I wish I could be one of those people with an apparently infinite capacity for taking life's little irritations with utter serenity – the types who hum pleasantly to themselves when they are caught in traffic jams or who never swear when they attempt to remove the package from a shrink-wrapped, security-sealed DVD.  But I am not one of those people.  In fact, I suspect that people who exhibit what is to me superhuman equanimity with the "small stuff" must be on Prozac – or something stronger.

There's a book out by Richard Carlson called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and It's All Small Stuff.  Perhaps I should read it.  Until then, I suppose that I am doomed to being annoyed by petty matters that amount to little more than inconveniences and are really insignificant when one considers the catastrophes reported daily on the news.  Ironically, I'm fairly cool about crises such as major illnesses and household emergencies.  If I have to go to the hospital for surgery, I can do it without having a fit, but a minor computer glitch or a toilet that won't stop running can cause me to freak out.

I suppose one reason for this disparity is that I'm forced to turn over major problems to the experts, whereas I am expected to deal with the minor ones myself.  Furthermore, when I'm going through a genuine crisis, people are usually sympathetic and supportive, whereas minor matters evoke no sympathy at all and may even become sources of humor to other people.  Don't these insensitive dolts recognize that my running toilet is the End of Civilization As We Know It?

As I've remarked elsewhere, product packaging is at or near the top of the list of small stuff that drives me over the edge.  I believe it's possible that more people have been driven to temporary insanity by bubble wrap (the hard, plastic packaging that requires garden shears or a hacksaw to open) than by any other of life's many inconveniences.  People who successfully avoid road rage and other very common types of venting are likely to go ballistic over bubble wrap.  The packaging of DVDs in shrink wrap with security seals on three sides is bubble wrap's only competition for the title of Stupid Packaging Concept of the Century.

Here's another that deserves note.  Have you ever tried to cook one of those microwave meals that comes in a small cup?  Hormel's chili with beans is one of my favorites as part of a quick lunch.  In the first place, the instructions that tell how long to put it in the microwave are in print that requires a magnifying glass to read.  On the chili containers, the print is black against a dark-red background.  Secondly, the process requires that one remove the metal lid and replace it with a plastic lid that has holes punched in it for ventilation during microwaving.  The trouble is that the holes are not big enough to release the pressure.  Until I learned to enlarge the holes, I was constantly cleaning the residue of "exploded" chili cups out of the microwave.  Don't they test this stuff before they market it?

The black print on a dark-red background brings to mind another source of repeated frustration.  We own a large number of audio-video components – VCRs, DVD players, receivers, tape decks, and so on – made by a variety of major manufacturers.  Most of these components have black cabinets.  And what color is the lettering on the command buttons?  Dark gray or gold.  The receivers that are the "brains" of our two A/V systems both have tiny gold lettering on black backgrounds.  One needs a flashlight (and sometimes a magnifying glass as well) to read it.

Childproof caps, boxes that say "push here to open" but don't open, magazine inserts (the AARP magazine has more inserts than editorial copy), junk mail and spam, bolts that won't budge because they were tightened by a machine, stuck drawers, plastic knobs that break and can't be replaced, "easy assembly" instructions that defy translation into English, zippers that snag or become derailed, a plethora of products that don't come even close to matching their advertising claims – the litany of aggravations, frustrations, and disappointments seems endless.  Add to this list the troubles that I bring on myself through my own stupidity and carelessness, and we have a formidable array of small stuff that becomes a mammoth roadblock on the path to serenity.

Occasionally I have a day when everything works as it should, nothing breaks, and nothing disappoints.  Rare as these days are, they cause me to tap into a certain optimism that resides somewhere deep beneath my cynical exterior.  I start to believe in the perfectability of mankind and of mankind's creations.  I begin to think that life without annoyances is the norm, that all these little flaws in the fabric of living are aberrations.  This is, of course, madness.  And why shouldn't I be insane?  It's the small stuff that made me that way.