All of us get upset and fret with every-day botherations, for instance........
- When saran wrap tears on the roll
- Stubbing a toe
- Buzzing mosquitoes and bees
- Paper cuts
- Burnt toast
- Breaking a fingernail
- No cable service
- Magazine subscription ads that fall out . These 3x5 cards are called "blow-ins" because in the magazine manufacturing process these cards are typically blown into the magazine, between the pages, one at a time.
- The "bind-in" cards that are bound into a magazine. These have perforated edges for easy tearing. The first thing I do before reading any magazine is yank em out and delicately ram em into the waste basket.
- Kinks in the water hose
- Christmas tree lights that work before they're put on the tree, but fail to work after
- Modern packaging that's nearly impossible to open without a buzz saw
- Inefficient customer service. Once upon a time we were able to call a company and talk to a human being. Well, an automated voice has taken the place of the human voice. It gives us instructions to press 1 for this, press 2 for that, press 3 if we didn't understand the menu, or press 4 if we'd like to talk to a company rep. We, the customer, have no chance to question this phantom voice. We either do as we're told, or hang up. Is our new-age society actually evolving or are we de-volving?
- Customer service people who say they can't help us, and they transfer us to someone who can. This second support person either never answers, takes a long time to answer, or it ends up they can't help us either....in which case they transfer us to a third person or refer us back to the person we spoke to in the first place. And, let's not forget about the times we get disconnected and have to start from square one.
Egads, I'm getting bothered just thinking about the things that bother me. I could go on and on and on, but as Robert Service so wisely tells us,
"Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe."
