1. Negative political campaigns. Instead of focusing on the issues and how they would handle them, a lot of politicians run their campaigns on muckraking. They throw poop at their opponents hoping that some of it will stick. Whatever happened to political platforms? It seems the American public is voting more against candidates than for them.
2. Daylight saving time. I’ve written about this one before, but I don’t care. I still hate it and will continue to bitch about it every six months. I had to change 10 clocks in my house and car, which meant figuring out how to change 10 clocks in my house and car; not all clocks are created equal. Whether I lose or gain an hour, my circadian rhythms are all off. Either I have to force myself to sleep earlier–which, as an insomniac, never goes well–or I have to wake up earlier. But most of all, I hate how it’s dark when I get out of work now. It makes me feel like I wasted my whole day at work, which I have, but it doesn’t have to rub it in.
3. Car maintenance. In the last month or two, I’ve had to change a blown out brake light and add engine coolant to my car. Neither was particularly difficult, but I’d never done them before on this car. I had to research which products worked best and figure out how to do it. I spent $6 on two tiny light bulbs and $24 on a gallon of special BMW engine coolant that I had to go to a BMW dealership to get because no one else sells it. Of course, BMW takes special BMW engine coolant, because everything on BMWs is more complicated than it needs to be and more expensive. Remind me never to buy a fancy European car again, even though I do very much love my car. It’s so much fun to drive. One might even say it’s the Ultimate Driving Machine®.
4. Coupons. I’m really good with coupons online. I coupon code like a pro. It’s in person that I fail. I will buy a product that has a “Save $1 off this product now!” instant coupon on the front and then forget to use the coupon all of five minutes later when I check out. I’ll get it home and see the dollar I could have saved still attached to the front of the product unused. Derp.
5. Morning breath. Seriously, what is my mouth doing overnight that it smells like that in the morning, just a few short hours after I brushed my teeth with minty fresh toothpaste? Do spiders crawl in my mouth overnight and have a stinky party leaving their stinky spider party refuse all over my mouth lawn?
6. Morning hair. In addition to the spider party in my mouth, the spiders apparently have a weaving party in my hair since it occasionally looks like a bomb exploded on my head in the morning. My straight fine blonde hair that normally just hangs there without any body at all, sometimes looks like I’m a member of an 80s hair metal band, but without the headbands and shoulder pads:

   

   What the hell am I doing in my sleep to produce such gravity-defying results? The worst is when I stumble outside to walk the dog, forgetting to tame the spidery wildness of my noggin mop and run into neighbors. Mornin’. \m/

7. Dribbling coffee down my shirt. I have done that twice already this morning. I’ve been drinking beverages my whole life and coffee since my late teens, yet I still can’t get it quite right. Fortunately, I’m wearing a black shirt today.
8. Random strangers touching me. I don’t mean accidentally bumping into or brushing against someone (although that typically alarms me, too) since that can’t be helped living in civilization. I’m talking about the kind of touching that is intentional. When someone talks to you and puts their hand on your arm or shoulder. I don’t know you. Don’t touch me, please.
9. Red lights for no reason. There’s a light near the dog park I go to that I always seem to get stuck at. Everyone going the same or opposite direction as me has to stop at this light. Almost every single time, there will be one, two or zero cars crossing at this light. The bulk of traffic has to stop for hardly anyone. The one or two people will go as soon as their light turns green, while the rest of us sit at a red light for another minute for absolutely no reason at all. Although, one night, there was a traffic jam when three whole cars crossed the intersection!
10. Running out of things I thought I had more of. I have a bin under my bathroom sink with extras of toiletries I use all the time. Because I’m terrible at remembering to buy things, I need that buffer zone of having extra. The bin has extra soap, Q-tips, shave cream, shampoo, etc. When I run out of shave cream in the shower, I replace it with the one under the sink. If all goes well, I put shave cream on my list of things to get, so I’m never entirely out of anything. Sometimes, the process breaks down and I get distracted by something shiny before I can put it on my list. Then, for a while, I have zero shave cream and hairy legs.

More Things I Hate.