I'm back in the desert. Did I tell you that? Probably not, since I haven't really said anything for ages. You knew I was in Dubai for the Expo Opening Ceremony because that's when I discovered the canoeing. And you knew I got back to the UK because that's when I had the Cheesey Fries Of The Gods. Well now it's Dubai again for (obviously) the Closing Ceremony. It's a shorter stint this time, and that's a good thing because everything just seems more annoying now. This is the case a lot of the time these days. Is it my advancing age? COVID Fatigue? Just my default state? Whatever it is, sometime during lockdown I started an actual list of annoying things.
Others of you may also have a list, but I suspect yours is a casual thing you keep in your head in a sort of "man, I hate it when..." kind of way. Mine is categorised in Evernote, because that's how I roll. I add to it whenever something excites my peevishness, which is often. And sometimes I share it. I recently shared it on a day when I had to be at a four-hour meeting that started at 7:00am on a Saturday (because it was coordinated with a gang of people in Los Angeles, where it was 7:00pm). The meeting was long and difficult and sometimes frustrating. So following that a few of us went for lunch on the Expo site.
(Aside: this is one of the good things about being back. Last time, the wider Expo site was still under construction so the hospitality options were thin on the ground. Now there is an embarrassment of riches just steps from my door. This means I sometimes share texts with friends like, "I'll meet you in Belgium." Or "We're at that place upstairs from Estonia." Or "Let's go to Denmark because the beer is cheaper." Which, incidentally, is definitely not true in actual Denmark. Nor is it really true at Expo Denmark. It's just that in comparison with everywhere else on site, the beer in Denmark is somewhat cheaper. For instance, I went for drinks recently at an outdoor beer garden on site where a pint of Heineken was £9.62. It was lovely: great company, good food, nice evening. But for that price, those pints of Heineken should come with my own private Dutch person to feed me hand-peeled mini Babybels.)
Anyway, it was a long meeting, so we went for lunch across from the UK and next to Solomon Islands. And then one beer with lunch turned into another round, as it does. And another round turned into a few more after that and then it was 9pm. And somewhere in there I shared my list with the table, which was the cause of some amusement (and some debate). So I thought perhaps I should share some with you, because I haven't blogged in a while and even though I literally live at a world-class tourist attraction, it hasn't occurred to me to blog about that, but it has seemed quite natural to rant at you about my pet peeves, which is an insight into my current state of mind. And oh yes, this is going to be rant-y.
Here we go.
Single Lever Faucets:
I know they are supposedly better for people with difficulty gripping, or with arthritis, or... I don't know. I don't care. I hate them. Partly because I sometimes find it difficult to tell which way to manipulate them to get either hot or cold water. Normal taps are fine - hot on the left, cold on the right.
But look at this. What the hell? So to get hot water I move that handle thing... back? Left? Out? All of the above at the same time? No. Just no.
Yes, some single levers are more intuitive than the one in the picture. The ones with the lever on top will pretty reliably give you hot if you move them left and cold to the right. But even those are still on the list. Why? Adjustment. Separate twisting taps give you much better fine adjustment of both temperature and volume. Threaded things are perfectly designed to translate long turning movement into small movements of the tiny valve inside them. Single level faucets... not so much. How hard is it to get a small volume of water at a specific temperature with a single lever? Hard. Like one of those McDonalds Happy Meal toys where you have to get three baby ball bearings into three different holes at the same time. You end up doing tiny semi-calibrated taps on the lever to try and get in juuuuust the right spot. And you fail. You know you do.
Single Lever Faucets, you are On The List.
Still on plumbing:
Automatic Faucets:
The ones that make you do intricate Tai Chi moves with your hands to try and figure out how to trigger the sensor. Then force you to hold your hands in an unnatural position to keep the thing triggered. Then turn off anyway. Those ones. They're on The List.
Faucets that are too short:
The ones that don't extend far enough into the sink so you have to bash your knuckles up against the back of the sink to get your hands under the water and then end up splashing most of it out of the sink. List. Them. On it.
Still in the bathroom:
Centre Pull Paper Towels:
Thank you Google, for teaching me the name of this annoying variation on normal rolls of paper towel.
Obviously paper towel is supposed to come off the outside of the roll so that you end up with a wide flat sheet of material with maximum surface area, which then wraps conveniently over your wet hands and dries them efficiently.
Centre pull paper towels, by design, turn into a long, twisted ropey thing with much less useful surface area, so you use more paper and obtain poorer results. It's not better just because it's different people. Centre Pull Paper Towels, welcome to The List.
Open Concept Bathrooms:
This one requires no justification. Because any normal person knows at the very core of their being that this is wrong wrong wrong. I don't care how much you love the people you live with. I don't care if the door to your fancy modern open concept master suite is always closed to the rest of the world. I don't care if you often leave the bathroom door open anyway. Leaving the bathroom door open and not even having walls (let alone a door) are clearly very different things, which normal non-sociapathic people understand.
A flagrant example from my hotel room in Xi'an China. I ranted about it then and I maintain that stance today. And this one actually had walls, albeit glass ones. Still not good enough.
And before we leave the bathroom:
Wet Rooms:
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD whose idea was it to let water spray around all over a room that also contains things that really should not get wet like toilet roll and towels? And don't tell me it saves space. I live on a freaking BOAT. My shower can basically only be found with the aid of a scanning electron microscope and I still managed to fit in a shower curtain.
How did wet rooms become a trend? Is it also now trendy to walk around in wet socks because the floor of your bathroom is ALWAYS covered in water?
Wet Rooms you are soooooo on The List.
Speaking of socks:
Ok, I'm 53 now and I'm warming to the idea that sometimes you might wear socks with sandals. And I say this because I have a pair of sort of hybrid Birkenstock Croc kind of things are like walking on actual pillows and I wear them on the boat all the time - usually with socks - because it's cozy. (Also I never wear them out in public.) (Pause for cries of outrage. Yeah yeah, whatever. Go start your own blog and make your own list.) But my Crockenstocks are slides, where your whole foot is under a big strap that goes all the way across the top. Not the flip-flop kind with the bit that goes between your toes to hold the straps to the sole. Those ones are the problem, because some people wear socks with those by shoving the damned flip-flops onto their feet OVER their socks so the poor socks get stretched and shoved between your toes and you look like an idiot. Sorry, yes you do. (Also: not really sorry.)
Socks with flip flops. You + List = True
(Exception: Japanese tabi socks with the segregated compartment for the big toe which are specifically design to work with sandals. Note: this exception only applies when wearing traditional Japanese garb. While in Japan.)
Branching out into the kitchen:
Pedal Bins:
First, the leverage is all wrong, so the lid pops opening really abruptly and usually smacks against the wall. "So move it away from the wall", I hear you say? Ha! Then it will just slide around when you're trying to get foot on the pedal until it finds a wall it can smack into. On. The. List.
Drawers behind Cupboard Doors:
Drawer, yes. I fully support drawers. Easy access. Fewer things get shoved into darkened corners never again to see the light of day. Yay drawers!
Someone please tell me why we're now hiding the drawers behind doors. What is so offensive about drawer fronts that they need to be hidden? Did drawer fronts insult your grandmother? Are drawer fronts doing 5-10 years of hard time behind closed doors because the ladle that normally just barely fits shifted position again and now you can't get the drawer open? Get over it! Free the drawers!
(#freethedrawers #drawerlove #drawersbehindcupboarddoorsareonthelist Freethedrawers.com Donate now.)
Phew.
Well I feel better getting that off my chest. And that's just the kitchen-and-bathroom part of the list. Wait until I get into the Vocabulary section! You'll be begging for the old two-month break between posts.
