I’m only realizing now how many strange quirks I have when it comes to my living situation.
I always thought I was pretty normal, and then I moved in with other people.
That’s when I realized I have strange boundary issues and phobias when it comes to other people in my space. It’s got me thinking pretty deeply about where these strange compulsions came from, and I’m convinced that a lot of them are due to my brother growing up. He was quite a little butthole. If he wasn’t getting arrested for dealing drugs at school, he was stealing all of our shit and rifling through our personal belongings. This has made me extremely protective of my privacy and my personal space. On top of that, I’m always very suspicious of any window AC unit, and the little cooling devices make me pretty nervous, in general. Why? Because my brother was a master of resourcefulness, and our AC unit was not off-limits. When he needed a new place to stash his shit, where did he choose? The window AC unit in our living room. He popped the vent cap off the front of the cooling device and slid his drugs in between the important fan motor and condenser components. Then, he slid the vent back on like nothing was wrong. Well, that AC unit became a point of contention in our family every time my mom managed to find his stash inside. It was constantly being argued over, because we couldn’t secure the air vent to keep his prying fingers and drugs out of it. The worst part was, all his crap blocked the AC from working properly so it got really hot inside the house. Whenever the cops showed up looking for my brother and his stash, I was sure to ask them if they knew how to fix our air conditioning system.