Five things that are making me cranky

It’s Monday and I’m feeling peevish. Consider yourself warned. When I’m finally and properly annointed Queen of the Universe, here’s the first five things I’m going to fix.

1. Twitter and Internet Explorer 6.

For the last couple of weeks, Twitter has been on a campaign to kill IE6. In fact, it’s not just Twitter, it’s Internet-wide, but Twitter is being particularly annoying about it. I didn’t mind the constant message box at the top of my screen saying “There’s a better way to surf” but now they’ve moved the icon pictures over top of the text, so that the leftmost 20 per cent or so of the text is blocked. Dear Twitter, I *know* Firefox is better than IE, but my IT department disagrees. Please let me read my tweets in peace. I promise, we’ll upgrade sometime in the next decade. We’re on it!

2. Trying to leave a comment on Blogger.com blogs

Once upon a time I had a blogspot blog, but in 2007 I made the leap to WordPress and haven’t looked back since. Is it me or are blogspot/blogger.com blogs actually trying to make it as difficult as possible to comment? Blogger.com users, is there some way you can simplify your comment process? It’s so annoying that even if you’re one of my favourite bloggers, I’m not likely to bother leaving a comment if you’re on a blogger.com blog. It never remembers my info, I have to go through a ridiculous number of screens with captchas that only show up about half the time, and it’s an entirely far too convoluted process. And that’s for the ones where I don’t have to invoke my OpenID or worse, revert to my old Blogger.com ID because the blog is not open to non-google-account comments. Really? Life’s too short.

3. The new “coffee shelf” system at Tim Hortons

This one has been around a while, but seems to be spreading like H1N1. Now at Tim Hortons, instead of the clerk simply handing you your coffee at the cash register, you have to move two feet down the counter and pick up your coffee on the little coffee shelf. While I get that the intention is to keep the line moving along, if I’m still standing there fishing coins out of the bottom of my purse would it kill you to hand me my coffee where I’m standing? Do either of us really benefit from you walking down the counter to place it up on the shelf and me walking down the counter to retrieve it, and then me walking back to the cash where you’re already serving the next customer and double-checking “This is the one with three milks, right?” because you only have to walk all the way back to your office ONCE with somebody else’s double-double to make sure it never happens again.

4. Homework for five- and seven-year olds during the arsenic hours

Okay, so I’ve already whined about being on my own with all three boys three nights a week this semester, trying to cram in dinner and lunch-making and baby-herding and all the other joys that have to happen daily between when I get home from work and when Beloved gets home from work. I was just getting the hang of it all when suddenly it’s all out of control again, because we’ve added nightly homework to the mix. Because keeping Lucas off Tristan’s homework and keeping Tristan focused on his task and keeping Simon engaged in his task and keeping Lucas off Simon’s homework all while making dinner and empyting school bags and getting things organized for the next day? Every single night? Is going to make my head explode. Likely this week. It’s not even the homework I mind so much, as the fact that it’s interactive, parent-participatory homework. Sure, I’m all over staying involved in my kids’ education, but not to the tune of 20 minutes a night during the most horrific part of the day. Save me!

5. Loblaws

I really think they’re just existing to piss me off lately. I’ve been a loyal Loblaws shopper for years, but I really think it’s time to find another grocery store. I’m so sick of having my favourite products suddenly disappear, never to be seen again. And then, three or four weeks ago, they completely rearranged the inside of the Barrhaven store and I swear to god, I have not been able to find anything since. For someone who blazes through the grocery store as quickly as possible, using the store layout as a mnenomic device in lieu of a shopping list, usually with a cranky 19-month-old passenger throwing things out of the cart as fast as I’m putting them in, rearranging the store is about the most cruel thing you could possibly do. And then, I just read this weekend that the delicious SunTech tomatoes that are grown in Manotick, at most 10 km or so from my house, are now trucked to Loblaws via Ajax, outside of Toronto. Yes, they are shipped 350 kms to the west, to the main distribution centre for Loblaws, only to be trucked 350 kms BACK to Ottawa. And Loblaws still has the temerity to blithely label them “Grown Close to Home!” Gah!

That’s what’s twisting my knickers these days. What’s making you cranky today?

