Most of my friends would say I have OCD, but I'd most definitely disagree. I can't help that I like organization, it's just who I am. Actually, in all honesty I only enjoy organizing one thing in particular, and that is my DVD collection. I have always organized my DVDs by the actors that are in each movie and as I add to my collection, the organization of my movie shelves becomes quite a puzzle. There was one cinematic addition, in particular, that threw off my entire system. The modern art masterpiece that is Martin Scorsese, The Departed changed my game of organization forever. When I first bought this movie I had no idea of the impending irritation it would cause me. It all started after my first viewing of the movie. After I took it out of the DVD player and put it in it's case, I walked it over to the shelf and realized what mess I had just gotten myself into. “Crap, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio are both in this movie”. Since my Matt Damon section of the shelf is much larger than Leo's I easily transferred the Leo section towards the Matt section of the shelf. Now the Bourne trilogy and Shutter Island were only separated by The Departed and that was okay with me. It was then that I realized…”Wait, if I moved all the Leo DiCaprio movies and Titanic is now in the Leo section by the Matt section, then I have to move Kate Winslet's, The Holiday over to the section where Titanic was”. After sitting puzzled for a moment, I had another realization. If I move Winslet's section, which has The Holiday, then I also need to move the School of Rock case because Jack Black is in both movies. Finally, after moving the Jack Black collection it seemed like everything was going to be okay…Boy was I wrong. I looked back at The Departed and realized, Mark Wahlberg AND Jack Nicholson are in the movie as well, but they have their own section of my movie shelf. I was running out of room on the shelf but something had to be done in order to keep my movies organized just as I liked them. I picked up Shooter, The Fighter, The Italian Job, and Boogie Nights and placed them on top of the Matt Damon collection so the Wahlberg section could at least touch The Departed. Then I picked up Anger Management, The Shining and A Few Good Men and placed them underneath the Matt Damon section so that Nicholson's section could also touch The Departed in someway. At this point, I had had enough. I wasn't going to move anymore until I realized what I had done. I had moved A Few Good Men, my favorite movie of all time, without taking the Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise section with it. I moved the Tom Cruise section to one side of the movie and place the Kevin Bacon section underneath of the movie and it again seemed like everything was going to work out. Wrong…Again! The final straw was most definitely when I had to move Kevin Bacon's Mystic River. There was NO WAY I was going to be able to connect the Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins and Laurence Fishburne sections. It was a lost cause, I had to quit. Out of spite, I guess spite for my own addiction, I took every DVD off the shelf. I then placed them back in no specific order. It was torture but it had to be done. Even to this day, sometimes I lay awake at night dreaming of a DVD shelf that is organized perfectly with no imperfection, but then I realize that my dream will never come true. Sure they all say I have OCD, but that is just not the case. This is normal, there is nothing 'OCD' about it.

It is the mistakes we have made in the past, which make us who we are. They make us strong, wise, and careful. Yet, if I was ever given the opportunity to do something differently in my life, like to change a past mistake, I would redo that fateful day that magnificently ruined all other cuisine for my gustatory cells. It was a day like any other, my rowdy family packed inside our dilapidated mini van, anxiously waiting to make the hour journey into the city of Philadelphia. We had done so countless times before, because of the city's exceptional food, its sporting events, and the nostalgia my parents felt when returning to their childhood home. Over the course of my seventeen years, we had visited more cheese steak joints then I could count on all my fingers and toes, but on this memorable day, we would try out a new, alluring, hole in the wall. I remember the moment when we pulled up next to John's Roast Pork on Snyder Avenue, my dad handed me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to run in and grab two cheese steaks for the ride. When I stepped out of the car, the first element that caught my eye was John's logo which was positioned on the front of the brick walled building. The logo was a picture of a pig which was wearing a bib and eating a roast pork sandwich. I knew that if this eager piggy was so excited to eat his animal brethren, I would be very excited to do the same. I opened the door and was instantly thrust into a line of boisterous workmen waiting to order a sandwich on their lunch break. I pushed my way to the front of the line, and ordered two cheese steaks with fried onions. I watched the man taking my order scream to the men behind him as they doused the grill in all kinds of butter and grease to cook up my desirable meal. I paid my bill, and took my sandwiches off the counter, then quickly ran out to the car to share these exquisite logs with the rest of my family. I jumped in the car, slammed the door, and quickly unwrapped the large cheese steak, cutting each of them in three. We all grabbed a piece at once and took a ginormous bite! Ironically, on the radio at that very moment, Mick Jagger was going on and on about how he “Can't get no satisfaction.” I imagine the only reason he never got any satisfaction was because he had never bitten into a John's cheese steak. I had never been more satisfied in my entire life. As I chomped away on my lunch, I felt feelings of pure ecstasy cover my tongue. I could feel the cheese steak going to my hips, but I didn't care! This particular cheese steak was so life-altering I re-named it euphoria, it was virtually impossible to imagine anything that would make me happier. As I finished that last bite of my sandwich I shed a tear, not because my delicious cheese steak was gone, but because I knew that I could never have another ‘first' cheese steak at John's. If I could only have one chance to redo something in my life, it would be avoiding ever buying a John's cheese steak. Because of its heavenly taste, texture and smell, I have never been able to enjoy another cheese steak in my life. I will never enjoy another love affair with any other bi-product of sliced meat and cheese on a roll. Every other cheese steak in the world could never and will never measure up to John's.