Tommy Collison

Qwerks. I haz many

Remember back with 7 things, I mentioned how I’m organized? This is true, mostly. I mean, I always have the right books for class and all, but there is one section of my life that’s never really clean, tidy and organized

My bedroom.

I’m one of those people who feels that their bedroom is their own private space, to be kept however they wish. I mean, the relatives aren’t going to be eating dinner in *my* room, are they?

Apparently, they are, as my Mum disagrees.

OK, I’ll come clean. I’ll turn traitor towards all other teenagers, and I’ll say: I secretly like my room being tidy.

This is for a number of reasons, both practical and not-so-practical, rational and irrational. Practical ones include my-lack-of good balance, which means it’s easy to trip over stuff on the floor. Not-so-practical reasons are basically the fact that I’m slightly compulsive.

It’s not OCD, I don’t have my entire day on a printed schedule. Along with needing my bedroom clean, I also have other stuff that I really need.

I hate sleeping with the door open. It’s not this thing of being scared that the boogy-man will come charging in, (as we all know from our youth that mere doors are not strong enough to contain the monster), nah, it’s just this thing I have. Patrick has it too, whereas John and Mum dislike it, showing what a diverse family we are. It’s so strong, in fact, that say if I’m asleep, and I steal something off John, as I have been known to do. He’ll come looking for it, disregarding the lateness of the hour, and he’ll come barging into my room at 3am, which *he* is known to do, to try and find it. He’ll spot what he’s looking for and then bugger off, neglecting to close the door

I’m left there, dazed and confused, a victim of night-time tit-for-tat robbery. Even then, though, a little independent cog in my brain will be moving.

It won’t be moving, actually, it’ll be whirring, because whirring is what cogs do, “moving” just isn’t cool any more.

So, it’ll be whirring away, and it’ll take a peek outside my head and it’ll notice the open door. A big flashing buzzer will go off in the innermost depths of my brain, accompanied by a big feck-off alarm bell. Now, I’ll do anything to shut that effing thing up, including getting out of bed at 3am and closing the door. The alarm stops, the buzzer will recede into the ceiling and the whirring cog will return to standby mode, just waiting for the next thing it doesn’t like.