So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

3fingers said:

The USPS. I bought a couple of old topographical maps on Ebay. They were shipped in a tube suitable for the purpose and should have arrived in good condition. Unfortunately, either they were run over by a mail truck or were used in a light saber competition in transit. Now my formally near pristine 100 year old maps have damage at the spot where the tube was crushed.

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A former co-worker once told me his father had been a "maintenance technician" for the Universally Stupid Postal Service before he retired, and that on more than one occasion he had arrived at a facility to fix a "problem" only to find one of the sorting machines shredding rather than sorting almost every piece of mail being forced through it. He added that when his father asked the obvious question "Why didn't you shut that line down?" the response was almost always something to the effect of, "Oh, we can't do that; we have too much mail to sort."

Why does the universe permit the existance of the woman who takes a full-sized carriage at the grocery store and then selects one small bag of grapes to wheel around in it until she parks it in the express lane, taking up the entire length of the available line so nobody else can reach the belt to put their stuff down, and then stands there playing with her frigging phone while I stand behind her holding a twenty pound box of cat litter and wondering how much of a sentence I'd get if I whacked her in the back of the head with it?

If Mr. Hatlo was still with us, I'd send this in for "They'll Do It Every Time." Because they will.

I have often wished stores would put up signs bluntly telling people to pay and move on. No waiting until your purchases are rung up and only then getting out your money or better yet, only then start digging in your duffle bag for your checkbook. It shouldn't come as a surprise that you will be expected to pay for your items. No pitching a hissy about what your link card won't allow. No screaming at the poor clerk who can't afford half of the crap you've purchased and yes, no cell phones in hand at the register. The list is endless.

For all it has become much easier to grocery shop since I have had Herself there so we can both pack and pay, of late I've had to start waiting for her signal to pay (she packs - I can't be trusted to get it right ). If I pay before we're finished packing, often the til person will just start pushing through the next customer's groceries. Used to be some places had a little divider so they could let you finish packing while the next person got started the process, but then they cut the size of all the checkouts to fit more in. Which would be fine, if they ever opened more than a third of them....

ChiTownScion said:

The flipside, of course, is that the internet makes vetting and debunking of the crackpot theories a lot easier for the average Joe / Jane.

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The one thing the internet has caused more of, for all the information out there is confirmation bias. That's assuming folks rad beyond the headline. Facebook last year published stats that showed well over 60% of 'shared' pots with links on them were shared without the sharer following the link first. (THat they can tell that is another issue altogether!).

LizzieMaine said:

Spend half an hour reading Gab or certain corners of Reddit and you'll wish sincerely for the extinction of the human race.

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Half an hour on even the most benign of websites to which the general public can post usually leaves me wishing at east 50% of the population should be culled. The incel movement is everywhere.

LizzieMaine said:

The only thing that's safe to read on Reddit these days is /TheChurchOfRogers, a board devoted to the followers of Mister Rogers. Even the Doctor Who boards are a nest of vipers.

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IT was ever thus; nothing and nobody has the self-righteous venom of a Whovarian scorned. George Lucas goes to sleep at night thinking "well, at least I'm not Chris Chibnall - things could be worse."

Dm101 said:

This isn't working the way they said it would.
I'm supposed to be getting MORE patience as I get older...not LESS.

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The only thing I seem to get less of as I get older is time. That said, while I'm no less angry no than when I was fifteen, my cynicism has grown such that I tend to find fewer battles worth fighting....

V.C. Brunswick said:

Of late Louie the cat.

He goes through food like crazy. A bag of Purina Cat Chow used to last a month, now it barely lasts ten days! I've tried to put him on a diet by feeding him less but the furry ba***rd knows how to manipulate everybody else by making such a ruckus that it bothers them, forcing me to constantly feed him.

He keeps me up at night when he's hungry at 3:00 -- 4:00 AM. Again I've tried to ignore him but his loud meowing and scratching at the door wakes everybody else up. Often it's more than just feeding him because frequently he still has food in his bowl but wants a fresh scoop, he also wants me to lead him to his food like a maitre'd as if he doesn't know where his bowl is! And then I have to wait for him to finish eating because he wants to go outside afterwards.

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Worth having him checked over by the vee eh tee, just in case. Hopefully nothing, but they can be indicative of an underlying problem. If it is thyroid, that's very easy to sort out these days - either a quick op, or long-term meds.

