Things That Bug Me.

It’s been a long time since I've let fly with a really good rant, right?
This is going to probably sound as though I am in a real testy mood [note: “testy” not “teste” which is an entirely different matter...] but I’m really not.
I am not at all mad about anything.
There are just a few things that I hate, and not even really hate... hang on a second. I actually am mad about one thing, and that is that my blogpage, [bookpuddle] here is still all screwy.
And interestingly enough, I have found out that it is NOT screwed up for Mac users.... only us Gates worshippers are afflicted. On Mac screens, my page looks fine and dandy. Go figure.
You may say “Hey, it looks fine to me” but yes, it only looks fine because I have found a way to get around the blank page problem.
After much experimentation [Geez, you really take this thing seriously don’t you Mr. Puddle].... as I was saying.... after much experimentation I have found that I can make the page look OK only by eradicating the amount of visible posts on the main page. So, in other words, for now anyways, stuff gets archived a lot sooner. I can only keep a few current posts on the main page at any given moment.
Having said all that.... back to some things that are bothering me yet not necessarily making me lose my mind or go ballistic, or get testy OR teste!
They are just things...... things that I notice today that I DON’T LIKE!

OK. First thing.
And this is on my mind because it just happened like five minutes ago.
I’m here in the Chapters bookstore, and I go to the drinking fountain for some water. I’m enjoying a nice drink when someone inside the can flushes the toilet.
This immediately affects the trajectory of the stream of water I am ingesting.
This is not....... comforting to me.
Instantly, I am thinking “Am I drinking toilet water?”
Well seriously though, how is it that when the guy flushes the toilet inside the washroom, the water that is going into my mouth sort of lurches and sputters and whatever?
I want this explained.
Of course I know that logistically speaking, there is some sort of perfectly logical water-pressure-ish explanation for the connection between toilet and fountain, involving pipes and whatnot.... but at the same time, if we can go to the moon and back, can we not invent a little Deal-Grommet-Spindle that compensates for this sudden lack of water pressure?

OK. Second thing.
And this is only on my mind because it happened on the drive over here.
I’m driving down the road and then I want to turn right. But there is a person in front of me [we’re stopped at a red light] and they will not MERGE.
Like, they are waiting for three lanes of traffic to be clear because that is where they want to go... way over into that third lane. The farthest one over.
But there is a real nice merge thing, where the bus stops, that is perfectly designed to sort of speed yourself up a bit and then blend nicely into that first lane and then move on over to the next lane and then there you go. You don’t have to hold up traffic BEHIND you, waiting for three lanes to open up!
It is maddening! I get just this side of road rage. I am fine now. I have my coffee.....

OK. Third thing.
And this is only on my mind because it happened when I ordered my coffee just now.
I pay for it and say “Thank you” and then the coffee girl says “No problem” just as I am turning around to fix up my coffee with cream and honey. I pause.
No problem?
I feel like turning back to her and asking “Did I imply that there should be some sort of problem here?”
Of course she would have said “No sir. Not at all.”
But then I would have said... “Well why then do you feel you need to inform me that in this particular instance, there was no problem? Is seems as though maybe at other times, it is a problem... but this time, it isn’t? Is that it?”
She (the poor girl) would probably say “I’m sorry. It is just a phrase, I mean nothing literal by it, it’s sort of like saying ‘Have a good day.’”
I would much prefer that they said Have a good day.

[God... maybe I am real owly today huh?]

OK. Fourth thing.
Fourth, and last thing.
And this is only because it is happening right now, right here in front of me.
What exactly is the deal with women’s shoes nowadays?
By that I mean this prevailing fashion of shoes that are so pointy you could pick the lock in a car door with them.
A pair of them is clippety-cloppiting around in front of me right now, attached to a woman.
The heel is in one time zone, the toe in another.
I know this is supposed to be the trend, the fashion, and that there is something tres chic about it that I am too dull to get. I admit it, the glamour of it is lost on me. I honestly think that hiking boots would be more attractive.
And with a lot of these shoes, they are so elongated that the starting point of the five toes is visible.... not the end of the toe of course but the other side, the foot side of the toes, and then there is this...... anteater snout.... like at least six inches of leather (no exaggeration) needlessly pointing somewhere and I’m just thinking THIS IS NOT RIGHT!
This cannot be good!
Or comfortable even!
I mean, I could see if maybe this particular woman had some sort of..... foot deformity.
Like, where those five toes start out normal (and dammit, I can SEE them right there, they look fine to me) and then you know maybe all five of these toes mutate and they sort of knarl up into this one-toed turnip or carrot-like structure, [Proboscis-foot we’ll call it] and therefore she is trying to hide this horrific abberration by shoving the whole shmeer into the barrel of a shoe specially designed to hide such abnormality.
But this cannot be it, because they are everywhere these shoes. Proboscis-foot cannot possibly be that widespread.