinner rolls that you can bake from Woolies, filled with salami. She very rarely eats more than half of it and she only ever drinks coke zero. Not water, or anything lese with NO calories. Just a small bottle of coke zero that last about four days.

This we have come to terms with. She's a PhD, therefore old enough to kill herself responsibly. It's not up to us to tell her she should eat more. (Mind you, that hasn't stopped me from commenting about how little she eats. The words were softened by an aptly timed "Well, you are only little, so I guess you don't need to eat much". What can I say? I couldn't help myself.)

The new behaviour stumper has come this week or, more accurately, in the last two days.

I have never seen someone more paranoid about germs in my life. You all have heard stories about my mum, yeah? In comparison to La Donna, my mum is slovenly, a veritable Tempe Tip, whose house should only ever be approached in biohazard suits.

Between paper cuts on her hand and minor mishaps in the lab, I think she went through and entire packet of bandaids, four lab gowns and a whole box of latex gloves in half a day day. So worried about errant cells and germs surrounding these incredibly minor oopses, she now has a box of sterile alcohol wipes on her desk, using one every half hour or so to wipe down her hands. Yesterday, she washed and disinfected her face (with the alcohol wipes) no less than three times.

Just now, she came in to ask me about splashes to her face from the water bath, if she should worry about whatever was in the water and if she should disinfect her face. Again.

Thankfully, I can lie convincingly if I need to. To be honest, I have no idea if the lab technician changes the water in the water bath daily. I just assume she does. Telling La Donna that it does with conviction doesn't make me a liar, does it? I'm merely looking out for the welfare of her skin. Her hands are already cracked from the excessive washing and disinfecting (thus requiring even more bandaids). I'd hate for her face to go that way as well. If she's so bad with germs, I doubt she'd know anything about moisturiser.

I do actually feel sorry for her a little bit, but if she keeps going on this vein, I may scream. I should have more patience for someone with an obvious problem, but since you're reading the blog of someone who, if the milk is out of date but doesn't smell bad, adds hot water to it to see if it curdles, and if it doesn't then thinks it's perfectly usable (not for company, of course!), then it's hard to be particularly sympathetic.

Curly just read this post over and she reckons I'm dulling it down a bit. Just so you know I'm not being overly mean.