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

16 thoughts on “Five things that are making me cranky”

  1. Homework – THANK YOU!! Its not just me. While I only have one, being the sole parent makes it even more difficult. There is enough that I realised this moring that I’m project managing to decide what gets done in the week base on both of our moods. And then the teacher kindly adds a note that Owen didn’t finish his homework. No kidding.

    Loblaws – the reorder of the store in Barrhaven just annoys me. I ran in on Friday for two quick things, but due to the reorg, took me half an hour. How about they make the front of the store by the cashes bigger to accomodate the lineups and the carts. Just saying.

  2. Funny enough, #2 annoys me but I never thought of checking it for my own blog. But then i don’t use word verification for my comments so I figured mine would be easy. not sure, Can you check for me 🙂

    #4 Good god I know what you mean. I only have 1 boy with homework so far and I am scared as to what it will be like when I have two, let alone 3. ARG. The best system I have found is to wait till after supper. We sort of bribe our boy that if he does his (30mins, usually less, sometimes more) he can hang out with his friends (who only seem to do homework after 8pm). Even that bribe doesn’t always work.

    #5 I feel the same way about Superstore but for convenience I still go. Which annoys me but oh well. All those stores annoy me to a certain degree.

    I have a few of my own today:

    Send out e-mail on Thursday with express instructions on work that needs to be done this morning. Recipient never read e-mail. Customer contacts me freaking out this morning. UGH

    I could go on but I will spare you. 🙂

  3. a friend of mine was complaining to me about the Loblaws reorganization just the other day, so you are not alone. I advocate switching to Farm Boy – it is our go-to place for produce and the like (at least until a week today when the Byward Market becomes our local grocery store -yay!)

  4. Property taxes spent to live in Barrhaven!

    Horrendous bus service for Barrhavenites commuting to work downtown (where the heck are our property taxes going?)

    Slow, slow, slow Govt of Can job processes…we’re grateful for our jobs, but try managing a career path within the “system” and retaining your sanity, geesh!

    Calories. Enough said.

  5. I don’t get the new Horton’s system either. Where I go, it doesn’t seem to be helping much in keeping things moving along.

    Umbrellas are getting on my nerves today. Those little fold up ones, while convenient, are fairly useless. The spokes break in the middle and you end up with a lop-sided brolly. They are not nearly big enough. And with the rain we had this morning, there wasn’t much point in putting the thing up.

  6. Tim Horton’s always makes me cranky. I find the multiple pick-up points for different items thing to be crazy-making. I can never find where my sandwich is supposed to be.

    And I am also cranky about people who tailgate. It’s dangerous and it makes me nervous. I had someone up my posterior all the way home from the playground today. Not. Fun.

  7. Me Cranky? Don’t get me started sweetie it might not ever end.
    The Lack of sun and heat this summer was one.
    I keep looking at my back deck and thinking I never really got OUT there and spent an afternoon reading.
    Lack fo time for anything! family time, couple time, me time…scratch that I spend alot of time alone running errans these days. 😉
    People who know the other lane ends in 500 meters and still have to drive up to the last mm and expect me to let them in. I do but I give them the finger under the dash.
    Homework …yes His not mine, I like doing my homework
    How hard it is for a 46 year old woman to loose weight when 46 year old men can drop 10 pounds with slight diet change….I ‘d have to freakin strave and running a marthon before I lost an ounce.
    And…
    And I don’t want to forget…
    Pant…I’m done…Thanks Dani i feel much better.
    🙂

  8. Totally agree with you on the blogger commenting. That has been an absolute peeve of mine. There’s one blog I know of where you have to have a blogger id in order to comment – no exceptions. I have never left a comment there, as a result.

    As for the interactive homework – sorry. As a teacher of 5 year olds, I’ve started giving more interactive homework this year. My experience has always been that kindergartners can’t really tackle worksheet homework on their own anyways, and either they were getting help at home and the homework was turned in perfectly, or they weren’t getting help at homework and it’s kinda not fair compared to the other kids.

    This year I’ve tried to mix it up. But I only give homework 4 days a week (Mon-Thurs) and there are days where the homework is something like: draw a picture of 5 things you tasted today. Make a pattern using objects at your house. Shouldn’t take too long.

