Arghhhh!!

I'm having one of those days today, you know, the days where everything goes pear-shaped. To be honest, the whole year has been like it in one way or another. Almost every day something has happened that has made me want to tear all of my hair out. I've managed to avoid this action so far (the bald look really wouldn't suit me), but I've still suffered with my tresses. I'm only 33, but it feels like every day a brand new, springy white hair appears from nowhere. Grr.

Now, I could digress very strongly about the serious things that have stressed me out throughout 2009, but it's Saturday night, and there's no fun in getting depressed, right? I thought I'd share my top ten list of things that make me go 'arghhh!!' on a regular basis. Things that I have no control over, and things that just seriously do not make any sense at all.

In at number ten is a puzzle which has baffled me for years. Why is it that the countryside has vast amounts of perfectly flat and green meadows which apparently stay like that all year, when if I leave my front garden for more than a month it looks like the Forbidden Forest?

Number nine happens almost every day. Why is it that when I leave the house at 8.45am, I manage to get my daughter to school with five minutes to spare and without having to nag at her, but if I leave at 8.50am I have to practically drag her down the street to even get her to move, and we turn up two minutes after the school bell rings?

Number eight is also school related. My daughter's school lets out at 3.10pm. Most days I am in the yard waiting for her until at least 3.15pm, but on the odd days that I get there at 3.12pm, the teacher looks at me sternly because she has been waiting for me for about ten minutes. Why oh why does this happen??

Number seven happens every day. After the early evening rush of getting the clothes washed and ironed, cleaning up after my three kids (OK, I have two kids, but I'm married, so that makes three, right?) and cooking the meal, I can breathe a sign of relief. I sit down and pick up my fork and..... knock knock or ring ring!! Ugh!!! Every night!! I mean, do you people keep watch and wait until the exact moment when it would be the worst possible timing??

Number six thankfully only happens once a week. The good old Supermarket Stress Workout. Yup, you know what I'm talking about. The queues are miles long and you gamble on which one will be the fastest to move. You spot a checkout with only two people waiting to be served. You check to make sure that it isn't the '10 items or less!' queue, and go for it, smiling smugly at the person in the next queue who has seven people in front of them. Good decision, right? Wrong!!! Because of the two people in front of you, the first is a sweet old lady who insists on paying with the right change and is counting out twelve pounds sixty-five from her hoard of five pence pieces. The second person, when they eventually get served, starts ranting because 'those peas were marked up at 25p, not 26p! I demand to see the manager!' I'm gritting my teeth as the person I smugly smiled at is grinning madly at me from the other side of the checkout - the seven people in front of her were obviously contenders for the Fastest Customer of the Year. Hmmph.

Number five is lottery related. Say I picked the following numbers: 4, 20, 23, 26, 35, 39 and 42. You can almost guarantee that the numbers 5, 21, 24, 27, 36, 40 and 43 will be drawn (or 3, 19, 22, 25, 34, 38 and 41).

Number four - buses. They run practically perfectly every day, bang on time. But if I need to catch a bus I end up waiting for half an hour or more. Grr.

Also bus related is number three. Every bus has a nut on there. That really odd person who smells of wet cat, takes five minutes to find their bus fare and usually gets on the bus at the stop after me. That person always sits next to me, and I am then subjected to their life story. Why me??

Number two is similar to number three in that it's to do with odd people. If there is a nutter on the loose, whether in the supermarket, on the bus, or on the street, they'll be talking to me faster than you can say 'Jack Robinson'. Honestly, I'm just a magnet for them. Sometimes it's kind of sweet, especially if it's an older person who really isn't nuts at all, just rather lonely. But more often than not it's that sweaty guy whose eyes talk to my chest and who laughs nervously every time he stops to catch his breath.. *shudders*

And number one? The thing that makes me go 'arrrggghhh' most often? Losing stuff. Or more specifically, losing writing stuff. I can't tell you how many times I've typed pages and pages, gone through it painstakingly for typos and grammar etc, saved it as normal and smiled happily at my accomplishment. Seconds later one of three things happen : There is a power cut, which manages to shut my PC off before the saving process has completed; one of my kids (or my cat) decide that it is the perfect time to jump on me, and they manage to hit a button which somehow manages to erase everything (don't ask me how that works, but it's happened to me several times), or my PC decides to shut down all by itself. Hours of work gone in an instant. Ugh.

So there we have it. My list of ten things that make me scream with frustration. They're not serious, or life-threatening, but they don't half annoy me. Whoever said that 'these things are sent to try us' needs a swift kick up the butt. Maybe I'll get Strange Sweaty Guy to do it for me.