Out on the tiles

I call my mom almost every weekday morning, but we generally take weekends off because we’re both very busy, important people. So her call, on Sunday, came as a surprise.

“I have something very important to tell you,” she said.

My stomach flipped. I immediately thought of my sister, filming a Steve Irwin-type adventure show in Australia, the deadliest continent on the planet.

This is it, I thought. Hailey’s been eaten by a crocodile. I knew this day would come.

“What?”

Matt, who had watched me halt mid-stride and heard the quaver in my voice, looked up from his laptop, his eyebrows a full inch higher than usual.

Those lovable nutjobs

“Did you know that when your father goes to the bathroom, he counts the tiles on the walls and floors? He can tell you exactly how many tiles there are in the bathrooms of every home we’ve ever owned.”

“What?!”

I let out a long breath of air. For Matt’s benefit, I shook my head and rolled my eyes ceiling-ward. He resumed typing.

I pictured my parents sitting side-by-side at a honky-tonk Austin bar, an icy pitcher of Miller Light between them. I wondered how much of that sweet nectar remained.

“I just thought you should know since we’re related to him,” Mom continued, laughing. “Wait – you’re related to him. I’m not. So you should know.”

I repeated this news to Matt. After all, our offspring would feature genes from both nutjobs on the other end of the call.

“But does he count them all or count across and down and then multiply?” Matt asked.

I repeated the question for Mom.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Here, you ask him.”

“Your mother thinks I’m Rainman,” Dad said.

“You count tiles in the bathroom?” I asked. “Do you count them all or count across and down and then multiply?”

“Both,” he said.

“Both?! And it never occurred to you to mention any of this when I was getting tested for O.C.D. as a child?!”

He didn’t seem to hear this last question.

“You know those holes in shower drains?” Dad asked. “I count those too.”

He returned Mom’s cellphone.

“How on earth did this topic of conversation come up?” I asked.

“You know that Kendle you got me?”

Mom never can remember the name of Amazon’s eReader.

“Kindle,” I said.

“Yes, Kindle,” she said. “Well, you put a book on it about a guy--”

“'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,'” I said.

“Yes! And we were talking about it with the bartender and Dad said, ‘Well, you know, I count tiles in the bathroom,’” she said. “And I always thought Sheldon Cooper from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was a little strange, but he’s not strange; his brain is messed up --like your father’s. He’s not normal. And all this time you had O.C.D.C. and Dad was the source.”

I detected a hint of triumph in her voice.

“So go write a blog about it,” she said.

So I did.