    That being said… this month my co-teacher and I are incorporating some phonics homework that is very involved. But it’s SOOOO beneficial. If my parents actually spend 5-10 minutes helping the students on the phonics activity for the week (beginning sounds, reviewing letters, whatever), that child will be all the better for it. And heaven knows a good chunk of them could use it.

    Ugh. I’m rambling. Sorry.

  9. Homework is definitely out of control for the K-6 age group. I think it’s very unrealistic how much homework some teachers give out to young children. They’re kids!! And many of them send home all unfinished work not completed in class – which can lead to an hour or two for some kids. As a teacher I always try to remember that evenings are “family” time and not to bog the students down with too much homework.

    They completely re-did the Woodroffe and Baseline Loblaws late last spring. Every single thing was moved and nothing was with other “like” items. Nothing made sense. I went there late one night needing some groceries and ended up leaving – empty-handed and tears streaming down my face. (Admittedly, I’d had a bad day before I got to the store!). Haven’t been back since . . .

  10. Oh, bad day to ask me what is making me cranky!

    I’ll second #2, and add: totally unhelpful store clerks, who should know their stuff (really, you work in plumbing – I am not the expert here!); drive-thru folks who cannot seem to grasp that a tea, does not mean a double-double, (only to be discovered while driving on the highway – I curse you Tim Horton’s); parents who take the ‘children must be supervised’ sign at the department store playground as a mere suggestion, not a rule; grocery stores which are incapable of stocking flyer-sale items, instead leaving you to face an empty space on the shelf;…. I could go on, but will quit while I’m ahead!!

  11. So *that’s* why you don’t comment on my blog anymore, lol. I don’t have the screen captcha thing enabled, so that should be one less impediment to WordPress users.

    My Independent just went through the whole reorg thing when they got rid of the photo lab and the electronics store and replaced it with Joe Fresh. It was very annoying until I got used to the new layout.

    What’s making me cranky? My inability to get my kids into bed and lights out at the time I’ve desigated bedtime. I can’t seem to get it together to start doing the ‘OK, get changed and brush your teeth’, the story reading, etc. in time for lights out at 8. I’ll be doing something, dishes or laundry, and notice that it’s 8:10 and the girls are playing or watching a movie, then all bets are off and it’s 9 by the time they’re in bed, and there goes my evening. Sigh.

  12. I don’t think all the blogger accounts are doing that, but yes, when it happens, it is tres annoying. I usually have to log in twice, and there are a good many times when I don’t bother. Of course, I have a blogger account and just assume that my commenting process is still simple. PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong.

    My Loblaws also did a redesign recently, and for a couple of months it totally effed me up. I shop the way you do, but ultimately, I found re-aquainting myself with the layout was still easier than starting to shop somewhere else.

  13. So far my second grader hasn’t had any homework beyond her book club reading which is set at the child’s pace with rewards given to the child who reads the most books per month. My daughter is behind her peers/provincial standards in reading. Her teacher last year felt (and I tend to agree) that it is more to do with a confidence issue than a lack of skills. So she recommended lots of practice. I try to get in two 15 minute sessions of reading with her per night. Her current teacher suggested that was too heavy of a work load for a seven year old. So with no homework coming home and her seeming to not to be concerned with my daughter needing to get caught up I am, so far, unimpressed. Of course the two previous teacher’s we’ve had have been just incredible. This one is filling in for a mat leave, so I’m not convinced she’s fully invested in teaching my kid. As much as homework is a pain in the rump, I’d really rather her bring some home.

    As for blogger, I do like it. I know, I’m crazy, but I’m comfortable there. The commenting thing is a pain though. I find/hear it’s worse for those that use the embedded comment form. I used to use it until I had a reader complain about it.

  14. Re: the Tim Horton’s coffee shelf. I suspect it has less to do with moving the line along and more with limiting the opportunity for spillage and therefore possibly lawsuits, but I may be wrong.

  15. Do not get me started on Loblaws. I am boycotting the Westboro store and only do a few special items from the one at College Square. Customer service, crappy (and expensive produce) and well… I just hate it.

    (I hear you on the blogspot/blogger blogs… make me mental.)

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