Smoko with hendo
WHAT DO YOU HATE?
Although I’m blessed with good health and a wonderful life in a free and beautiful country, I still see negatives in just about everything. I’m an obnoxious cynic.
I’m also quick to share my gloomy, nit-picking views with whoever happens to be nearby – which lately has been a bunch of blokes on a building site. “You hate just about everything, don’t you?” one remarked a week or so ago. I had to admit it often seems that way.
“Maybe you need to purge?” my long-suffering wife suggested when I told her about the comment. “I bet you could fill a book with the things you can’t stand.”
Well, maybe not a book, but I could definitely fill a column. So without further ado – and in the hope of not being such a nightmare in the future – here’s a bunch of stuff I hate:
Roast pumpkin. The word peloton (the leaders in a bike race are just ‘the leaders’). When you try to overtake a slow car on the highway and the other car speeds up. Country music singers who find it necessary to wear cowboy hats all day, every day.
When washing pegs are degraded by exposure to the elements, go brittle and snap when squeezed.
Brown spirits. Mowing wet grass. Being called ‘Dude’ or ‘Man’ by 20-something staff in cafes. Blue or purple hair on ladies of a certain age. P-plater hoons.
The non-event sneeze that builds up and up and up…then vanishes, leaving a part of my life forever unfulfilled.
Out of tune guitars. The fact I’m not 26 anymore.
Cars that are priced ‘$29,990 – drive away no more to pay!’ When I put on a jacket and my shirt sleeves get pulled back to my elbows. When my shoes eat my socks. TV reporters who insist on standing in the rain or floodwater to prove it really is rainy or flooding.
When I reach into the closet to grab an empty coat hanger only to have it tangle with the wire coat hangers on the rod next to it.
The sight of Masterchef’s Matt Preston disdainfully chewing on food.
Sticky fingers. Flossing my teeth. Greying avocado flesh. ‘My Family’ car stickers. The advisory ‘batteries not included’ (said in the same urgent voice as, “Authorized by T. Nutt for the Liberal Party, Canberra”).
Flashmobs. Picking up an apple only to find the fruit packer has hidden a rotting hole underneath the little Pink Lady sticker.
Being told to remove my hat when entering a bowling club. (I have no problem removing my hat in an RSL, but I don’t think the cultural reverence extends to the brave, dead lawn bowlers of yesteryear.)
Days over 32 degrees. Bags of jellybeans with an oversupply of black ones in them. The aniseed taste of black jellybeans.
The way some people lean on the ‘isss’ sound when pronouncing issue and tissue.
Pulling on a cold, wet wet suit. Pulling on cold, wet, sluggoes. Having to use a cold, wet towel.
Cries of “Queens lander!” The Wiggles.
The Channel Seven Cash Cow. Hollywood’s lame attempts at the ‘Awzee’ accent (they should give a special Oscar to the first Yank who actually nails it). When people refer to ‘The Chaser boys’ (they’re men). The term ‘soccer mom’. Australians who say ‘ass’ instead of ‘arse’.
The word ‘behoove’. The Coles big, red, ‘prices are down’ hand. That rotten carpet smell in a leaky car. The Twitter feed on Q&A.
Ridiculously over sized dogs like Great Danes and Rhodesian Ridge backs (might as well get a pony). Overly fluffy, long-haired cats (lazy and entitled beasts, one and all).
Blue bottles…f–king bluebottles.
The faux manner in which cabin crew pretend to blow into the life vest inflator during their in-case-of-emergency demonstrations. When people wank on and on and on about coffee.
Kyle Sandinalds’s jeans, runners and suit jacket combination.
The recent addition of a double burst of “BA-BA-BA-BAAAH” on the brass at the start of Advance Australia Fair.
The TV Week Logie Awards. Light ice cream. The way Glenn A. Baker gets trotted out every single time a rock star dies, as if he knew them or has some profound insight.
Saying ‘vale’ when people die. People dying. $2.50 ATM fees. Children crying. Baths (I’m strictly a shower man). Being hopelessly addicted to my smart phone.
When I need one stick of celery for a recipe and the supermarket only sells it by the bunch…for $7. When my town misses out on exciting thunderstorms that other districts get hit by. When people pronounce muesli ‘moozley’ and yoghurt ‘yogget’.
Swan dives in soccer. Nil-all draws in soccer. The champagne shower on the podium after motor sport (in which the lead cars, I note, are not referred to as the peloton). Grunting, shrieking tennis players. The salmon-coloured paint in our en-suite. Myself.
Next issue: Things I really love (maybe…probably not though. Harrumph)