Tag Archives: Prius

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. I keep a running list of the absurdities of life that I think might be worthy of including in the week’s edition of WAJTW. Because this week happened to include a federal holiday, I’ve spent the whole week vaguely confused about what day of the week it happens to be. As a result, I reached to that list and accidentally used one of the annoyances as an actual fully fledged blog post. That doesn’t seem like it would be much of an annoyance aside from the fact that most things have broken my way this week and there wasn’t much of a list to begin with… which is exactly why the first annoyance for this week is strictly a process piece.

2. Sports metaphors. I’ve seen enough sports in my life to understand most of the metaphors, but I’ve never quite understood our desire to try to take the lessons of the field and apply them to every other aspect of life. Since I don’t generally follow sports in any meaningful way maybe the stories just don’t resonate for me in the way they seem to for other people. I’m just a guy with a hard time applying the relevant lesson of the scrappy underdog team to the issues I’m fighting with on the daily. I realize I’m probably the outlier here, so don’t mind me. If it looks like I’m stifling a yawn, that’s because I am.

3. Prius Drivers. On Tuesday morning I sat in the truck and watched a Prius driver open his door, lean halfway out of the car, and back into a parking space. The next nearest vehicle was mine and Big Red was at least two dozen spots away and in a completely different row. Look, I know I don’t have an unblemished record here, but backing up in an effectively empty parking lot and landing between the white lines just feels like something you should be able to do without needing to nearly exit the vehicle… Especially when your car takes up about as much square footage as my kitchen table. The poor schmuck didn’t even have a pair of passing yoga pants to use as an effective excuse.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The Prius. I’m sure you’re feeling very smug and superior about the gas you’re saving, Mr. Prius Driver, as you tool along at 40 miles an hour on a major commuter artery. What you really need to do though is either a) Buy a car that can actually keep up with the flow of traffic; b) Leave at a time other than when 10,000 people are trying to get home for the evening; c) Die in a horrible, fiery crash. It doesn’t make any difference at all to me which option you decide to exercise.

2. The election. I love politics, but can we seriously just shut up and vote already. Is there really anyone out there that hasn’t already made up their mind about who they’ll vote for in November. Admit it, the presidential election is the big draw. We’re no more likely to know more about the down-ticket candidates in November than we do now anyway. It’s ok, I’m not going to judge you for not knowing jack about the candidates for county commissioner, judge, or dog catcher. Let’s just save the time, effort, and hours of blathering on television and get on with it already. A hot mess now, a hot mess later, either way it’s going to be a hot mess. I’d rather just get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

3. In what universe does it take 14 hours to respond to an email that requires a simple yes or no answer. I’m not asking anyone to transcribe A Tale of Two Cities with their thumbs, just type in a two or three letter response and hit send. I know the Blackberry you’re carrying is an arcane bit of technology, but if memory serves, it’s pretty good at receiving and sending email, so unclench you sphincter, remove your head from your rectum, and keep up.

4. Being a Landlord. If there’s anything that sucks more than being a renter, it’s being a landlord. It’s even worse when you’re a landlord by proxy because that means you have to make decisions on the fly based on grainy pictures and not much information. Don’t believe me? Let me know how you feel when your property manager tells you that you need to spend 1/75th the “post correction” value of the house you’re already losing money on every month to fix the driveway because the slab is cracked and sinking at odd angles. I should have just asked him how much it would cost to hire an arsonist