Daily Nuisances

In everyone's life, there are nuisances that repeat themselves on a weekly if not daily basis that serve to frustrate, annoy or even anger us.  They're not as dire as having an auto accident, or losing one's wallet, but they add up, especially if you have several occurrences of the same ones in a day.  I noticed this the other day when every little thing that could go wrong went wrong, amounting to death by a thousand paper cuts...although obviously, I didn't die.

Here then are a few of mine.  Perhaps I'm just a clutz.  But I wonder if anyone else has these happen to him.

Step on shoelaces while trying to tie shoes:  I can walk around, up and down stairs, with my shoes untied and never trip.  But get ready to tie my shoes and a lace or two invariably ends up under the shoe.  I can't remember the last time I had an errorless shoe-tying.

Electric cord twisting:  Each and every time I vacuum, the electric cord tangles.  It doesn't matter if I hold the cord while I'm vacuuming.  At some point, I get it twisted around the vacuum, the furniture or myself.  It's a miracle I don't work the cord into a noose and hang myself, inadvertently.

Typing:  I'm probably larger than the average male, but by no means am I gargantuan.  My hands are probably normal for my body size, but they were always too small to throw a football properly.  Be that as it may, if there are four keys within proximity of my thumb, I'll hit all four of them at once, either reformatting what I'm typing or causing the screen to go dark.  I hate Bill Gates.

Finding my hand braces:  I have nerve damage in my hands.  I don't know if it's carpal tunnel, but when I sleep my hands hurt so much I wake up, unless I'm wearing my braces.  I put them behind my pillows when I wake up.  When I go to bed, I put the braces somewhere on the bedding so I can find them.  After I put the first one on...I can't find the other one.  It's either wrapped up in the bedding, down behind a pillow or on the floor beside the bed.  But the best part is that I can never find it until after I'm already under the covers, necessitating me to get out of bed and start the process all over.

Cursor obstruction:  You know when you're going to type something in an online form, say for a contest or an application, and you click in the space you're about to fill?  Well, whenever I do that, the cursor covers up what I'm typing, partially, so that I can't see whether I've typed a mistake or not.  I realize that techies all think we're Japanese and make everything as small as possible, but someone should figure out a way to remove the cursor once we've clicked on the blank so that we have a cursor-free space in which to type.

Accessing phone contacts:  Knowing my cyber-challengedness, Karen lovingly programmed the more common phone numbers into a list for one-touch dialing.  I don't care what any of the techies say:  When I hit the (micro-small) square X next to Karen's name, it sends me to another screen that displays her phone number, which I then hit only to be sent to yet another screen, where I can either choose not to call her or call her.  What's the point of having a shortcut?

Reading documents on the computer:  It never fails:  If I need to see what was back on page eleven when I'm on page twenty-three, it'll take me three times as long to locate page eleven on the computer than it would were I have to have the paper document in my hands.

Filled pens that won't write:  At least half the time I pick up a pen that has ink in it, it won't write.

Parking lot parking spaces:  If anyone can miss vacant parking spaces and pass them up, or just miss the one that opened up after I passed it, it's me.  I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for parking spaces.

Misplacing my coupons:  No matter how diligent I am about bringing home my coupons from the grocery store, I somehow lose them.  Currently, they're misplaced either in Karen's car, my car, the garage or the house.

Forgetting the one thing I told myself to remember:  Today, I had to vacuum my office, get the file I left at the office yesterday for tomorrow's meeting, go the store and get the things on Karen's list and return the movies to Redbox.  I forgot the movies and had to go out again after I returned home.  I could easily have forgotten any of the other things without penalty, but I forgot to bring the movies.

Plugging something into a socket:  This won't come as a surprise to many who know me, but I don't know the names of the two prongs on most electrical plugs that are put into the wall sockets.  One of them is fatter than the other.  Invariably -- an almost statistical certainty -- I will try to put the fatter end into the narrower socket hole.  It.never.fails.

Pulling the wrong lace when untying a shoe:  Because of my funky feet, I have to double tie my shoelaces.  When I try to untie the laces, I invariably pull the lace end that does nothing to release the knot.

There are more, no doubt, but these are the daily nuisances that I can remember for now.

(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles