Tiny Moments of Stupidity and Woe

Each day, we move through our routines and do our best to get by without strangling someone. Life's little irritations come and go but we rarely complain; they're simply too trivial.

Still, sometimes the tiniest things can cause the greatest aggravations. Though most only occupy a couple minutes, they add up over a lifetime. I bet the cumulative percentage of time wasted dealing with small setbacks and delays is larger than we realize.

Here's a brief list of the kind of minor frustrations I'm talking about:

• Being stranded on the toilet because the previous user finished off the roll and didn't bother to replace it.
• Sitting in class when some asshole reminds the teacher that there was supposed to be a test.
• Being unable to find your glasses because, well, you aren't wearing your glasses.
• Ruining a perfectly good bowl of Cocoa Puffs because you didn't realize the milk had gone sour.
• Getting stuck behind some nimrod who insists upon writing a check for two items in the Express Lane.
• Having to feign appreciation for a Christmas gift of clothing given by a relative who stopped observing fashion trends in 1972.
• Suppressing the urge to smack the know-it-all who warns you to "be careful" after you've disgracefully fallen flat on your ass.
• Running into an old friend only to learn that they've found Jesus and their new life's purpose is to subtly ensnare you into the collective.
• Scrimping and saving for several months so you can buy that nifty gizmo you've wanted for so long, only to see the price slashed by 40% one week later.
• Discovering Jehovah's Witnesses at the front door.
• Sadly accepting that it's easier to drink the Diet Pepsi instead of driving all the way back to the Burger King drive-thru and demanding the Dr. Pepper you ordered.
• Burying the sense of insult that comes from someone else pushing the same elevator button after you, as if you couldn't figure out how to do it correctly.
• Going on vacation and realizing that although you brought your toothbrush, you neglected to pack toothpaste.

What kind of tiny, insignificant setbacks irritate you most? How commonly do some of these things pop up in your life?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Not much... just old people driving. Seriously, there's a great need to test these people for their driving. I live nearby and drive through this street that has a restaurant that caters to old people, K (cane) & W (walkers) Cafeteria. So I encounter a LOT of stubborn, slow, and blind old drivers. :\ Due to this reason, I avoid driving on Sundays and lunch hours on this street.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

• Sadly accepting that it's easier to drink the Diet Pepsi instead of driving all the way back to the Burger King drive-thru and demanding the Dr. Pepper you ordered.

On a related note, I feel like slapping my forehead whenever some 300+lb person orders three burgers, three large frys (all for themselves) and a large Diet drink.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

[*]Getting stuck behind some nimrod who insists upon writing a check for two items in the Express Lane.

When I worked at the supermarket, I dealt with this shit all the time. It was especially worse when I was waiting behind him, waiting to take my break, and losing precious seconds because he doesn't have $1.74 on him like most fucking people.

Most of my minor grievances come from driving. I'm one of those guys who always seems to get stuck behind the dipshit going 60 miles an hour in the left lane, but won't move over to let me pass him despite the entire right lane being open.

Being stuck in traffic always gets my goat. The entire concept of traffic is mindblowing to me. How does it ALWAYS happen? If you do your job and, you know, DRIVE, there is enough room for everybody at all times. Especially where I am, the commute down into Boston in the mornings is always a fucking nightmare. But seriously, how does traffic even begin? Who's the one asshole that cut someone off, thus, causing a mass influx of brake pedalling? I think about these things when in traffic.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Walking behind slow people getting off a train.
Walking behind slow people in the supermarket.
Walking behind slow people on the way to class.
Walking behind slow people in the cafeteria.
Walking behind slow people in the bank.
Walking behind slow people at the airport.
Walking behind slow people who use their children as an excuse to be so mindbendingly fucking slow.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by sprouticus

Being stuck in traffic always gets my goat. The entire concept of traffic is mindblowing to me. How does it ALWAYS happen? If you do your job and, you know, DRIVE, there is enough room for everybody at all times. Especially where I am, the commute down into Boston in the mornings is always a fucking nightmare. But seriously, how does traffic even begin? Who's the one asshole that cut someone off, thus, causing a mass influx of brake pedalling? I think about these things when in traffic.

