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Things That Drive Me Crazy

April 10, 2016 by Diane

Bun Karyudo The Man, The Legend, The Paper Bag

Bun Karyudo
The Man, The Legend, The Paper Bag

I discovered Bun Karyudo on Twitter some time ago, and I’ve enjoyed his sweet, humorous blog ever since. He can turn the mundane into something rip-snorting funny. I invited him to write a guest post on my blog and he obliged, without any arm-twisting. Enjoy! And to check out more of his fun ramblings, please visit him at http://bunkaryudo.com

Things That Drive Me Crazy by Bun Karyudo

“But write about what?” I ask in my email.

“Things that drive you crazy,” comes the reply.

I pull at my earlobe and try to think. Anger’s not an emotion that features much in my usual repertoire of responses. There are people who can so concentrate their fury, they need do no more than lower their eyebrows three-quarters of a millimeter and thunderclouds gather in the sky, the earth begins trembling, and grown men and women fall to their knees begging forgiveness.

This never happens in my case. I can jump up and down, snarl, wave my arms, bang my fist on the counter and the clerk at the post office will merely look through me and shout “Next!” or else give me directions to the nearest restroom. But a guest post is a guest post, so I decide that the next day, I will make a special effort to notice everything that registers the slightest tiny blip on my rage-o-meter.

The following morning begins, as do most mornings, with the ceiling. Wow! It’s so bright! Have I woken up in the middle of a New Year’s firework display? A naval barrage perhaps? No, it’s just the irritatingly luminous display on my wife’s alarm clock. So what time is it? I have no idea. I can’t actually see the numbers from my side of the bed, just the eerie green glow they cast about the room.

Blip!

Woah, great start! The first modest blip on the rage-o-meter!

I stagger through to the bathroom mirror and see myself. Oh there I am, fresh as a daisy – although, sadly, a daisy in a meadow used by tap dancing elephants.

Blip!

As I avert my eyes from the mirror, I happen to notice that one or other of my sons has used up a roll of toilet paper and then simply left the empty cardboard tube in the holder. I try not to give in to annoyance. After all, how can I really expect a mere teenager to manhandle a hulking four-and-a-half inch cardboard cylinder – one weighing almost 1.5 ounces! – and lug it all the way to a wastebasket very nearly four feet away?

Blip! Blip!

Like it or not, I’ll have to look back toward the mirror if I’m to shave. Oh look! My elder son has left the mirrored side doors of the bathroom cabinet open again so that he can see his hair from every conceivable angle. He seems to have ignored the fact that I asked him to keep these door closed in order to avoid head-bumping incidents. To be fair, it may simply have slipped his mind since I’ve only mentioned it to him one or two hundred thousand times before.

Blip! Blip! Blip!

I shave, splash some water on my face and then look at my face carefully in the mirror again. There has been a massive improvement in that I’m fairly confident any visiting aliens from Mars could now identify my approximate genus. Perhaps they might even be able to make a stab at my species after I’ve had my shower.

I turn on the water and wet my hair and body. Then I hunt through the various pairs of matching plastic bottles around me for shampoo and conditioner. I check the blue pair first. The conditioner bottle is full but the shampoo bottle is empty. Perhaps the white pair will hav— No, same again. The pink pair? Oh, for goodness sake! My children do this every time! They use up all the shampoo and ignore everything else. It looks like this is just another of those days when I’m going to leave the shower with the best conditioned dirty hair in the Northern hemisphere.

Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

I turn off the water and reach for the towel which I keep hanging on the rail outside the– Agh! Not again! My towel has been folded back over on itself for some reason, thus ensuring that it hasn’t dried properly. The only light my wife and children can ever shed on this fiendish towel origami is that it definitely, absolutely, positively has nothing to do with them. Oh, those accursed towel fairies!

Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

Left with no choice, I begin patting myself with a towel that’s probably wetter than I am. Slowly, my upper body does begin to feel drier, although this may owe as much to evaporation as to anything else. Yet for some reason, my feet feel no different. I peer down to find out what’s going on, and notice the water is not disappearing. I remove the drain cover and check beneath. How can it be clogged with hair again? I removed all that just the other day!

I think about my other family members and check off each of the possibilities in turn just to be sure. No… no… no… They’re not Yetis, not alpacas and not Afghan hounds. Where can all this hair be coming from? I’m not very excited about having to touch something that looks like it was coughed up by a saber-toothed cat, but I don’t want a flooded bathroom either, so reluctantly I bend down, pick one corner of the squelchy mess between my thumb and forefinger, and toss it into the wastebasket.

Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

After I’m fully dressed, I take a step toward the bathroom door and open it, only it doesn’t open. Recently, the lock has decided that instead of closing when turned left and opening when turned right, it would be much more fun to remain closed whether it is turned left, turned right, turned left-right-left-right-left, is hammered, is kicked, or is sworn at. I eventually get the door to open, but only at a terrible cost…

Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

Seven blips! My highest total so far.

At this stage, I decide to call off the experiment. By forcing myself to take conscious note of all these minor irritations, I am quickly being worked into an unhealthy state of agitation. I’ve barely made it out of the bathroom and already I’m feeling angrier than I have for months. If I go on like this, I’m bound to lose my temper at some point today. There’s even the possibly that I might begin raging at some poor store clerk or passerby, and who knows were that might lead? Most likely, down the passage, first on the left, second on the right, to the nearest restroom.

 


66 Comments »

  1. Joan says:

    Enjoyed this

  2. Ellie says:

    Love your post, Bun! I can relate to all the blips!

  3. lol…a typical manic Monday start to our day and all the associated blips..loved the elephant trampled daisy:)))
    Hilarious and turning the mundane to side splitting stories!!!

