You know how when you're married to somebody, no matter how much you love them, little things they do really get under your skin and annoy you far beyond what they should? Well, I'm going to share one these things with you in my marriage. I only feel comfortable doing this because S and I have such a strong relationship that a silly blog post could never do it any harm. Also, I know that she almost never reads this thing.
The annoyance is this: S cannot be trusted to get the right thing from the grocery store. Like many couples, we split the food shopping more or less evenly. Sometimes she goes; sometimes I go. The one who doesn't go will give the other one a list, and it's expected that the shopper will get everything on the list as specified. Of course there are exceptions (the store is out of an item, Lil' S started having a melt down in the store, etc.), but in general this is how it's supposed to go. But for some reason, a non-trivial percentage of the time S does the shopping, she will come back with at least one wrong item. For instance, the other week I asked for unsalted, roasted cashews, and she brought back unsalted, raw cashews. It's not like this is a huge deal -- it's not even worth getting "mad" about it -- but there is a substantial difference in the taste of the two varieties. Also, I texted my list -- the specifications were very clear and simple -- and raw and roasted cashews are right next to each other in the store. That's kicker. It's not like there was anything in it for her to get the wrong cashews. She just wasn't careful. And this, I believe, gets to the heart of the issue. I've been in the grocery store with S before and seen her operate -- it's all about speed, not enough about accuracy. As I've mentioned before (see the paragraph immediately preceding the picture of bananas), her food forethought isn't always on point, and in her haste she gets the wrong thing. She likes to make fun of me for doing things (like shopping) so slowly, but I like to make sure I get what we want and don't have to come back again.
The most annoying instance of this happened recently when I asked S to get me a bag Michele's cherry chocolate granola. I've developed something of a dependency on it; I eat a bowl every evening with yogurt. So the other night I pour myself a bowl and start eating it when I notice the cherries taste funny ... they taste kinda like ... dear lord, no ... are these ... oh-no ... raisins! It's not cherry chocolate granola at all! It's cinnamon raisin! Such a let down. And it was made even worse the next day when I went to the store to rectify this tragedy and saw this scene.
That is a wall of Michele's granola. There's what, a hundred bags there? Not a single one of chocolate cherry. And they have another display stand right by the yogurt with about 50 more bags on it, and there were none on it either. WTF? Well, don't cry for me too hard. I begrudgingly tried a new kind, lemon pistachio, and although it hurts my point, I must admit, I found it quite scrumptious.
Anyway, since I already started down the annoying picture road, I figured I'd throw up a couple others.
This is at the entrance of Lil' S's daycare which is in a church. Tell me, does this sign make it any clearer which bell you should use? Which one is the church bell? Is it the one with the label, or is the label telling you not to use that one, like when a door says "use other entrance"? I honestly don't know, so when I need to ring, I just press them both. Of course, this whole thing could be avoided if the sign said "use this bell" or "use other bell". The fact that one of the bells is the church bell really isn't relevant to a guest anyway.
I bought some hand weights the other day and they had these stickers wrapped around them. I figured they would peel right off, but they don't. I scraped for 15 minutes and didn't even get it all. Why are they so difficult to get off? What marketing genius decided, "Hey you know what would be great on our product? A sticker that will gradually flake off and become sticky and gross over time, but that our customers won't want to remove immediately because it's incredibly annoying."
Speaking of bad products: Here's the attachment guardrail we bought for Lil' S's crib to convert it into a bed. It sticks up about an inch above the mattress and only extends to cover half of it -- totally worth $50. Not! (By the way notice the half torn sticker in the top-center of the pic. What is with putting a sticker on everything that doesn't easily come off? Are customers demanding this?)
And just so that they're not all complaints, above is a picture on an anoa I saw at the zoo -- not the actual animal itself but the word ANOA. It's a word I had previously only ever seen in Scrabble and crossword puzzles, so I took this picture as evidence that it is, in fact, used outside of word games.
Along those same lines, a restaurant I went to the other night was serving Belgian Ghentse waterzooi -- a creamy stew. In Stephan Fatsis's book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble (highly recommended, by the way), the author talks about a miracle Scrabble play in which somebody played WATERZOOI with the W and the I already on the board. Turns out waterzooi, like anoa, is a really thing, not just a crazy word that only exists in word games. Although, I'm not sure if you could get a crossword puzzle with WATERZOOI in it accepted in a major publication. Maybe I'll try it someday. But it'll have to wait -- I have to make one with ZUGZWANG in it first.
