Straight As An Arrow

Last night, I scurried home to try to beat the threat of bad weather. My lawn was at the point of needing mowed, and I wanted to get it finished before the rain, hail, and flooding. My lawn is somewhat of a chore (mainly because I'm too cheap to buy a self propelled mower), but I actually enjoy mowing the grass - MY GRASS ONLY, for you wise guys out there thinking that you would love to extend my enjoyment to your yard! My wife made a comment on how straight I keep the rows while pushing the mower up and down the yard. I'm not really anal retentive about much, but this is one of my issues I deal with on a daily basis. Since I set tile for a living, my rows have to be dead-on straight, otherwise they will tell on you, and then we have problems. So my training has carried over into other aspects of my life. When my roof was reshingled, I made it clear that the horizontal rows, which are clearly seen from ground level, better be straight, or there will have to make another attempt to get it right before any money exchanged hands. Lawn mowing is another opportunity for me to exercise my abilities to make straight lines. I used to be overly critical of myself, and if I needed to underline something in a book or magazine, I would spend untold amounts of time looking for a straight edge. Didn't matter if it was a ruler, an envelope, another magazine, I had to have straight lines! I tried a highliter for awhile, but I don't like the fact that the information is not specifically singled out on my page. To me, it appears a toddler just colored randomly on my paper. I have since relaxed on the underlining issue, and attempt to just freehand it. I still try to get it as straight as possible. If I have to read what I've underlined orally, I then have a problem. The underlined sentences seem to run together, and I may accidentally read the same line twice. So I have to be overly conscious while I'm reading to not make that mistake. Yeah, I know I have a few quirks. If you had to do something for me in a linear pattern, I know my 'straight line fetish' would frustrate most folks. Just don't offer to mow my lawn, and we should remain on speaking terms.