What little things drive you completely up the wall....?

[BarensMom]

The amount of food eaten by teenage boys.  My 13yo has been home for a little over an hour.  In that hour he has eaten:

15 pizza rolls
package of ramen
One whole green pepper
One and a half red peppers
half a package of graham crackers
4 or 5 chocolate chip cookies
ham and cheese bagel

Oh, and somewhere in there he found time to help feed puppies.

  Did you count the puppies afterwards?

[The Wild One, Forever]

The amount of food eaten by teenage boys.  My 13yo has been home for a little over an hour.  In that hour he has eaten:

15 pizza rolls
package of ramen
One whole green pepper
One and a half red peppers
half a package of graham crackers
4 or 5 chocolate chip cookies
ham and cheese bagel

Oh, and somewhere in there he found time to help feed puppies.

It's mind-boggling, isn't it?  Mine is sixteen and eats like a conehead.  He used to be taller than average and a little on the chubby side, but in the past year or so has grown very tall and very thin.  There does not seem to be any such thing as "enough food."  Thankfully, he has always preferred the healthier options to junk food, (except for a recent and inexplicable pop tart obsession.)   

[mmswm]

LOL, Barensmom!  Yes, they're all there , though the amount of food that is consumed by 9-5 week old Golden Retriever puppies is a point of its own.

The Wild One, Forever: My eldest is starting to get to the point where the concept of "enough food" is foreign to him. I'm not looking forward to the day when all three of the boys are eating like this.

[Elfmama]

LOL, Barensmom!  Yes, they're all there , though the amount of food that is consumed by 9-5 week old Golden Retriever puppies is a point of its own.

Not to mention the astonishing amount of puppy poop that nine puppies can produce... 

The Wild One, Forever: My eldest is starting to get to the point where the concept of "enough food" is foreign to him. I'm not looking forward to the day when all three of the boys are eating like this.

The two big grandsons are both 14, and the last time both of them were in the same room, most of a 5-lb boneless ham disappeared down their gullets.

The little grandsons are 7 & 8, but they don't show any signs of turning into locusts yet. 

[Ms_Cellany]

The snaps on the crotch of baby/toddler pants.  Or maybe the ones that I have, being hand-me-downs, have lost their "snap" because they come apart so easily.  My son's no more active than any other 1 year old, but all he has to do is walk and the little snaps come undone. 

How to fix wimpy snaps:

First, the vocabulary. The half with the sticky-out part is the stud. The concave half is the socket.

Unsnap the snaps, and lightly tap the stud with a hammer.  Test. Repeat as necessary.

The problem is that the studs should be a bit bulbous, but they get worn into a cylinder. Tapping them makes them bulbous again.

[Seraphia]

The amount of food eaten by teenage boys.  My 13yo has been home for a little over an hour.  In that hour he has eaten:

15 pizza rolls
package of ramen
One whole green pepper
One and a half red peppers
half a package of graham crackers
4 or 5 chocolate chip cookies
ham and cheese bagel

Oh, and somewhere in there he found time to help feed puppies.

It's mind-boggling, isn't it?  Mine is sixteen and eats like a conehead.  He used to be taller than average and a little on the chubby side, but in the past year or so has grown very tall and very thin.  There does not seem to be any such thing as "enough food."  Thankfully, he has always preferred the healthier options to junk food, (except for a recent and inexplicable pop tart obsession.)   

That was my husband until about the year after we started dating. The bottomless pit has started to close up, but the easiest way for me to figure portions is still to take what I eat and multiply it by about 2.5. I eat a medium bowl of soup, he eats two plus the leftovers. I eat a grilled cheese and a glass of milk, he eats two sandwiches, a glass of milk, a can of Mt. Dew and some cheese and crackers. I get a double cheeseburger, he gets a quarter-pounder plus a large fry, plus a pie.

I live in fear of having a child with that appetite who then hits puberty.

[lilfox]

Work software.  It is never easy to use, but what is throwing me at the moment is my remote log-in process.  In order to work from home, I have to get access to the secure intranet.  This involves a process kind of like dial-up, where I log in and then it runs an application that connects me.

Last year it was a breeze, I never had to think about it.  Then I got upgraded to Windows 7 before they upgraded that in house software.  Fortunately, through trial and error I figured out a workaround.  Well, just last week that software was fixed...  To the point where now the process is random at best, and deliberately sadistic at worst.  It keeps trying to install new (legit) software, except it is already installed.  Then I'll get a message saying after it's installed, click here to continue. Which then brings up the "do you want to install this software?" box.  If/when I break that loop, I get a message that the software has an error, do i want to run it anyway?  and there's a 50/50 shot that whatever button I click (run or cancel), regardless of its label, will make it work vs. have the program hang.

