The Further Adventures of a Control Enthusiast

Today I did not control things that desperately needed controlling by me me no one else but me could be handled by others.

No, I really did. Admittedly it sounds like a small thing, choosing and pricing out a keg of imported beer. But it's huge. I mean, it's the beer. What if it's the wrong beer? What if it doesn't show up at all and we've got 75 people who were promised beer and there is no beer to be had? What if what it what if…BOOM!

Here's the thing, I'm not all that controlling in day to day life, I'm just not that high strung (says the girl who gets electrodes shot into her body three times a week to force her neck to relax) but when it comes to important events --especially parties-- where I am in charge. Oh sweet Jesus, watch out.

I come by it honestly. For the most part I'm the only person I know who has both the genes for good taste and for borderline insane micromanagement. My colleagues with good taste tend to live on the breezy "don't fence me in with your schedules and dates, man" side of life while my colleagues who Get Things Done, angels though they are, all seem to have the aesthetics defined as Early Nurse Ratched.

Plus, I'm judgy. I eye with suspicion anyone who --without good reason-- fails to hang their artwork at the internationally agreed-upon museum standard of "57 inches on center." I do not suppose these people are inherently evil, but I shudder to my very soul at the thought of letting them pick out napkins without appropriate guidance.

Still it must be said in my favor that I do not give vent to my crazy very often. For example, if the person in charge of paper supplies shows up with (shudder) kitty-printed multiple hued paper napkins of the 400 for a dollar variety instead of the respectable and God-fearing plain ivory dinner napkins (artfully arranged into a helix of course) I will not say a word and eventually, with therapy and perhaps a vacation, be able to let it go.

I feel like Jeeves when he retreated into the kitchen in great alarm when Bingo Little --one of Bertie's friends-- was speaking to him. When discovered by Bertie, Jeeves replied "I apologize Sir, I shall be better directly, it's just… that Mr Little's tie ..it has little horseshoes on it. It is sometimes difficult just to shrug these things off, Sir."