V.C. Brunswick said:

Louie was an indoor cat for the first four years of his life (he's now almost 10) with his first two owners. When he became my cat he started spending more time outside -- he mainly comes in to eat and sleep. Fortunately he's never wandered off, he likes to hang out in the front yard bushes (his jungle) and now I've noticed that he spends more time in the backyard where he'll often sleep in the middle of the patio.

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LUcky with a male.

tonyb said:

I’m assuming your Louie sings soprano.

I had an “intact” male cat a long time ago. He’d disappear for a day or a week or more and return home when he apparently got himself on the losing end of an encounter with another cat or who-knows-what. He’d hole-up and lick his wounds and dine on fare he didn’t have to kill or fight over first.

Those days were different.

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OUr first cat was done, but he was still fierce. At the ge of eleven he disappeared for ten days, we all thought he'd gone for good. Turned up looking skinnier and covered in coal dust, but otherwise unscathed. Did that a couple of times in his life. He was also fiercely territorial - iof another animal came into our garden, not only would it regret it, but he would pee three feet in the air, completely at will, to mark his territory. My mother once came off worse as a result of this...

Lean'n'mean said:

The kitty of the recently departed Karl Largerfeld, certainly had staff. "Choupette" (pronounced 'shoe-pet) was/is accompanied around the clock by a variety of attendants including a chamber maid.
When asked about this by journalists (they rarely have anything original to ask) he simply replied he was creating jobs.
One could also add that " Choupette" has earned over one & a half million euros so far for her owner in merchandizing, so prehaps she is entitled to a little luxury.

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Lagerfiled was certainly a difficult individual in many ways, but I do like to think a guy that could be that soft on a cat can't be all bad.

LizzieMaine said:

Why does the universe permit the existance of the woman who takes a full-sized carriage at the grocery store and then selects one small bag of grapes to wheel around in it until she parks it in the express lane, taking up the entire length of the available line so nobody else can reach the belt to put their stuff down, and then stands there playing with her frigging phone while I stand behind her holding a twenty pound box of cat litter and wondering how much of a sentence I'd get if I whacked her in the back of the head with it?

If Mr. Hatlo was still with us, I'd send this in for "They'll Do It Every Time." Because they will.

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With two kids and 6 cats, I can promise you my shopping cart never holds a single item.

One store I frequent has these really neat Tractor kids seats up by the handle, but the cart grocery area isn't as big. Sometimes we have to do two trips, (coming back for large items like the family-sized paper towels). If I do manage to fit everything, the groceries won't re-fit bagged. So the clerk calls someone and they bring a big cart, and we proceed to fill both carts with the groceries once bagges. Then the helper helps me wheel the second cart out to my car.

This grocery store pays its workers better than average so they always are cheerful to help, but it is slightly embarrassing having to haul two carts of groceries out of the store.

Edward said:

The only thing I seem to get less of as I get older is time. That said, while I'm no less angry no than when I was fifteen, my cynicism has grown such that I tend to find fewer battles worth fighting....

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Time is such a strange concept. As a small child, I remember that Christmas took five years to come around but the older I get, the more Christmases there are in the year.

Perhaps it comes down to children. Parents see them grow, milestones in their lives come and go. Not having children, we don't have such milestones. I remember whilst still living in London, we registered with a doctor here on The Solent, in case of an urgent need. My doctor at the time was a young female, she told me that I was the last patient that she would see before going on maternity leave. It is so scary to think that her little bump has just graduated from University.

Bruce Wayne said:

Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

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If a visitor from another planet were to come here and note that one species went around picking up the poop of another, which one would they conclude was in control?

GHT said:

Time is such a strange concept. As a small child, I remember that Christmas took five years to come around but the older I get, the more Christmases there are in the year.Perhaps it comes down to children. Parents see them grow, milestones in their lives come and go. Not having children, we don't have such milestones.

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You may be right. I was musing on this recently, as I hit twenty years in my current employ. I did put a lot of it down to the fact that a decade has more life stages in it when you're younger - birth, school, secondary education, university - but one you get to the 'work until death' stage (this is the new norm among academics, as USS/UUK gradually take away any hope of a pension that can sustain a living), there are fewer milestones along the way - unless, as you say, if you have kids, in which case their milestones become yours too.

