Why the fork?

[Mark Hoffmann]

The challenge is to write between 50 and 150 words about some pet peeve that makes you go: why the fork / why oh why, oh why, must it be so? Don't just list your annoyance, but don't labour the point either. Have as many goes as you like, but for each post stick to the word limit. Of course, no one will be counting, this isn't Germany.

I'll start.

Why the fork do people (usually a spouse) shout "careful" at you just AFTER you have stubbed your toe, or slipped over on the ice, or bumped into a lamppost?! Do they think you will say thanks, then go back in time and avoid the sodding incident! It is so pointless and so annoying: like rubbing salt into the wound. Yes, I know I should have been more careful, but it's too late now so shut up!

What's even worse is you find yourself shouting "careful" at others when they have a minor accident. Like a tourettes sufferer, the word is out there of its own volition and the next thing you know the accidentee is giving you a stare that if converted into words could not be repeated.

It makes you wonder: how much control do we really have over our mouths?

[Spell Chick]

When grocery shopping, why do some people park themselves and their carts/baskets right in the middle of the aisle? Pick a damn side so those of us who need the salad dressing down there at the end of the aisle can scoot past your deliberating ass trying to determine which can of green beans is the perfect choice.

They make the aisles wide enough for traffic to flow IF and only IF you don't plug up the middle.

Next rant might be about the crap the store puts in the aisles as a temptation or special display, and which also plugs up the free flow of traffic. There must be some reason for this. Like I might decide I need a stray can of green beans while I wait for a chance to move forward.

[Gyppo]

Why does the security guard at the local co-op spend three quarter of his time stood at the back of the shop talking to the shop-girls who are filling shelves?

I assume they are losing enough stuff to make it worth hiring him, but standing between those tall shelves he can't really see the door and at least half the time he can't see the curved security mirrors from where he's standing.  The girls working the tills by the door can see all the mirrors, so I suppose they could call out to him.  But if someone's doing a runner with a few quids worth of meat - and why keep the high value products by the door? - they've got a thirty or forty foot start on him.

Then the first thing he has to decide is which way they turned after leaving the store  It's a fifty-fifty chance, unless they come from one of the flats above the shop and wedged the push button activated door door open for a quick getaway.  If he makes the wrong choice they're long gone.

There are external cameras so the known shoplifters will appear on 'Stars in their eyes' when the cops check over the footage.

But matey in his smart uniform looks like a waste of space to me.  If he stood at the front, as a visual deterrent, he might be some use.  The girls could then give him a nod about known lifters or suspects.

He gave me a good looking over when I first encountered him.  Fair enough.  Wild looking older man with baggy clothes and big pockets.  Definitely a suspicious looking chap  ;-)  I wonder if he realised the assessment was a two way street.

I think the big lass who spends most of her time filling shelves and rarely gets behind a till would be more useful.  She looks infinitely more capable than he does.  I'm sure there's a martial art of some sort hidden behind her laid back style.  As they used to say in an old song there's 'something in the way she moves'. 

[Spell Chick]

As far as I know, they never caught the asshat who tampered with the Tylenol and killed a bunch of random people.

But since then, bottles and jars of things have had a tamper-proof seal, for my protection. Bull. They don't give a flying monkey's ass about my protection. I know this because they seal these containers up and I must use a knife or scissors to get into the product. Kraft is one of the worst offenders.

If they really cared about me, the consumer, they would make the seal possible to get off without injuring myself. They don't. They do this so I or my survivors don't sue them. And they just really don't care about me for one nanosecond after the sale is complete.

[Mark Hoffmann]

Before I get to my fork I'd like to support Patti. I have no idea what Tylenol is but I think even where there is no legal threat, companies simply don't put enough thought into how people, especially disabled people, or older people with arthritis or other conditions that affect your hands, are going to open packaging.

How I'd solve this if I ruled the world is the CEOs of companies would have to do a YouTube vid of themselves opening their products. And if said CEO's happened to be under 55, then they'd be made to wear padded gloves. If they failed to open the packaging in under 2 minutes, of if they stabbed themselves in the process, or if they failed to keep a happy smile on their faces while undertaking the chore, they'd be made to dance naked for 5 minutes to the theme tune from the Smurfs.

Anyway, my fork is sort of related in that it is product based. It's about the critical matter of the revolving plate in the microwave oven. Why the fork does it not stop in exactly the same position that it started from, so if the cup (or whatever) handle was in a convenient position when you put the thing in, it would be in the same convenient position for taking it out again?!

I of course know why – it's because the revolving process is linked to the timer. But, a microwave is voodoo magic anyway so the people who make them must be very special. Surely, they can stop the heaty- magic but keep the turny-magic going until the plate is in the same position!! Either they just can't be arsed, OR, it saves about 10p in manufacturing and the greedy buggers want that 10p for themselves, OR I am cleverer than them – seems unlikely but who knows.

[Mark Hoffmann]

My previous fork was about lackadaisical design, but what about when designers get it right? I'm thinking the wonderful people at the toothpaste company who designed a toothpaste tube that you can stand upside down on its cap, so when you open it the paste is right there, ready. Genius!
 
So why the fork, does a certain individual of a female deposition, put the tube in the holder along with the toothbrushes. Worse still, she sits it cap upper most so the toothpaste sinks down into the base of tube and then, when you need some you have to faff about, gradually squeezing the stuff up from the bottom, until eventually you lose patience, squeeze too hard, and end up with a massive dollop that covers all the bristles on the brush and half the handle.

Zak of course is unaffected by this illogicality. He has his own beef flavoured toothpaste and, due to a lack of hands, needs me to clean his teeth for him. Maybe that's why people say: it's a dog's life. Dogs don’t have forks.

[Spell Chick]

I understand that everything has a price and the internet is not free. I understand the need for ads all over the place making it damn near impossible to actually read anything online.

What I do not understand is a scroll over ad that yells at me as I go past it. I'm not interested in being yelled at. What the hell is going on? How many people surreptitiously look at stuff at work? And then the noise happens ... and BAM, you're caught. How does this help anyone? Certainly, the rest of the advertisers on the page should be up in arms about ads that make the whole thing unuseable.

I do know that the flickering, seizure inducing ads can be stopped by reloading the page. I'm not real sure what mastermind came up with the idea, but I know how to make it go away. But those rollover pieces of shit just keep happening and are always annoying and I scroll past them as fast as possible. I hate noise.

[Gyppo]

Patti:  I have the speakers turned off most of the time because I don't even like the supposedly helpful bells and whistles.

Adverts like that must be a nightmare for blind people who rely on a screen reader.

[Amie]

So, say you have a partner. And your friend has a partner. And said partners don't particularly like each other. Why the fork must every attempt to get together be a "couples" thing?

I think my friend realises that my partner doesn't like her partner, and is digging her heels in. But what's the point? Forcing them to spend time together won't make them like each other any more. Every time my husband sees her partner, he dislikes him a little more.

[Mark Hoffmann]

I have no objection to the terminally stupid per se, but when they are allowed to make decisions that affect my life, my brain starts to fizz. Let's, for example, take the useless forker with the IQ of a discarded cucumber sandwich, who came up with the pinnacle of pointlessness that is sodding cookie warnings.

We've allowed some sad little Belgian clipboard hugger to push through a regulation that wastes the time of almost every human on the planet. And that's just the best case! Worst case is the poor sods represented in the Venn diagram where technophobe overlaps with paranoid, who might actually choose not to use a web site in case the cookies leave crumbs in their PC - or something equally unlikely.

Phew! Glad I got that off my chest.

[Gyppo]

Mark:  I think you're being unfair to cucumber sarnies.  No way could a Belgian clipboard hugger even aspire to come close to the intellect of that ill-regarded comestible.

Amie:  The whole 'doing things as a couple' is over-rated.  It's lovely when it works, but so often it's doomed to failure.  Forcing two unsuited people together just because they're partners of the other two is counterproductive.  It can end up poisoning the easy friendship between the two who do get on.

It's like the playground nonsense about having to discard one friend in order to be friends with another.

I think it's based on the modern myth that 'we're all the same'.  Like hell we are.  It's the differences which make us interesting, and also warn us that sometimes we're not meant to be in the same room ;-)

Puts me in mind of Gypsy funerals and, to a lesser extent, weddings.  Even the blackest of black sheep is not only allowed but expected to turn up and pay their respects to the departed, or the newly betrothed.  But they generally know better than to hang around too long afterwards.  Some feuds get healed at family gatherings, but not many.  Sometimes, just sometimes, they get upturned by 'Romeo and Juliet' couples who defy both families.  Sometimes both family's agree that the new generation has it right, (for them), but the older ones will never trust each other. 

My ex could never get her head around the fact that my workmates weren't necessarily friends I'd want to spend time with outside work.

[Gyppo]

   I do not like the 21st Century.   I've given it the benefit of the doubt for 17 years, which is more than long enough for it to create a good first impression.  But, even allowing for the fact that I'm a contrary old git at times, the young upstart doesn't seem to be pulling its weight.

   I've had a couple of run-ins with computerised bureaucracy lately and it sucks.  It sucks like a Dyson on amphetamines.  With an electric cattle-prod up its arse.  Unlubricated.

   Now...  I know that a computer can make millions of calculations a second, but it sure as hell can't answer a simple question.  It asks every question at least three times, and then you have to wait a week to get a note back saying 'We have received your email'.  Sometimes, displaying all the eagerness of the bloody Andrex puppy, it will tell you this two or three times, obviously assuming that we are as stupid as they are and need to have everything repeated ad nauseam before it sinks in.

   'We will deal with your request within ten working days' it promises, but obviously in the rarefied atmosphere of computerised bureaucracy 'dealing with' can mean as little as acknowledging receipt. The system is so pleased with this it repeats itself, repeatedly.  It sends emails to tell you it's sent an email.  No wonder the internet is slow at times, it's full of pointless emails as well as all the spam.

   I can remember when local councils etc didn't bother to acknowledge receipt of any letters, they just dealt with the problem and then wrote back with either a demand for money, an occasional refund, or a solution to the problem you had queried.

   But nowadays all communications get transformed into bits and bytes, are give a unique identifier, which another email will inform you enables them to keep track of your correspondence whilst all the bits and bytes are placed into a giant drum, stirred around willy-nilly and then forgotten about for at least ten working days.  I suppose as long as the drum is being agitated it counts as being dealt with. 

   And seeing as nobody human seems to work in these kind of offices then that means never.

   Edgar Allan Poe would have been proud of them.
      
   "Will you ever answer my simple question?  Preferably before I die of old age and pass it on to my children, grand children., and possibly even great grandchildren."

   Quoth the computer, "Nevermore."

===

[Amie]

Amie:  The whole 'doing things as a couple' is over-rated.  It's lovely when it works, but so often it's doomed to failure.  Forcing two unsuited people together just because they're partners of the other two is counterproductive.  It can end up poisoning the easy friendship between the two who do get on.

Mostly we like both halves in the couples we know, but this particular friend has terrible taste in men. He's friendly enough, but just totally full of shit, always trying to impress you with how clever and savvy he is (he's the sort of person who'd tell you he's "in oil" if he works at the till of a petrol station). Oh, and started sexting old girlfriends when she found out she was pregnant

But, no matter. I just have to think up a fifteenth excuse for why hub isn't available for a couples do for the foreseeable future.

******

Why the fork can't the English brew a decent cup of coffee by default? It's like, it's either some kind of poncy religious experience, or you get burnt grounds in a plastic cup. Contrast with say Portugal, where any coffee anywhere, even from say a burger van, is sublime. It's not that hard Brits, reclaim your tastebuds!

[Spell Chick]

Mark, today while brushing my teeth, I had to open up a new tube of toothpaste and I was thinking bout your problem with your tube of toothpaste. I actually roll the empty portion of the tube down and clamp a binder clip on the damn thing to make sure the paste stays down there by the spout.

But as I was musing about this it dawned on my there is a very simple solution to your problem. You are, by law, permitted to buy your own personal for your use only tube of toothpaste. There is no toothpaste police with warrants to make sure you are sharing nicely. You are free!

[Mark Hoffmann]

The current Mrs H does not have OCD. I know this because she has told me so. Nonetheless I know that two tubes of toothpaste would only be acceptable if they were juxtaposed so as to be perfectly aligned. Furthermore, one with a clamp and one without would surely lead to "consequences".

I've already disposed of a couple of wives and there is no more room under that patio slabs, so even though the current one is as mad as three-legged badger on a trampoline, I'm trying to be agreeable.  We've been together somewhere between 10 and 18 years ( or is it longer  ) and she has yet to try and stab me. I'm calling that a win!