7 Tiny Annoyances That Make Us Instantly Choose (Emotional) Violence

When small things go wrong, setting off a cataclysmic cavalcade of emotions

Gif by Brubaerie

Some days don’t just get on your last nerve; they set it on fire, then put it out by doing a flamenco dance on top of it. An otherwise normal day can be set ablaze by a series of unfortunate events that by themselves would be nothing — but in a series, bring you to your breaking point.

Like someone ate your last Oreo. Or they breathed loudly…or at all.

Even the coolest cucumbers amongst us have those days, where the shit hitteth the fan, and we lose our friggin marbles. Our reactions are unhinged, but also simultaneously warranted. As is the accompanying micro freak out.

Here is a list of things that I think, in some series of succession, can break even the strongest amongst us:

Netflix Logged You Out

It happens; technology fails to technologize, and you’re logged out of something you’ve been using daily for 576 consecutive days. Not a big deal, but there’s also a hair tickling the back of your neck, and now you’re begrudgingly entering the Netflix login on your TV, using the remote and keyboard.

Of course, you mess up the second letter of your email address and have to start again.

The rage builds.

Now your password is incorrect. That’s the last straw. You curse the Netflixian gods for the pestilence they’ve now plagued you with.

So you start revenge-streaming things on Hulu instead.

You Caught Your Pocket on a Door Handle

I know just reading that sent you into a daymare (that’s a waking nightmare) about the last time this happened to you. You caught your shirt pocket on a kitchen door handle and got jerked back as you tried to mosey on with your day.

This should be nothing, but you just spent 20 minutes fixing the vacuum and you’re already mildly annoyed. In your current state, you proclaim that the door handle just bit you, in a declaration of war. The shirt is in cahoots with it, and must be punished. You take it off, stomp on its limp corpse on the floor and throw it in the garbage bin with a Daniel-Day-Lewis-calibre performance.

Door handle, you’ve been warned. You’re next.

You Drop Something and Can’t Pick It Up

You drop your keys. It’s fine, we’re a droppy species. Like every other day, you bend down to pick it up, immediately feeling your back protesting. It’s fine, back; it will only be a moment. But your dumb hands miss picking the thing up. Once, twice, thrice.

Guess what keys — you live there now.

The Paper Towel Ripped Wrong

Instead of ripping on the perforated line, it ripped halfway through another paper towel. Summabitch, perforation — you had one job.

This type of treachery clearly can’t go unpunished, so you give the paper towel a hearty yank and pull off a strip long enough to soak up the blood of your enemies.

Unfortunately, we can’t be wasting paper towel in this economy, so you shove the limp bodies of the kitchen tickets around the holder, as a reminder of what it did.

The Printer Jammed

Whenever you’re in a hurry to print something, the printer will jam. Or it’ll run out of magenta (even though you’re printing in black and white). Or it prints a smeared page that looks like it’s giving you the middle finger. Spoilers: it is indeed giving you the technological bird.

Your problem was that you were in a hurry; printers can smell fear and timelines.

Guess what printer, you’re dead to me. I resisted going paperless, but the gauntlet has been thrown. So now I have to take you out back and reenact that scene from Office Space.

You Can Feel Your Clothing Tag

Clothing tags are innocuous pieces of fabric that just hang out in the background, completely unnoticed. That is until you’re having a shite day; that’s when they decide they’re tired of being unnoticed and launch a full-on attack. Their mission: rub you raw.

Naturally, in frustration, you strip down in your kitchen (your family thinks you’re nuts at this point) and cut the tag out. There, problem solved. But then the cut-off tag keeps limping along in its war, like the ‘tis but a scratch’ knight from Monty Python, and keeps scratching you like a feral cat.

By this point, you’re sitting on the kitchen floor, naked, crying, and knuckle deep in a pint of Rocky Road ice cream.

An Errant Bra Strap

Bra straps have a hard job. They have to hold your mashed-in jubblies up to present them to the world. And those things can weigh a few pounds. Despite the physics fact that a few pounds of weight should help hold them down, one of their favorite activities is joining the tag resistance and fucking up your day.

If you’re home, you pull it off and then slingshot it as far as you can get it.

But it generally only turns into a bra strapian bitch in public. Either you take it off, shove it in your purse and go tits-out to the world — or you whisper death threats at it until everyone around you starts giving you looks like you need a swishy vacation at the sanatorium.

Some days are happy-go-lucky like you’re a Disney princess with mouse minions and bird bards singing you fairy tale rhymes. Other days are unhappy-go-fuckery, and shit just piles on you like you’re a Taco Bell toilet.

For the days that are the latter, just know that just like Beefy 5-Layer Burrito — this too shall pass. And until it does, going knuckle deep in floor ice cream is a perfectly acceptable reaction sometimes.

Come to the Dark Side…

Join my merry band of Wilding Out Weirdos. Don’t be scared, we only bite on Tuesdays.

$1 per month ($10/year) ~ $2 per month ~ $3 per month ~ $4 per month ~ $5 per month

Don’t have any money? Don’t worry, me neither, and I still love you.