Thirteen things that irk me:
  1. My husband will make the effort to bring his dirty dishes to the kitchen, but then put them on the counter DIRECTLY ON TOP OF THE EMPTY DISHWASHER, expecting me to then go behind him and move every dish the last sixteen inches of it's trip if I ever want to use the kitchen counter for anything besides storing dirty dishes. It's like some sort of freaky ransom note for the kitchen counters.
  2. This week it was cooler in Tucson, Arizona than it was here.
  3. The Small One is still not sleeping through the night. I have explained to her in tedious detail that God made it dark at night so we all could get some sleep, but she doesn't seem to appreciate my logic.
  4. The commuter car that we bought specifically because it was supposed to get thirty-eight miles to the gallon, actually gets closer to twenty-five mpg. Shortly after we bought it, the dealer modified their mpg ratings. Thanks for the heads up. It now costs The KoH over $12.00 to go to work each day. We could have a much more comfortable car for the same mileage that this one gets.
  5. On that same vein of cars, my beloved station wagon has so little room in the back seat that The Caterpillar's car seat touches the front passenger seat and the knees of the person sitting in the front passenger seat touch the jockey box (some may refer to this device as a glove compartment but I was raised by a Pittsburgher who apparently picked up a lot of slang from Idaho and Montana and this is what we called it in my house). We will not be able to move the front passenger's seat back until The Caterpillar grows out of her rear-facing car seat. Dear Subaru: Why, so little room in the back seat? Did you not think that maybe, just maybe someone might like to sacrifice a couple inches of "trunk" space to have a back seat that was comfortable for anyone over three feet tall? Or how about a movable back seat?
  6. People who wait until the last minute to order something they need for a presentation and then get pissed at you because you can't magically produce what they need in under five minutes. Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
  7. Machines that run on pure freakin' magic. They should do what you tell them to do, am I right?
  8. The ice cream man in our neighborhood that plays a recording of The Entertainer with a wrong note in it... and over... and over... and over.
  9. The Caterpillar wants to kick and push against the arms of the chair while she nurses but when it pushes her mouth off the breast she screams like I stole it from her.
  10. Reality TV.
  11. People who do not know what to do when streetlights are out at an intersection.
  12. Husbands who carry a mobile phone but do not turn it on.
  13. Spending all day trying to think of the thirteenth thing that irks me, knowing full well that I'll come up with a few dozen more as soon as I hit "publish."

Happy Friday the 13th!