(More of) What’s Really Annoying
It turns out there are considerably more than ten annoying things about modern life today. In fact, there are at least these ten more:
10: Weather apps that predict a “a 5-percent chance of precipitation” or say “light rain is expected to start in 43 minutes” as you walk outside into an already howling monsoon.
9: The sticky residue left behind after you try to peel the price tag off anything, leaving you with a half-torn label that will never ever come off no matter how much you rub and scrub.
8: Traffic lights that stay red for so long and then, just at the moment you look away for one second to adjust the radio, the light turns green and the car behind you honks like you’ve committed a felony.
7: Restaurant waiters who suddenly come over to your table to ask how everything is precisely when your mouth is filled with 14 cubic inches of eggplant parmigiana and you can only respond with a thumbs-up while trying not to choke.
6: Bathroom sinks in public places like airports that have motion-sensor faucets that don’t sense your particular motion so you don’t know where to put your hands and have to keep moving them back and forth, up and down, in and out, all to get just a damn drop of water.
5: Hotel room thermostats that let you punch buttons and raise the temperature one degree at a time but aren’t actually connected to anything anymore, so the room remains a consistently uncomfortable 62 degrees, whether it’s July or January.
4: The recorded message that “Your call is very important to us” played at regular 90-second intervals while you are on hold and are becoming absolutely certain your call isn’t important to anyone.
3: Airplane boarding routines with eight basic groups, including those who need assistance, those traveling with children, veterans, anyone with an American Express platinum card and so on. Then you check your boarding pass to find out you are, of course, group nine, the group that finds no available space left in the overhead bins.
2: QR-code menus, where you have to hover your phone over a smudged square, wait 20 seconds for a PDF to load, and then spend the next 13 minutes trying to zoom in on the pasta section while not accidentally taking a selfie.
1: “Easy-open” packages that aren’t.