]

i concur sprout. driving into/out of boston in the morning or afternoon sucks balls. also, what roads are you taking ?

i get annoyed when my bosses decide to each send me the exact same memo, reminding me to do the exact same useless task, which usually I perform upon receiving the first memo. THIS RLY GETS TO ME !

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by brknredcrayon

i concur sprout. driving into/out of boston in the morning or afternoon sucks balls. also, what roads are you taking ?

I take route 93 from Salem NH. For me, a 30-minute drive turns into a 2-hour epic ordeal during rush hour. Luckily, my new work schedule allows me to completely avoid any traffic, but last month when I had to work weekday mornings... My god what a pain!

FELIPE NO

I've got another one. People who have NO situational awareness. Dumbasses who walk in to the middle of the road and either "don't see" the cars or they see and take their time. The folks in the ghettos & downtown Bryan are particularly bad about this. The folks who DO spot you lock eyes and kinda go "YEAH. GONNA TAKE MY TIME RIGHT NOW."

Makes me want to run them down.

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Originally Posted by KrelEN

Walking behind slow people getting off a train.
Walking behind slow people in the supermarket.
Walking behind slow people on the way to class.
Walking behind slow people in the cafeteria.
Walking behind slow people in the bank.
Walking behind slow people at the airport.
Walking behind slow people who use their children as an excuse to be so mindbendingly fucking slow.

I hate walking behind slow people. If I realize that I'm walking slowly, I move to the side out of the way - but so many people fail to do this on campus.

I also hate people who can't seem to push their chairs in when they get up from a table - especially in the dining hall.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

[*]Burying the sense of insult that comes from someone else pushing the same elevator button after you, as if you couldn't figure out how to do it correctly.

I often see something similar with local traffic lights. There might be half a dozen people standing waiting to cross, and every one of them will have pressed the switch when approaching, like those before were simply uncapable.

Me, I get sick of using the paint palettes at college, when so many fellow students just don't bother cleaning them after they're finished. So I end up doing it, time and time again.

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- People that walk 6-8 abreast in groups, taking up the whole sidewalk (you see this one in college towns a lot). I'm not sure which is more annoying--getting stuck behind them, or having them stare daggers at you when you walk on the grass to pass them. Do they expect you to meekly follow them, or is the level of cluelessness so high that they assume the sidewalks of the world are theirs by birthright?

- The line at the post office. My schedule usually means I only have a few minutes to spare when mailing things, and I always get stuck in a huge line of semi-literate people mailing stuff to Uzbekistan while all but one of he casheirs are taking their three-hour breaks or something. And all I usually need is a stamp, but the machine in the lobby is broken and eats dollar bills and quarters like candy.

- People that get angry at you for not providing a service, especially one that you have never and will never provide (you see this one a lot in retail). I recall a woman getting huffy because Wal-Mart wouldn't let her make photocopies--isn't that why God invened Kinko's?--and another insisting on a 50% discount because "the stereo in the box doesn't match the one on display." At the library where I work, people get angry because we don't have vending machines. What they don't seem to realize is that, in addition to not being a bistro, the library doesn't allow you to bring food in at all. So of course we should sell some anyway.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

A little something that really pisses me off is when I'm walking on the sidewalk and somebody on a bike comes rushing by me at a speed that would obviously make for a pretty messy accident. What's worse is they sometimes turn to look at you in a pissed off kinda way looking all like "WTF are you doing on MY sidewalk!". I don't know if that happens in every city, but in Montréal it's a fucking plague.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

When people don't properly perform the tasks assigned to them and it ends up becoming my problem.

Here is a perfect example: In church today, the youth minister comes into the sound booth and hands me a DVD. He tells me that it contains a short movie that the priest wants to play at the beginning of his sermon. OK, no big deal. I pop it into the DVD player, let the main menu load, and everything is good to go. When it comes time to play the DVD, there's no sound. So I check everything on the channel strip: Cables in? Check. Gain up? Check. Pad on? No. Stereo routing button down? Check. Channel on? Yep. Slider at unity, good to go. But there's still no sound. Everyone is looking up into the sound booth, waiting for me to do something, but there's nothing I can do, except feel extremely embarrassed.

It was only after I loaded the DVD into the room's computer that I learned the DVD literally had no audio. Ugh! Things like this happen often and it always ends up looking like it's my fault because I'm the one standing in front of the console.

The worst is when somebody does something like this, and blames it on you.

"I can't hear my vocals, are you sure you turned this thing on??? We're in a hurry here!"
"What channel are you plugged into"?
"I dunno like 11 or 12 or something."
"Your microphone channel is number 14"
"Oh, sorry."

"I can't hear my monitor, did you it turn it up??"
"Is it plugged in?"
"Oops, sorry."



I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm a big victim of walking into a room and subsequently forgetting why I'm there.

Also, when people neglect to tell you pertient information. I found out after The Big Project went live that certain classes we were offering from a third party did not conform to their stated API, but they never made us aware of that fact. It would have been a big problem if we found out by way of someone complaining to us that they weren't getting into their classes properly.

I hate every person who makes a left-handed turn on the road, excepting cases where the oncoming lanes are empty so the turn is reasonably fast.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Going to sleep then waking up to discover that you rolled over on your arm and now the lack of blood circulation has made them unresponsive. Then it's just rolling around (or trying to) for a few minutes flailing the dead limb around.

This is just online, but I hate people who message me with my nick as a conversation starter and nothing else. The problem is amplified if a) I'm AFK or b) I respond within a few minutes and they're unresponsive. Is it so hard for them to just say what they want so I don't have to do this dumb chasing game? Sheesh.

FELIPE NO

Seeing litter right next to the bin, as if moving your arm a foot or so through the air is really going to be too much effort after scoffing that Big Mac.

When your classmates are being incredibly raucous, which results in everybody losing their free time.

Impoliteness. I thank people for holding doors or moving out of the way so I can get past and so on, but whenever I do it, people act as though I'm invisible. This makes my life sound miserable but it makes me very happy to hear someone acknowledge that I am doing something, no matter how small, for them.

I agree completely that people who walk at a slow pace without even moving out of your way is incredibly annoying. I usually envisage myself riding a huge motorised lawnmower through town; their body parts wouldn't be so slow-moving then.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Gechmir

I've got another one. People who have NO situational awareness. Dumbasses who walk in to the middle of the road and either "don't see" the cars or they see and take their time. The folks in the ghettos & downtown Bryan are particularly bad about this. The folks who DO spot you lock eyes and kinda go "YEAH. GONNA TAKE MY TIME RIGHT NOW."

Makes me want to run them down.

I see that alot including people who are crossing when the light clearly says don't walk. I actually once couldn't make a left turn on a green arrow because some gangster wannabes were in the way till the light turned red on me. I would have honked but I don't want to get shot.

Originally Posted by Rychord

A little something that really pisses me off is when I'm walking on the sidewalk and somebody on a bike comes rushing by me at a speed that would obviously make for a pretty messy accident. What's worse is they sometimes turn to look at you in a pissed off kinda way looking all like "WTF are you doing on MY sidewalk!". I don't know if that happens in every city, but in Montréal it's a fucking plague.

They actually use the sidewalk there? Damn, here they use the street and ignore stop signs like they think they're a pedestrian.

One that aggrivates me is old people that think they're right because they're old. Like people who argue that the sign says a specific price, you check it and they're wrong then they say "Well it said that when I was over there.". I just feel like saying "No it didn't, you're going senile, deal with it."

Then there are the ones who almost run a stop sign and then honk and swear at you like you did something wrong even though you didn't have a stop sign and they did.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just had another one happen to me today. A pair of semi-hot mormons came to my door. Before they even got a chance to say "Hi" I shut the door in their faces.

What do the door-to-door salvation salespeople hope to achieve from doing this? Honestly, has ONE PERSON converted to religion X when confronted about it at their HOME? You'd think religious folk would have better ideas on how to convert people than going door-to-fucking-door.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Every time I walk into the metro to go to university, there are people standing there which are Jehova's witnesses holding a magazine called "Réveillez-vous" (it means "wake up" in french). I always have a laugh at that and can't help but think they should take their own advice.

How ya doing, buddy?

I try my best not to allow myself to get frustrated. Even though there are a few things that really get on my nerves.

