Stuff That Winds Me Up

I’m not someone who loses their temper very easily.

I’ve not always been like that. When I was younger, my little brother used to be able to wind me up easier than one of those self winding tape measures – he just pressed the button and I was ready and willing to punch, scream and pull his hair out.

As I’ve got older I’ve got a lot calmer, more rational and far more laid back – but certain things still have the ability to really get my goat  - so I thought I’d do a list of them so you all know what not to do in no particular order; you'll probably find that the more something irritates me the more I have written about it.

1.       My laptop.

My laptop is one of my favourite possessions. I don’t know what I’d do without it. But there are there are times when I’d quite happily throw it out of a window from my first floor living room. For example, whilst writing the last sentence an AVG notification popped up telling me to renew my licence. WHY could it not have chosen a time when I was actually looking at the screen?! I wrote another whole sentence before I noticed and that is HUGELY frustrating. Other times when it is going slow I find frustrating. When I want to do something, I want to do it NOW. Not in half an hour, when it’s sorted its shit out, not in three hours, after it’s completed a scan, but NOW!!!

2.       My Mobile Phone.

When I don’t have my mobile pho ne I am barely able to function. It doesn’t have to actually work, I just have to be able to turn it on and see the reassuring glow from its screen to know that I am in the safe hands of o2. And yet, I have never yet had a mobile phone that is capable of doing everything that I require of it. For example, my Samsung Jet was incapable of making me a breakfast smoothie, my blackberry was unable to scratch my back when required and my Samsung S3 Mini does not come with a built in butler service. But once again, the main thing that irritates me is its lack of speed. I rarely close all the applications that are open on it, but I expect the phone to be able to multi-task as well as my brain does, and I get extremely frustrated when it takes 2 minutes to open Candy Crush when I am also running Instagram, Facebook, Chrome, AVG, and What’s App simultaneously.  Technology should be advanced enough to keep up with me already. If it doesn’t, why the hell doesn’t it?!

3.       Losing stuff.

I am, as you are probably aware, dyspraxic. This means that I have an appalling short term memory. I can remember stuff that happened when I was still in the crib like it was yesterday, but I cannot remember what happed two minutes ago when my boss asked me to book our contractors into Selfridges. Luckily, I have developed mechanisms to help me cope with this – I write EVERYTHING down. Sadly, this does not help me when I lose the list. The second I put something down, I forget about it. Usually, I can cope with this, as it only takes about 5 minutes of searching to locate whatever it is I have lost. Sadly, things start to go downhill when that five minute time frame is up. That’s when I start to get angry. As I approach the ten minute mark I start to lose control of my emotions. Usually, this is where I start to shout at objects that get too close, or any people who happen to be unlucky enough to be standing too close – especially if they don’t appear to be helping me look hard enough. At around 15 minutes I start to get a tad violent. Mainly towards objects, but don’t stand too close to me just in case. By 20 minutes I’m in tears, usually from rage and frustration towards myself, but I like to externalise it by blaming anything and anyone else, internalising is unhealthy, I believe. By the 30 minute mark, I’m hysterical, bordering on madness. The worst part is, that I find myself unable to STOP looking and calm down. I MUST WIN. Therefore I must keep looking.

4.       Cheaters.

I am an extremely competitive person. Most people won’t play board games with me because it is not worth the fight that occurs if I lose - and I always lose. I am a natural born loser. If someone is being competitive with me, I will not play with them because I hate people who rub it in your face; bad winners are worse than bad losers I feel, but then I wouldn’t know because I’ve never won. At least being a bad loser is understandable. A winner should win with style and grace. And competitive people are NEVER good winners. But what I hate worse than any of that, are the people who cheat. What is the point of winning if you don’t win for real? Why cheat and take away everyone else’s chances of experiencing that feeling of having won? If I find out that someone has cheated at something, I will refuse to do pretty much anything with them ever again I’m a forgiving person the majority of the time. I have, in the past, forgiven the same person for the same thing over and over until I really can’t take it anymore, but I cannot forgive a cheat. Something interesting I have also noticed is that people who are willing to cheat at board games are also more likely to cheat on their partners and in life in general – but I don’t know if that is just coincidence. Either way, the scumbags that cheat at monopoly deserve to have the death sentence brought back for them. I swear to God. (The Sexy Guitarist just randomly laughed in the background about something and said “Haha, I win!” I nearly lynched him. Now THERE’S a bad winner.)

