Years ago I had a male friend who always seemed to say the same things over and over again. I don’t know if it was OCD, or just his way of communicating. For example, if I told him ‘well, it’s snowing again,’ I could count on him responding with ‘yep—it’s snowin’ and blowin’!’ It was the same phrase, each and every single time.
I truly don’t think it was anything serious, like early onset Alzheimer’s; it was just the way he always communicated.
This habit of his reminds me to this day to watch how I communicate; am I also parroting phrases? Do I tell the same jokes over and over again? Well, wait a sec—I do often tell the Crankee Yankee the same jokes over and over again (but that’s because he forgets them!).
Of course this could all just be “65-year-old Syndrome.” If/when the times comes that someone says to me ‘do you realize that you just told that joke to me yesterday?’ I wouldn’t be surprised; I am already doing the ‘what the heck did I walk into this room for?’ thing.
Well, I guess that repeating certain phrases over and over again isn’t the worst thing in world. There are a whole lot of awful habits out there that I am not doing (yet), so I suppose it could be worse.
In fact, my favorite uncle (born in Maine), often repeats things that he and I think are hilarious, such as the following:
Me: “So Unkie, how’re you doing?”
Unkie: “Good I guess; just rattling around like a bead in a bureau drawer.”
Or this:
Me: “Unkie, what was that joke about the tourist who got lost in Maine looking for Portland?”
Unkie: “Oh yes—a tourist was looking for Portland, ME and got lost on a back country road. He stopped at a fork in the road where there was an old farmhouse. There were two signs pointing two different ways; both of them read “Portland.” An old man was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, smoking a pipe.
The tourist asked, “Excuse me, sir—does it matter which way I go to get to Portland?”
The old man took the pipe out of his mouth and said, “Not to me it don’t.”
So—there you go; is it OCD or just an ingrained habit? I guess it don’t matter to me after all….
*OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.