Until next time ...
The annoyance is this: S cannot be trusted to get the right thing from the grocery store. Like many couples, we split the food shopping more or less evenly. Sometimes she goes; sometimes I go. The one who doesn't go will give the other one a list, and it's expected that the shopper will get everything on the list as specified. Of course there are exceptions (the store is out of an item, Lil' S started having a melt down in the store, etc.), but in general this is how it's supposed to go. But for some reason, a non-trivial percentage of the time S does the shopping, she will come back with at least one wrong item. For instance, the other week I asked for unsalted, roasted cashews, and she brought back unsalted, raw cashews. It's not like this is a huge deal -- it's not even worth getting "mad" about it -- but there is a substantial difference in the taste of the two varieties. Also, I texted my list -- the specifications were very clear and simple -- and raw and roasted cashews are right next to each other in the store. That's kicker. It's not like there was anything in it for her to get the wrong cashews. She just wasn't careful. And this, I believe, gets to the heart of the issue. I've been in the grocery store with S before and seen her operate -- it's all about speed, not enough about accuracy. As I've mentioned before (see the paragraph immediately preceding the picture of bananas), her food forethought isn't always on point, and in her haste she gets the wrong thing. She likes to make fun of me for doing things (like shopping) so slowly, but I like to make sure I get what we want and don't have to come back again.
The most annoying instance of this happened recently when I asked S to get me a bag Michele's cherry chocolate granola. I've developed something of a dependency on it; I eat a bowl every evening with yogurt. So the other night I pour myself a bowl and start eating it when I notice the cherries taste funny ... they taste kinda like ... dear lord, no ... are these ... oh-no ... raisins! It's not cherry chocolate granola at all! It's cinnamon raisin! Such a let down. And it was made even worse the next day when I went to the store to rectify this tragedy and saw this scene.
That is a wall of Michele's granola. There's what, a hundred bags there? Not a single one of chocolate cherry. And they have another display stand right by the yogurt with about 50 more bags on it, and there were none on it either. WTF? Well, don't cry for me too hard. I begrudgingly tried a new kind, lemon pistachio, and although it hurts my point, I must admit, I found it quite scrumptious.
Anyway, since I already started down the annoying picture road, I figured I'd throw up a couple others.
This is at the entrance of Lil' S's daycare which is in a church. Tell me, does this sign make it any clearer which bell you should use? Which one is the church bell? Is it the one with the label, or is the label telling you not to use that one, like when a door says "use other entrance"? I honestly don't know, so when I need to ring, I just press them both. Of course, this whole thing could be avoided if the sign said "use this bell" or "use other bell". The fact that one of the bells is the church bell really isn't relevant to a guest anyway.
I bought some hand weights the other day and they had these stickers wrapped around them. I figured they would peel right off, but they don't. I scraped for 15 minutes and didn't even get it all. Why are they so difficult to get off? What marketing genius decided, "Hey you know what would be great on our product? A sticker that will gradually flake off and become sticky and gross over time, but that our customers won't want to remove immediately because it's incredibly annoying."
Speaking of bad products: Here's the attachment guardrail we bought for Lil' S's crib to convert it into a bed. It sticks up about an inch above the mattress and only extends to cover half of it -- totally worth $50. Not! (By the way notice the half torn sticker in the top-center of the pic. What is with putting a sticker on everything that doesn't easily come off? Are customers demanding this?)
And just so that they're not all complaints, above is a picture on an anoa I saw at the zoo -- not the actual animal itself but the word ANOA. It's a word I had previously only ever seen in Scrabble and crossword puzzles, so I took this picture as evidence that it is, in fact, used outside of word games.
Along those same lines, a restaurant I went to the other night was serving Belgian Ghentse waterzooi -- a creamy stew. In Stephan Fatsis's book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble (highly recommended, by the way), the author talks about a miracle Scrabble play in which somebody played WATERZOOI with the W and the I already on the board. Turns out waterzooi, like anoa, is a really thing, not just a crazy word that only exists in word games. Although, I'm not sure if you could get a crossword puzzle with WATERZOOI in it accepted in a major publication. Maybe I'll try it someday. But it'll have to wait -- I have to make one with ZUGZWANG in it first.
Until next time ...
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