Everyone has pet peeves. I like to think I have fewer than most.
Tech is one. Don’t you hate when tech support tells you, “unplug your (whatever) then plug it back in again.” What other appliance gets the benefit of the doubt like that?
Can you imagine putting bread in your toaster, pushing it down, and when you come back it has popped up but the bread has vanished. Imagine toaster support saying… “Do you have back-up bread? Okay, unplug the toaster, plug it back in, then re-do the bread. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
No, because my toaster is in the dumpster.
In stores, it drives me nuts when you track down an employee and say something like, “Hey, do you have any Froot Loops. There’s none on the shelf.” What’s the first thing they do? Take you back to the cereal aisle and spend two minutes trying to prove you wrong. Like you’re going to miss a large red box with a toucan on it.
In one especially annoying incident, I was in a big-box hardware store, looking for an odd-sized light bulb in a specific wattage. Couldn’t find one. So I went up and down the aisles looking for someone. The guy I eventually found was wearing glasses with lenses about half an inch thick.
“Hi, do you have any blah-blah sized light bulbs in yadda-yadda wattage? There aren’t any on the shelf.”
You guessed it, he takes me back to the lighting aisle. Then, to supplement his thick glasses, he pulls out a magnifier with a light on it and starts inspecting bulbs. I stand there, like a kettle put on to boil, and when I’m just about to say something, he hands me a box. “Here you go.”
I hate when that happens.
Mitchell & Sandovan novels 