My friend, Jenny Traig, recently published her very amusing childhood memoirs. The book is called Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, and you will like it. It’s about her struggles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that manifested itself as Scrupulosity, a kind of religious OCD. These are the best parts:

“Today the condition is common enough that there’s a Scrupulous Anonymous group. I’ve never joined, so I can’t tell you if they subscribe to all twelve steps or if they just repeat one step over and over.”

“After a perfectly pleasant exchange with a great aunt, I’d spend hours trying to recall whether or not I’d told her to go screw herself the hard way. I would beg my sister Vicky for reassurance. “You heard our conversation. Did anal sex come up at all? I know it sounds crazy, but I think aunt Rose may have raised the issue.”

“Like many girls who don’t get asked out in high school, I spent my teenage years believing I was a displaced European. It was so obvious I’d been born in the wrong country, what with me having such sophisticated Continental sensibilities and all. As soon as I was old enough, I told myself and anyone who would listen, I was moving to a country where my unconventional looks, difficult charms, and erratic hygiene would be appreciated.”

At the season-opening softball tournament in St. George, Utah, no one is allowed to bring beer onto the field. In the late morning, a few men gather around an open car trunk in the parking lot. They are friends of Bryan’s father, and he says hello as we pass.

Bryan’s Dad: Havin’ a little breakfast?

Guy holding beer: Well, no. We had breakfast back at the hotel.

Bryan’s Dad: Oh… OK.

When the sidewalk guitar busker gets a sound system, your neighborhood no longer qualifies as gritty.

There is a bongo player on the sidewalk, and a woman has stopped to dance. She has only one leg.

She raises her arms above her head, hitting the air with each beat, bending at the knee and bumping her rear to the music. She’s an excellent dancer.

All of us crane our necks to watch. The two young men next to me let out low whistles. “Damn,” one of them says. “She got it.”

The morning after Fruity Drink Night, our kitchen is crawling with ants.

Me: Glah! Where did all of these ants come from?

Bryan: Could it be the simple syrup on the counter?

Me: Or maybe the open container of confectioner’s sugar?

Bryan: Or the chunks of watermelon.

Josh: Or perhaps it was the Purina Ant Chow.