5.       People who think they’re always right.

This works mostly for people who think their OPINION is always right. If the subject being debated is a scientific fact, then who am I to argue? But when it comes down to things like Religion, I get extremely angry with people who try to shove their beliefs down my throat. I was raised as a Christian (although I’m not very good at it), however, I find that the people who are WORST for this impingement are other Christians. The ones who hang out in the centre of town and sing/dance/preach at you as you’re doing your payday shopping spree. Yes, you are entitled to your beliefs, but WHY do you feel that it is necessary to spew those belief at all the poor Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (of which there are an abundance in this city) who are in town simply because they want to get an eye test or some Millie’s Cookies? Why are you ramming what you believe down their throats? You may believe that you are right, and maybe you are, but that does not mean that you have the right to go around pointing your finger and being all “HA, you’re going to hell!” it’s just another way of being a bad winner. And doesn’t Matthew state, “Judge not, lest ye be judged”? Why not hang around in the centre of town with a sign saying, “You might be right, but I might be right. We’ll find out.” People will hate you less.

6.       Mornings

I am not, and never have been, a morning person. I don’t really like GOING to bed – there’s so much I want to do and I never seem to have time for it, but I like LEAVING my bed even less. When I wake up in the morning I must be treated with caution, love and care; a bit like a bomb that hasn’t gone off since WW2 that has just been discovered underneath the local nightclub.

The SG’s most recent hobby seems to be to see if he can get me to explode. This morning I was woken with “go do the washing up, and get me some breakfast; I’m hungry.” Needless to say he was astonished when he found himself washing up and frying sausages and bacon simultaneously only seconds later, whilst I sat on the sofa reading my book with a satisfied look on my face. I don’t think he could work out how that happened, and is still a bit puzzled about the whole thing.

When I wake up in the mornings I like cuddles and talking and closeness. Or I like to feel like I have a plan for the day. I like to know where I’m going and what I’m doing. If I can get a bit of both then all the better.

7.       People who talk to me when I’m trying to read.

I like to read. A lot. But I find it incredibly frustrating when I’m trying to read and someone decides that that is the right time to have a conversation with me. The only people who do this are the people who are not readers themselves. Come on people, you don’t walk into the cinema and try to have a conversation with the person sitting next to you all the way through the movie, do you? With reading it’s ok if you’re having a proper conversation, but if you’re wanting to say a few words, stop, then say a few more so that I’m stopping and starting – consequently reading the same sentence over and over again – just don’t bother, because I will make you eat this book.

8.       Other people’s lack of spelling and punctuation

We all went to school right? And in the exception of a few cases (eg, a valid reason for being unable to go to school or dyslexia and similar problems) we were all taught to read and write. Therefore, there is no excuse for being a 14 year old that is unable to work out which “there” you are supposed to use. No excuse for not choosing the right “to”. HOW THE HELL do you think you are going to get a decent job that doesn’t involve spending the rest of your life cleaning up drunk people’s poo if you are unable to write, “There they are! With their cat”

“They’re happy?”

“Yes!”

IT’S NOT FRIGGING HARD PEOPLE!!!

What about punctuation? The number of emails I receive where the people writing them do not understand that a full stop is still used at the end of a paragraph. You don’t just hit enter and hope for the best. Commas are completely disregarded and most people wouldn’t know the difference between an apostrophe and an armadillo. But then, I am also aware that most of the people who fail to pay attention to these extremely important little things are the ones who are at the bottom of the pile in the work place. Spelling and grammar is so important because everyone takes their first impression from what they see. Dyslexics can and do use spell check – why can’t you?!? And there is absolutely NO excuse for failing to use a comma.

These are all the things that infuriate me most, although I may add to this list in due course....

I did mention that I’m much CALMER than I used to be, right?

And as a bit of revenge for saying "I Win", here is a picture of SG asleep on my sofa last night... who wins now, SG?