Things That Annoyed Me This Week

It's so hard to narrow it down to just three but here they are:

1. Overzealous Cooking Show Host

I'm a bit of a cooking show junkie. I have a few of my favourites but the other day I was watching one that I don't normally watch. For the first recipe of the show, the host said, "You can pretty much use whatever you have in your fridge for this recipe." She then strolls over to her fridge and pulls out fresh goat cheese, pancetta, farmer's sausage, creme fraiche, and fresh bay leaves. Are you kidding me? Just to play along I walked over to my fridge to see what I could come up with. Hmmm, how about some week old sliced turkey cold cuts, ketchup, cheddar cheese, skim milk and half a jar of capers? Can you work with that MacGyver? Yeah, I didn't think so.

2. Winter Averse Canadians

This past week a friend of mine was going to be in town for a conference and had asked me if I wanted to meet up for dinner one night. We made these plans a few weeks ago and confirmed them the day before. The day of, I got an urgent sounding voice mail at work saying that she would have to cancel our plans due to the bad weather because she was worried about what the drive home would be like. For the record, the "bad weather" she was referring to was approximately a half a centimeter of snow that had accumulated over the last twenty four hours which I would refer to as a "light dusting" and not exactly blizzard like conditions. I don't want to pick on my friend here but every year I'm astounded by the number of "so called" Canadians who seem to find it impossible to function at the sight of any kind of remotely winter-like conditions. Sure, I can understand it if you're new to the country and you've never dealt with it before but I'm talking about people who have been born and bred her and have known no other. Like at work, there's this guy who always shows up at least an hour late anytime there's even a flake of snow on the ground. And then when he finally shows up he's all like "You wouldn't believe the road conditions out there. It took me two hours to get here and it usually only takes me fifteen minutes." To which I respond (in my head), "Wow Jim that's pretty crazy. Did you drive your moped to work or did you take the Yellow Brick Road again because the rest of us somehow managed to navigate the same roads you did and get here two hours ago? Maybe you should think about hitching a ride with someone who has less of an active imagination."

3. Non-Drivers

Over the years my dad has coined some pretty classic sayings or names for things which have now become a part of my own vocabulary. One of them is the word "non -driver" which is the term my dad would use to refer to any driver that annoyed him and/or was a really bad driver. On any given day my dad would probably cross paths with at least a half a dozen of these "non-drivers" and if you were lucky enough to be along for the ride you were in for a treat and a half.

Well, I had my own encounter with a non-driver this week. This particular non-driver was also an elderly driver which in most cases are one and the same. I'm not trying to lump the elderly into one category but I will quote Harry from "Dumb & Dumber" when he said "I guess they're right: senior citizens; although slow and dangerous behind the wheel--can still serve a purpose." So here's what happened: I was driving down the street on my way to work. As I'm driving, I see a car coming towards me. This is a regular residential street with cars parked along one side, but there's still enough room for two lanes of traffic. This is a tricky driving predicament but not an uncommon one. The thing about this situations is that in a way you are entering into an agreement with the driver on the other end of the street. My job is to get as close to the side of the road as possible and their job is to navigate as close to the parked car on the other side of the road . If one of us fails to fulfill our end of the bargain we either end up engaged in an unplanned game of chicken or a head on collision, neither of which are pleasant options. As the car is moving towards me I see that there is plenty of room for both of us to pass as long as we both fulfill the terms of our unofficial agreement. Unfortunately, I also see that my friend on the other end of the street is driving a Buick which does not bode well for either of us. For the record, I don't have a problem with people buying Buicks but it just seems sort of counter intuitive because they usually buy these big cars to feel safe and then they end up in unsafe situations because they have no idea how to navigate them because they are so big. So my friend is leaving enough room for a marching band between her car and the parked cars which leaves me with the short end of the stick. As we get close, she starts to realize that there may not be enough room for both of us if she doesn't scooch over. At the last minute (as my life passed before my eyes), she readjusted and we managed to live to see another day. As we passed each other, I caught a glimpse of the horrified and panic-stricken look on her face. Something tells me she headed straight for the Smart Car dealership after our encounter. Sure they're hideous looking and unicyclists will pass you, but you can pretty much drive those things on a sidewalk, which might be the best option for Mabel.