Gerry Moran reveals some of the little things that irk him in a big way …

‘Peel Here’! Peel here my backside. Nothing ever peels here. At least not for me. Now maybe I’m all thumbs, as they say, and as awkward as a bag of hammers, but in fairness I’m not that clumsy. I’m handy enough though of late I am having some difficulty buttoning, and unbuttoning, shirt buttons but that’s another issue entirely.

The ‘Peel Here’ I’m on about are those two little words on the corner of your packet of ‘Thinly Sliced Crumbed Ham’ or ‘Oak & Peat Smoked Salmon Slices’, whatever. Two little words to help you open the packet easily and painlessly, allowing you to remove a slice or two and to just as easily, and just as painlessly, reseal said packet.

Huh! ‘Peel Here’ never peels for me and I usually end up pulling and poking at it until I have to resort to taking a skelp out of the package with a scissors which negates the concept of easy peeling and the smooth resealing of same packet.

I know, I know, I don’t have much to be worrying about but simple things, ridiculous things, get in on you as you ‘get on.’

So, while I’m on my high horse here are some other pet hates of mine: books with introductions almost as long as the damn book itself

• Cars parking in the middle of a space that can accommodate two. Hate that. Especially when parking is hard to find (and it usually is)

• A broken finger nail catching in your clothes, not least your wooly jumper, and no scissors or nail clippers to hand

• On the phone to some corporate body or other and hearing the following: ‘A member of our staff will be with you shortly.’ SHORTLY! Not sure what their definition of ‘shortly’ is but it falls way short of short.
‘A member of staff will be with you in a quarter, or even half, an hour, would be more accurate

• Toilet rolls, new ones, that won’t unroll evenly, smoothly in a simple, civilised fashion but require unrolling half the roll before it’s ready for use.

• Those black, polythene rubbish bags that refuse (pun not intended) to open, that you can’t even distinguish the top from the bottom

• Same with those flimsy, little transparent bags in supermarkets for fruit, bags that you have to massage a hundred times to get them to open

• Maps, road maps especially, that won’t fold back the way you got them, that will taunt and thwart you until you feel like tossing them out the window of the car except you need them to get to Termonfeckin. Or wherever (I don’t, can’t, do Satnav, the car can but I can’t!)

• Screw-off bottle tops that won’t screw off. You screw and screw and screw some more until finally you realise you’re ‘screwed’! It’s not going to open.

And that’s just a short selection of my pet hates – I could go on but there’s a limit, I realise, to readers’ tolerance and forbearance.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own