It won’t surprise regular readers of this column to learn that I’m a terrible cynic. Although blessed with good health and a wonderful life in a free and beautiful country, I still see negatives in just about everything. I am quite obnoxious.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
I’m also quick to share my gloomy, nit-picking views with whoever happens to be nearby and I’m extremely and unfairly judgmental. “You hate everything, don’t you?” one mate remarked during our annual winter surfari couple of weeks back - a time when I should’ve been chillin’ out pretty good.
I had to admit it often seems that way.
“Maybe you need to purge?” my long-suffering wife suggested helpfully yesterday. “I bet you could fill a column with the things you can’t stand.”
I bet I could, too. 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 world peloton (why not just call the leaders in a bike race “the leaders”). When I go to overtake a slow car on the highway and they speed up! Arguments. The fact country music singers 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 I’m hanging out 15 pairs of kids socks.
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 ... and then vanishes leaving a part of my life forever unfulfilled.
Out of tune guitars. The fact I’m not 26 anymore.
When cars are priced “$29,990 - drive away no more to pay!” When I put on a jacket and my shirtsleeves get pulled back to my elbows. When my shoes eat my socks. Reporters who insist on standing in the rain or in 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. (My hell - and I am going there - is an infinite pile of wire coat hangers to try to untangle ... and an endless diet of roast pumpkin.)
Julie Bishop’s death stare. Mike Baird’s hair product. The way Kevin Rudd licks his lips. The Madden brothers. The sight of Matt Preston shovelling in food and disdainfully chewing it.
Sticky fingers. Flossing my teeth. Greying avocado flesh. “My Family” car stickers. Autoplay videos in online news stories. The advisory “batteries not included” (strangely said in the same urgent voice as “authorised by T. Nutt for the Liberal Party, Canberra”).
Flashmobs (give me a break). Picking up an apple only to find the fruit packer has hidden a rotting hole underneath a little Pink Lady sticker.
Being told to remove my hat when entering a bowling club or risk cries of “You’ll have to shout the bar mate!” (I have no problem removing my hat in an RSL but I don’t think that cultural reverence extends to the brave, dead lawn bowlers of yesteryear.)
Hypocrisy (irony alert!)
Days over 32 degrees. Bags of jellybeans with an oversupply of black ones in them. The aniseed taste of black jellybeans.
When people say seen instead of saw and done instead of did. The way some people lean on the “iss” sound when pronouncing issue and tissue (shudder). The way my Kiwi-born wife says darnce instead of dance and plarnt instead of plant.
Pulling on a cold, wet wetsuit. Pulling on cold, wet, sluggoes. Having to use a cold, wet, towel. Jonathan Thurston (obviously).
The Wiggles (a less musical bunch of minstrels I have yet to encounter, and never once have they apologised for the dent that hearing their schtick over and over and over again has put in my sanity).
Did I mention roast pumpkin? The Channel Seven Cash Cow. Hollywood’s pathetic attempts at the “Awzee” accent (they should give a special Oscar to the first Yank who 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 chortle. Human resources procedures. The Coles big, red, ‘prices are down’ hand. That rotten carpet smell that lingers in leaky cars. The Twitter feed on Q&A - particularly those at the start of the show that say things like “Whoo! Penny Wong vs Cory Bernardi. Grabs popcorn!”
Ridiculously oversized dogs like Great Danes and Rhodesian Ridgebacks (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. The 24 hour news cycle.
Kyle Sandilands’s jeans, runners and suit jacket combination. Lisa Wilkinson’s fake laugh. Karl Stefanovic’s fake laugh. Fake laughing in general.
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 whenever a rock stars die, 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”.
The way they’re called the “QANTAS Wallabies”. Swan dives in soccer. Nil-all draws in soccer. The champagne shower on the podium after motorsport (in which the lead drivers aren’t called the peloton). Grunting, shrieking tennis players. The salmon-coloured paint in our en-suite. Myself.
* Next week: things I really love (maybe ... probably not though. Harrumph).