I remember whilst still living in London, we registered with a doctor here on The Solent, in case of an urgent need. My doctor at the time was a young female, she told me that I was the last patient that she would see before going on maternity leave. It is so scary to think that her little bump has just graduated from University.

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My neighbour has two sons who were eighteen months old and a babe-in-arms when I moved in in 2001. I still struggle to process they're both adults now, one of them moved out on his own. Tempus fugit indeed.

GHT said:

Time is such a strange concept. As a small child, I remember that Christmas took five years to come around but the older I get, the more Christmases there are in the year.

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Life is like a roll of toilet paper: it goes faster near the end.

U-Haul.

sheeplady said:

With two kids and 6 cats, I can promise you my shopping cart never holds a single item.

One store I frequent has these really neat Tractor kids seats up by the handle, but the cart grocery area isn't as big. Sometimes we have to do two trips, (coming back for large items like the family-sized paper towels). If I do manage to fit everything, the groceries won't re-fit bagged. So the clerk calls someone and they bring a big cart, and we proceed to fill both carts with the groceries once bagges. Then the helper helps me wheel the second cart out to my car.

This grocery store pays its workers better than average so they always are cheerful to help, but it is slightly embarrassing having to haul two carts of groceries out of the store.

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I grew up in a family of four kids, one responsible adult, and one person who never grew up.

That one responsible adult’s weekly trip to the supermarket had her returning home with a station wagon (with its rear seats folded down to make for a flat platform from the back of the front seat to the tailgate) full of groceries in brown paper bags.

This was typical then. Larger families. Fewer meals out (far fewer). Station wagons.

ChrisB said:

Life is like a roll of toilet paper: it goes faster near the end.

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Yep, & we all think there is more paper on the roll than there actually is. Don't flush your lives down the pan because that last square will come quicker than you realise & there's no second roll.

ChrisB said:

If a visitor from another planet were to come here and note that one species went around picking up the poop of another, which one would they conclude was in control?

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I don't know about aliens but I imagine folk from some countries would be just as flummoxed.

Lean'n'mean said:

I don't know about aliens but I imagine folk from some countries would be just as flummoxed.

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I’m acquainted with many people from other lands who just can’t fathom how we Americans allow for dogs not only in our living spaces but also encourage the beasts to LICK OUR FACES!!!!

These people also habitually remove their shoes on entering their own homes. Their living spaces stay cleaner on account of that, no doubt, and their flooring lasts longer.

Me, I’m an American of working-class origins. I wear my shoes indoors and have two dogs and a cat who plop themselves down on the furniture and shed fur and occasionally have indoor “accidents.” C’est la vie, as we said back in the trailer park. I like our oak floors and Persian rugs, we spent hard-earned money to acquire them, and I take what I consider reasonably good care of that stuff. But I don’t lose sight of it being just stuff. I try not to enslave myself to my possessions.

And I love our pets, pains in the rump as they occasionally are.

If it comes to a choice between my furniture or my cat, well, I can always pick up furniture off the side of the road. My cat is a unique and irreplaceable being.

Picking up poop? Imagine the looks on peoples' faces when I tell them with a straight face I have my late cat, Twist, in a hand-made lidded coffin (maple) in my freezer, waiting for our new house to be finished and the farm land defrosted sufficiently to bury her there with her laser-etched head stone...

Wow...you all really like your animals.
More power to you, I'm good with just killing and eating them.
I've raised one child...my poop-cleaning days are over.

MisterCairo said:

Picking up poop? Imagine the looks on peoples' faces when I tell them with a straight face I have my late cat, Twist, in a hand-made lidded coffin (maple) in my freezer, waiting for our new house to be finished and the farm land defrosted sufficiently to bury her there with her laser-etched head stone...

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Greta-Cat tells me that when it comes her time to go to be with her sister in kitty-heaven, she wants a pyramid at least.... What I'm not telling her is that some of her ashes will be combined with a pinch of her sister's to be turned into an artificial gemstone and set in cufflinks for the Big Cat....

I have the remains of the late Miss Keesa in a brass Chinese box on my bureau, and when I go she'll go with me, wherever we end up going.

Dm101 said:

More power to you, I'm good with just killing and eating them

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Cats????!!!!

Cows and pigs are asking for it, venison stew is awesome, but cat is off the menu!