A day in the life of an obsessive-compulsive

I can't find my digital signature. He makes a puppy dog face,which translates to Please come and help me look.

Did you look in your bags?

Yes.

What about your cupboard?

Not there.

In my head,I think What's the point? You've already looked in all your usual haunts.I don't see what more I can do.

Yet,I cannot bring myself to refuse and trudge wearily up the stairs.

Out of the many things I abhor on this planet,searching for a lost item is somewhere in the top 20.Especially when it's someone else's.You'll realize why.Keep reading.:P

I look again in all the places that I previously suggested,drawing a blank.

When did you last use it?

Somewhere in November.

And you're positive you carried it in one of these bags?

Yes.

Let's see..think this out loud for me.You went about your work,came back home with your bag.Now,can you outline what would have gone on in your head?

Huh...umm...I don't know.

Go on.You're you.You can definitely think like yourself.

I would have just let it lie in the bag....err because I won't lose it if I don't move it from there.

I glare at him.Although the explanation sounds plausible,I have my own doubts.This question works with someone like me;someone who always thinks before keeping something.My thoughts are like Ariadne's thread--retrace them and you'll find what's lost.

Sadly,I think he belongs to the category who doesn't think before placing something somewhere.It's just random.I shudder.There's nothing to do except search through all of it.And there's loads to go through.Chaos,thy reign is in this very room.

I spend an hour in the dust,sneezing every two minutes.Alas,it's all in vain.The dratted dongle is nowhere to be found.

Now comes the hard part.I know that logically this is the time to walk away and proclaim the item as lost,never to be found. I'm a victim of OCD--I cannot give up in the middle of a search.It's agony if I do.I hallucinate the item in question in every place possible. I keep wondering if I looked properly.I live like a tortured animal for days on end.:D I go back and look in the old places,with the certainty that it has to be there.

It's like a finite state diagram.If not here,it can only be in certain other places.It can't possibly vanish into thin air.

Although in reality,the number of transitions and states could be so many that it practically becomes infinite.I also know this.Yet,,,,

Hey,you did all that was possible.Stop searching.It's alright.

Easy for you to say,I think as I sit there with a forlorn look on my face.

She looks sadder than I do.He's puzzled by it.

I'll get another one.Don't worry about it.He smiles.

That's not it.Where on earth is it? My mind screams.

I walk away defeated,knowing that this will still go on in my head for God knows how long:P

I hate the idea that it may lie somewhere for ages undiscovered. :|

Why can't people just think for a minute before putting away their things?There wouldn't be so many lost zombied things out in the world if they just thought:D

PS
Season's greetings:I lived for a while without acknowledging the concept of a "new year".It seemed easier and more sensible to label it as just another day and move on.Now I look back and it seems funny and cliched.These days,I just go with the flow.Okay,Thanks for the wishes.Same to you.It is after all,a milestone on the scale of time we have chosen to measure our lives by.Whether or not we acknowledge it,we do cross that marker.(Okay,you can argue that you live by a different scale. I've been there:P)

Anyway,here's wishing all my readers a good year ahead:)