    • Diane says:

      Who else but Bun would describe his face as a daisy trampled by tap-dancing elephants? Not just elephants. Tap-dancing elephants. Brilliant.

  4. Jacqueline says:

    If your children don’t bring out the hopping mad ogre in you and teach you very good lessons in patience, nothing else on this side of the planet will Good one Bun

  5. nrhatch says:

    Brilliant, Bun!
    Even more so than normal.

    And that’s saying a lot about a little . . . just like you do!

  6. Sue Slaght says:

    I have to be very careful when i read Bun’s post. No coffee to snort out my nose and that kind of thing. A comic wizard he is. I enjoyed this guest post very much.

  7. drniemczura says:

    Another great post by Bun. I frequently find myself laughing out loud and the empty toilet paper roll got me started. We have/had the “queen” of the empty packages everywhere. Just when we looked forward to an ice cream sandwich or even some ice cream, guess what? She carefully replaced the empty package in the freezer for the next person who really didn’t need the calories anyway…No amount of reminding her worked. Same with the empty shampoo bottles at our end of the pond. Forsooth!

    • Diane says:

      I have coworkers who leave empty things lying about, and I seem to be the only one who finds them. Or needs whatever was in them. Empty toilet paper rolls. Empty paper towel rolls. Empty boxes of pens. Empty boxes of labels. Empty packages of gluten-free muffins. This is a clear sign of Squirrels in the Doohickey; or a case of being unaware in the moment.

    • Bun Karyudo says:

      Yes, I’d forgotten about empty packages. We get that too. It’s always a thrill trying to eat a bowl of cornflakes with the last three drops of milk from the carton.

  8. tric kearney says:

    I always enjoy Bun’s writing. This is not exception. I like to think I’m a calm, relaxed individual, but my family find that statement hilarious.

  9. Hilarious, Bun. I hope you’ve quieted down again. I have complete sympathy. It’s good though that your son’s have clean habits. It would be difficult living in the same flat with them if they didn’t. As long as the soap and shampoo are disappearing you can assume this is true. Congratulations on your guest post and have a great day. 🙂 — Suzanne

    • Diane says:

      Just think if he had daughters! He wouldn’t be able to get into the shower because of all the shampoo bottles. Thanks for visiting, Suzanne. See you again?

    • Bun Karyudo says:

      Thank you, Suzanne. When I got home from work that evening, I had to avert my envious eyes from my children’s immaculately clean locks.

  10. Badfish says:

    HA! who doesn’t love a rant by Bun?

  11. Sylvia says:

    Hilarious reading as always. Yes, that ‘eerie green glow’ gets to me too. I’ve been known to get up in the middle of the night and hang a sock over it. 🙂

  12. Linda Bethea says:

    So glad you did this. So glad of your delightful sufferings.

  13. helmontpetit says:

    I am a big Bun fan. Thanks for inspiring him to write another brilliant, funny and wise post.

  14. jackie says:

    Its a great Blog. I can picture Bun careering around the bathroom, snorting with anger – or probably not because he doesn’t really seem the type
    What I did think was that it made me consider what is important to get het up about and what really did matter a jot
    However, I also don’t like getting ride of the hair from the shower plug hole – and most of it is mine. Thanks again Bun and thanks to Diane for a great Guest Writer…

  15. Binky says:

    You sound like a raging maniac! With all those blips you could probably power a nuclear reactor. I hope you’ve cooled off by now.

  16. Raili Tanska says:

    Bun, I just had to come over here to read you guest post. I needed desert after reading entree and mains at yours 🙂 Now that I’ve had my Bun fix for the week, having missed it for several 🙁 all is well again in my world !

  17. Raili Tanska says:

    Bun and Diane, my pingbacks are not working at the moment, so I thought I would let you know that I have just posted a response to this guest post -https://soulgifts.com.au/2016/04/16/rage-o-meter-empathy/

  18. Hi Diane, first thank you for hosting Bun. When I saw the email with a reference to a guest post at Squirrels in the Doohickey I thought “this has got to be good.” As per usual, Bun you did not disappoint. Thanks for the laughs especially the tap dancing elephants.

  19. Humor is such a special gift, such a wonderful post.

  20. Nena says:

    LOL! You never fail to humor us:) Loved this post and I can relate to it:p I agree that if we focus on those little things that bug us it will just drive us insane. it’s fun to vent about it, but not to let it keep angering us;)

    • Diane says:

      Welcome, Nena! What you say is so true. And if you vent about it on someone else’s blog, all the better! Hmm. I need to try that.

  21. Hysterical. Great post.

    • Diane says:

      Hi Lonely Author, and welcome to my site! Writing is a lonely business, isn’t it? Just you and the page.

      Glad you enjoyed Bun’s post. His humor is a great gift.

  22. Diane says:

    Very funny, as always. Hi Diane, I’m also Diane and pleased to meet you!

  23. Ramesh Naidu says:

    As always Bun,s writing has me in splits

  24. Hariod Brawn says:

    That Bun is one bunny guy . . . or should that be one boony guy? Either way, he has a lovely, wry, dry and self-effacing humour that always cheers the spirits, even though he seems to be in a state of pereptual haplessness.

  25. Linda Bethea says:

    Another great one.

  26. Paul says:

    Bun, is the funniest person with a paper bag for a head that I know. The ninety-three other people I know with a bag for a head, use plastic. As for his encounter with those tap dancing elephants. I warned him to be suspicious of elephants who tap dance in meadows, as it’s not normal. Bun, everyone knows tap dancing can only be accomplished on a hard surface. Well, live and learn.

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