Repurpose This, OK?

I was at the grocery store yesterday. For the record, I’m always at the grocery store. For some reason, my kids seem to have this David Copperfield effect on food and the only thing that never gets eaten is the jar of wheat germ that I bought when I was on my last fake health kick.

Back to yesterday. I was peacefully unloading my groceries at the checkout and the clerk with way too much chin hair cranked up her best Rhode Island accent, “Ya got your ca-hd?”

Was that “Car” or “Card”? Not sure, but I assumed that she meant the discount card that really just brings prices back to what they should be. You do know you don’t save any money with them, don’t you? It’s all a sham. Raise the price, tell people they’ll save if they put yet another stupid plastic card thingy on their key chain and then charge the original price as a “sale” price.

Sorry to burst your bubble. As you can tell, I’ve got the whole dammed world figured out.

(Not really.)

So…..I gave her my card and tried not to look at her chin hairs for too long without thinking, “tweezers are cheap.”

On the way home, I started thinking about crap that annoys me. It’s about the only time in weeks that I’ve had to myself — that’s right I have swine flu kids at home who have been over-utilizing my nursing services — so thinking about things that annoy me seemed to be a perfectly logical use of my 5 minutes of alone time in the car.

Here’s what I came up with:

Store discount cards: I must have 300 of them on my key chain. It takes me 10 minutes to flip through them to find the one I need, when in fact I only use two. Cashiers are never patient and I end up having a menopausal melt-down trying to find the card. Retailers, listen up: lower your dammed prices and stop trying to bullshit us. We’re onto you.

Flyers left on my car windshield: Never had one of these? Lucky you. Every time I go to a shopping center or WalMart (that’s worth about 12 blog posts), someone leaves a cheesy flyer on my car windshield. Typically it’s about how I can lose 30 pounds in two days or, my personal favorite, how to get rich without doing a thing. That’s called a trust fund, buddy. Stop leaving things on my car unless it’s green and printed at the US Mint.

Subscription cards in magazines: I will not subscribe to any magazine that has more than one subscription card in it. It’s like a ticker tape parade when they all start falling out. Waste of paper and completely annoying. Yes, I read magazines. Used to be Cosmo (I like the quizzes) but then I started to realize I’m out of their age bracket. Now I subscribe to Forbes and Advertising Age. I want my mailman to think I’m brilliant. The truth? The trial subscriptions were free, I cancelled and they keep coming. Nice. I wish my bank account worked that way.

Bread ties: The only use I have for these little pieces of useless wire are as my cat’s play toy. She can amuse herself for hours with one of these little things my Mom used to call “twistie ties”. Twist this. They do not work well and I always end up losing them to the cat because they are so small I can’t see them. Figure out some other way to seal a bread bag because my eyes are completely fine. I only have three different pair of glasses for different distances. That’s not a lot, right?

Scented Cat Litter: I don’t care what the package says, cat droppings stink and the only way to control the odor is to scoop the litter pan every time the cat uses it. Is there a reason why one brand has to showcase 8 different varieties of litter? There is a litter for small spaces, big rooms and multiple cats. Some litters have odor absorbing crystals, others have a no dust feature. Then there are those that clump. Seriously, the first time I saw a poop encased in “clump” I thought, “HOW did that tiny cat do a poop the size of a dinosaur?” It was just the build up of clumpy stuff. So, scented litter or unscented…no difference. Poop stinks.

The word re-purpose: You know, it’s not even a word. It’s one of those made up words that people overuse. OK, it’s in the dictionary but it’s annoying. I was going to stick to actual items that annoy me and not include a word, but I just read an article about re-purposing Halloween candy. What the hell? Can we just say “How to find a use for all the Halloween candy that your kids are hiding in their beds?” No, we have to use a trendy term. Let me tell you how to re-purpose that candy ====> email me and I’ll send you a self addressed Priority Mail box. I’ll take care of it for you.

There are more annoyances to add here, but I figure if I get stuck for a blog post, I can just continue on with my list. In fact, perhaps I could have a themed crap that annoys me post every so often– words that annoy me, sounds that annoy me, rules that annoy me, people who annoy me………all written around the time that PMS rears its ugly head.