Those who know me understand that I’m not bothered by humor that pokes fun at OCD. As long as there’s plenty of education available for people to manage the more insidious parts of the disorder, I’m fine with having fun with the quirks. My only requirement is that the jokes be clever.
Some time ago, I wrote about clever OCD gag gifts. These gifts, though, I never want to find in my Christmas stocking. Not because they’d hurt my feelings, but because they’re not even remotely funny. Everything I’m about to pick on is available on CafePress. I have nothing against them, really. I just wouldn’t buy or wish to receive them.
Let’s start with this ornament, which plays on the long-accepted fallacy that people with OCD love to clean:
The fact is that we don’t like cleaning any more than the rest of the population. We’re just driven to do it because our brains get stuck on things that look unsanitary or out of place.
If you see this hanging off of someone’s tree, chances are they need their head examined for some other kind of disorder. Or maybe they just own a cleaning company.
Next we have a variety of signage playing around with the OCD acronym. You can order these on T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, and the like:
Call me dimwitted, but I never knew a love of fishing and canning qualified as a disorder.
Here we have some poorly done wordplay that tries to have fun with the more stereotypical OCD quirks like hand washing:
This particular design appears on a thong for sale in the online store. Finding this on underwear really should creep a person out.
I’ll end with one I actually included on the good list of gag gifts, but it just hasn’t stood the test of time for me. The problem, I suppose, is that this sort of thing has really been overdone:
It’s not that it bothers me. It just bores me.
If you want to buy a gift that makes light of a person’s disorder and think the recipient will enjoy it, go for it. Humor goes a long way in making a scary, frustrating thing seem smaller and more harmless.
Just try to know the difference between clever and stupid.