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I
Need a Vacationby
Peary Perry | |
I
don't really believe in Karma or stuff such as this… but sometimes it does seem
that there are certain events in our lives that just seem to happen to me and
not to anyone else.
Take for instance, feeding the dogs… you stick the
stuff in a bowl…. it's really yucky and nasty but they (the dogs) seem to like
it and then you turn around to put the spoon in the sink, then you grab the bowl
and what always happens? Yep, the spot on the side where you cleaned off the spoon
is positioned exactly where you pick up the bowl. Now there are 360 degrees in
a circle and how come the yucky side always happens to be where I put my thumb?
In my younger days, when I was kid, before all of this fancy bottled
water and filters…we had a water bottle in the ice box…not the refrigerator, the
ice box. Anyway, how come the last sip of water was the one that I got, which
meant I was the one who had to refill it and put it back? If you didn't then,
my mother would always yell out…"Who didn't fill up the water bottle?"
Trash bags are another of my favorite pet peeves. I hate buying expensive bags
to put stuff in so you can throw it away. Now, they've got scented bags so your
garbage won't stink…nice touch. Back to the point…why is it the bag you fill up
too full, always rips at a point that is the farthest from the garbage cans? This
means you have to scoop all of the coffee grounds, eggshells, broken glass and
whatever up and carry said items to the can, which seems like a mile away. In
the meantime…the wind picks up and your paper towels and old newspapers are blowing
their way across the neighborhood…you are always in your pj's or robe or worse…a
good suit…never in sweat pants or something you'd wear to work in the yard.
Do you seem to need another bar of soap and bottle of shampoo each time you get
into the shower? Seems like I am the one in our house to run out most of the time.
Same with toilet paper.
My car stays on empty. Other people I know must
get 75 miles to a gallon…my car gets about 3.
This might seem stupid
to you, but those little knobs you turn on a lamp with? How come they are always
turned to the back of the lamp where you can't reach them, instead of being at
the front where it would be easy to turn them off and on? The lamps can't move…
or can they?
Airplanes…
don't even get me started. If you arrive early, the planes are late. If you arrive
late, the planes are early. One way you get to wait, the other you miss your flight
and…. you get to wait. How about seating… If you sign on for advance seating there
isn't any good seats left…. if you wait until you get to the gate, there aren't
any good seats left. Four rows in front of you have only one person per row…but
you're stuck in the middle of a lady with a baby that is cutting her first tooth
and crying like she (the baby, not the lady… well… sometimes the lady as well)
is being tortured. In the seat on your other side is someone who is calorically
challenged and should be paying for two seats while trying to squeeze their considerable
bulk into a space meant for a child of ten years old. The flight attendant has
an attitude like a prison guard and won't even let you think about moving to an
unoccupied seat. How about when you want to go to the bathroom? Does everyone
jump up at the same time? They do when I'm flying. They also seem to time the
drink cart to be placed in between me and my seat when I come out of the bathroom…meaning
I spend a considerable amount of time standing in the aisle looking at magazines
that someone else is holding or listening to conversations I don't need to hear.
"I just don't think they're good for each other…why do you know what he did last
night?" "My surgery went ok, but did I tell you about the way they did it? I was
awake the entire time."
Your baggage always comes out of the machine before
mine does…. I can get there early and my baggage is the first to be loaded… this
means it's the last to be taken off the plane when we arrive…. I can get there
late and my luggage is sent to some other place in the airport and I have to track
it down. The flight may be one hour, but I spend another hour trying to get my
stuff.
My faxes end up in the ozone layer and my phone calls always get
routed to an endless voice mail…my mail is lost and my newspapers delivered late.
When I go into a restaurant, the waiter always waits on and serves the people
who came in after I did.
I need a vacation.
© Peary Perry
Letters From North America
- February 15, 2006 column
Syndicated weekly in 80 newspapers
Comments
go to pperry@austin.rr.com | | |