I feel like it's a "rat in a maze" test, where they keep changing the path to success.  "oh, she clicked that option last time and it worked, this time it won't work and/or will hang the computer.  Next time maybe it will work and maybe it won't, muah ha ha ha!". Seriously, the same strategy will not work two days in a row.

[Outdoor Girl]

We had our computers refreshed and the new ones were upgraded to Windows 7.  And then less than a month later, our accounts were migrated from one domain to another.

Our computers have been squirrely since this happened.  Some of our unit specific software has been really unhappy.  It is driving us 'round the bend.  Our IT Help Desk must be sick of hearing from us.

And to boot, my brand new monitor has a flaw - there is a pin-wingadingdingy on it that is visible most of the time.  I've sent in a ticket, they've acknowledged it but have yet to do anything about it.

[Julian]

Our computers run just fine, but the network is the network from Hades.  It is slow, unreliable, falls over occasionally for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately for most of the work we do, we need reliable network access.  There is a data warehouse (SQL Server) and we use either SQL or linked tables in Access to extract the data.  So we're constantly getting connection failures, time-outs etc.  It's gotten bad enough that I tend to keep static tables on my personal external hard drive for older data, at least that way I can get something done.  Our local hard drives are basically tied down to minimal space, so storing anything there is a no-go too.

The data warehouse is another point of contention.  Tables change - not just updates, but field names, so linked table queries will fall over when they're run.  We are never informed of these changes, despite the perpetrator saying we are.  And there are several tables where the same field (unique patient identifier number) is stored differently - one table it is stored as text, another table it is stored as a number.  So if you try to link the two fields in a query, you get a data mismatch error.  It's no wonder I've gone gray...

[Hollanda]

When grating cheese, I always catch my thumb.  it hurts!!!! 

Still doesn't stop me grating cheese for cheese on toast. With Marmite.

[siamesecat2965]

magazine subscription renewals that come monthly, when your subscription is good for another year or more!  Sooo annoying. No. I don't want to renew for yet another year. adn no I don't want to give one as a gift. send me one maybe 2-3 months before it actually expires, and then we'll talk.

[Elfmama]

magazine subscription renewals that come monthly, when your subscription is good for another year or more!  Sooo annoying. No. I don't want to renew for yet another year. adn no I don't want to give one as a gift. send me one maybe 2-3 months before it actually expires, and then we'll talk.

Our annual Christmas gift from MIL and FIL was always subscriptions.  One of the early clues to MIL's dementia was when she started responding to ALL of those subscription renewals, even if she'd done so last month and the month before.  I think at one point our NatGeo subscription was good for the next 7 years!

[Piratelvr1121]

The snaps on the crotch of baby/toddler pants.  Or maybe the ones that I have, being hand-me-downs, have lost their "snap" because they come apart so easily.  My son's no more active than any other 1 year old, but all he has to do is walk and the little snaps come undone. 

How to fix wimpy snaps:

First, the vocabulary. The half with the sticky-out part is the stud. The concave half is the socket.

Unsnap the snaps, and lightly tap the stud with a hammer.  Test. Repeat as necessary.

The problem is that the studs should be a bit bulbous, but they get worn into a cylinder. Tapping them makes them bulbous again.

Oooh! Thanks!! It's not a big deal at home but when I plop him into a cart in a store and suddenly his disposable knickers are showing, it's not a good thing.  Now that can be fixed!

[squeakers]

When you post a link debunking a hoax picture.. and people share the hoax but not the debunking.  And it's not like I posted "under" the photo like some of my friends do.    It's like people only see the picture but not the words.

[Adelaide]

When you post a link debunking a hoax picture.. and people share the hoax but not the debunking.  And it's not like I posted "under" the photo like some of my friends do.    It's like people only see the picture but not the words.

I hate these. My grandparents are some of the most credulous people in the world when it comes to internet hoaxes, even if the picture is explaining away the hoax! I think it's because they've reached a certain level of being comfortable with the internet but it's not quite up to speed. (Probably explains why their Internet Explorer(!) toolbar takes up half the page, my grandma just clicks "yes" whenever she's asked something in an installation window.)

I just can't stand it when you gently try to steer someone in the right direction and they freak out on you. My grandparents now get mad when I gently try to tell them about how to debunk internet myths or that I really don't want them sent to me in a chain letter.