Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

People switching the kettle off at the plug.

I don't check, I walk away, I come back, and pour cold water into my mug .

 

Fries with mayo is the best there is! But what do I know, I'm just 5 km away from the Netherlands on the German side...

The problem may be that good mayo (or a special similar white condiment, Frittessauss as they call it) is very hard to get on the other side of the Atlantic. I've lived in FL for ten years, and I found just one easily obtainable version that I deemed just acceptable.

 

I did notice it had it's own special flavor to it over there. I spend most my time in Eindhoven or Acht when I go up there. The ketchup is strangely better too. I'm not a great fan of dutch food, but some things are just made better.

 

I love equal parts yellow mustard and mayo mixed together. Not a fan of ketchup, so I use that as a substitute when it's available.

 

Where I was raised, we had shoestring potatoes. In my younger years, I could buy wet shoes for 25 cents, which was a flour gravy over yesterdays shoe string potatoes.

 

That sounds like some proto-poutine.

 

Stupid people.

I know they can't help it but it's painful when you have to go through every small detail over and over... Slowly... I just want to do my job, not babysit someone who's older than my mother.

 

When I was living in FL, almost everything (in products like condiments, i.e. mayo) was made with soybean oil. You had to go to great length to find something else.

Here in Germany (and in German made food products) soybean oil is virtually non-existent. It's mostly Canola (rapeseed, Colza are alternatives names I find on Wiki. "Raps" for the plant, and "Rapsöl", in German.), sunflower, or corn.

I'm sure that must influence the taste.

 

When people moan about ‘foreigners’ and their access to our NHS, and say, “We’re the ones who’ll be paying for that!”

So tell me, how much exactly, is your wage packet going to be short by this month?

I’ll hazard a guess at £0:00

 

I’ve no doubt, but that doesn’t mean our wage packets would be instantly fatter were it not for these ‘foreigners’.

No government has ever been interested in paying blue collar workers more than the bare minimum they need to live on.

 

No, certaintly not. I just don’t buy this notion that us as individuals would be better off financially.

 

Here's a thing. I'm a dialysis patient. Probably 80% if the nurses on the dialysis units in my city are foreign, and most of them are Philippino (I have no idea why). I don't think it's fair that they are paying taxes AND have to pay a health surcharge to access the NHS. And they get charged for parking too.

 

Here's something that annoys me. I walk with crutches, so I'm slow at crossing roads. I prefer to wait for cars to pass before crossing so I don't have to hurry across.

Cars that wait for me, while I'm patently waiting for them to go really bloody annoys me.

 

Really, any discussion on the fairness or lack thereof of the NHS, American healthcare, the shakai-hoken, or whatever needs to head off to the Debate Room.

That's the friendly nudge.

 

OK, here's another thing that annoys me. People who open the door for you from the outside (i.e. push the door inwards away from them), and then stand there waiting for you to push past them.

Go IN to the room and hold the door from the other side, people!

 

I only got 1138 words written this week.

 

When I'm standing in line to get food at the end of a really long work day and somebody asks me if I caught "the game". I get that I'm dressed in a safety vest, dirty jeans, work boots, and a tool belt and I look every part of the "typical working man" who is getting ready to go home so he can crack open a "brewskie" and watch ESPN highlights but unless they're talking about D&D (and they never are) then I don't know which game they're referring to and I don't care.

I also get annoyed when neighbors find out that I work in a trade and then suddenly want me to come diagnose their furnace for free but that one feels like a justified annoyance. Not only do I hate my job and don't want to do it on my own time, I don't work for my boss for free and you're no exception.

 

I've had a few occasions where I've negotiated a deal to split the difference between what your boss would pay you and what I'd pay your boss though. Done right, everyone wins.

 

On a related note: People in the supermarket standing in the way, unaware of their surroundings.

People getting their carts, going to the entrance, and then stopping IN the entrance to sort their wallets and bags! Aargh! Can't you do that a few meters further in or out so that others (I) can get past without bothering you?

Or people standing in front of the shelf, perusing the goods, with their cart behind them, perpendicular to the shelf blocking the whole aisle.

Or people stopping for a chat, nothing wrong with that per se, except they're at the narrowest part of the store, blocking again.

 

People.

 

Come to Japan, where the old women, having completed their journey on the escalator then stop and decide what to do while blocking the entire thing leaving those behind them frantically trying to back up or down the moving stairs to avoid running the geriatric old bats over and sending them to their rewards. It's gotten so bad that the escalators in Kyoto at the new Loft department store have signs and an audible announcement asking people not to be fucking idiots block the escalator when they should be clearing the way.

 

When people buy something, like a flask or mug or soup cup (in a nutshell anything that comes with a product information label stuck on it) and don’t take that label off. How can they not? Or even worse, attempt to take it off and don’t care that they’ve left behind huge pieces of the backing paper.