The biggest one has got to be when people drive while talking on their fucking cell-phone especially within city limits. I got no problems if people are driving and talking on their cell phones if your driving on the open highway, or if your doing open road driving. When your diriving within a town and city and you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times, this is not the time you should be chatting on the phone.

I've had too many close calls where people are not paying attention and are too concentrated on talking on their damn phone.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The one small thing guaranteed to piss me off are those massive traffic jams that have no reason at all. I've been late to classes several times because my 5-6 minute commute turns into a 30 minute waiting game, one time simply because a garbage truck was parked on the shoulder. It was nowhere near the traffic lanes, yet everyone had to come to nearly a complete stop since no one has apparently seen a freakin' garbage truck before. The worst case was when a 10 minute drive out to the Biltmore mall took an hour and a half because a 20ft. section of one lane that no one really needed was blocked off for "construction." Actually it was just a bunch of construction workers gathered around talking and not really doing anything.

To a much lesser extent, I hate people who think it's an excellent idea to stop and have conversations in doorways. Then they glare at you for being rude when you have the nerve to want to go through the door.

I was speaking idiomatically.

People who are obsessed with 'having their rights' in every little thing. Just suck it up, be the bigger man and let it go.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by brknredcrayon

i concur sprout. driving into/out of boston in the morning or afternoon sucks balls. also, what roads are you taking ?

Are you kidding? Boston is just one, giant, vehicular nuisance - no matter the time of day, no matter the area of Boston. Even Cambridge can get on my nerves. Don't even get me going about the concrete clusterfucks all around Boston... at the Zakim Bridge, down by the eastern point of the Pike near Chinatown...UGH

Beats Western Massachusetts, though. It's like a whole different country out here. Being raised in the 'burbs of Boston, I've got Aggressive Driving in my blood. It really doesn't translate out here well at all.

The majority of my irksome pet peeves or irritants revolve around driving. I love to drive late at night, when the road is mine and I don't have to worry about people nearly side-swiping me because they didn't look in their mirror to see if anyone was in the left lane. I also sympathize with Sprout's "60 MPH in Left Lane But Adamantly Refuses to Move" thing.

Without going into a diatribe about driving, I'll do some other irksome occurances:

- Ordering a coffee which is standard - and having some non-English speaking person screw it up.
- Old people counting literally PENNIES in line.
- People who waste my fucking time in line at a convenience store buying, scratching and re-buying scratch tickets. (Seriously. They stand there, scratch and win, and KEEP BUYING MORE for MINUTES ON END.) I WOULD LIKE TO PAY FOR MY WATER, PLEASE.
- In the same vein, people who are too impatient to wait their turn in line at the convenience store, and cut you off to throw a $20 down and announce "Twenty on Three!" FUCK you, asshole. I had to wait - so will you.
- Teenage kids invading a place you're having a quick bite to eat, and literally taking the establishment over on a Saturday night.
- Mis-pronunciations of simple words like "ask," "espresso," "milk," and "idea."
- Complete ignorance about how the world works. ie: What do you MEAN you don't take personal checks? WHY NOT? Let's fight for 30 minutes in line about it!
- PEOPLE AT CVS WHO STAND AND LOOK AT THEIR RECEIPT AND COUPONS FOR MORE THAN 3 MINUTES. Seriously. This one guy had to have EVERYTHING EXPLAINED TO HIM, and the employees had to open another register due to him.

Most of these things make my skin crawl. If it wasn't illegal, I would seriously take a sledge hammer to all these peoples' heads. I can't IMAGINE how much worse it can get.

FELIPE NO

Here's another one, people who leave their shopping cart in the line. I've actually had people who ended up infront of their cart to unload and after there stuff was bagged they grabbed their groceries and left even when there are people behind them. One time an old lady did it and she had a redneck behind her who yelled "TAKE YOUR CART WITH YOU STUPID!" and shoved it at her. It hit her in the behind and she looked around as though she had no idea what just happened and walked away still leaving the cart there.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't get bothered much, but I hate it when you are walking down the hall, and two people who are talking come up the stairs and walk in front of you, and then stop....

The other is when walking down the hall and people are sitting on the floor with their legs lying across the hall and you have to step over them...

How ya doing, buddy?