Table-Talk: Question # 9

What makes you angrier.....

“Friendships have their seasons” stayed with me after our discussion about losing touch, or reconnecting after years apart. It reminds me that not all relationships last in the same way. Some friendships belong to a certain time in our lives, shaped by who we were and what we needed then…I believe we can all agree with that.

Credit: The school of life

I only know three anecdotes. Surprisingly they still work well in public, even though I am not someone who can tell them as vividly as I would like. Here is my, and by far most popular anecdote #1:

Neighbour A is knocking on neighbour B’s door on a random Friday afternoon:

Neighbour A: Hi B, can I borrow your drill for the weekend?
Neighbour B: Absolutely, (says B enthusiastically), are you going to do some home improvements?
Neighbour A: No, I am going to sleep 😉

So, I guess at the top of my list of things that make me angrier than they should is the “neighbour with the drill.” I am sure you know him, he (sometimes she) comes in all different shapes and sizes, but they all share one thing: a love for DiY projects at home. They can start as early as 7:00 on a Sunday morning, because a memorable photo urgently needs to be hung on the wall.

It is hypocritical, I know, because we have all been that neighbour with the drill at one moment or another. I am not sure whether it has ever been scientifically proven, but in my opinion, we are more irritated by noises made by others than by the exact same noise when we make it ourselves…Also, the older we get, the less tolerant and patient we become. As a result, we get annoyed at people doing DiY, speaking loudly on the phone, kids screaming on the playground, or dogs barking under our balconies….the sounds feel much more “punchy” to our ears. My daughter recently suggested that I try some sort of earplugs that supposedly reduce background noise while, still leaving enough hearing capacity to go about my day. …we shall see about that.

But as an antidote, and more understanding of DiY, neighbour with the drill, I suggest an episode of this wonderful Czech cartoon: Pat & Mat¹…my favourite DiYers, give it a go it is worth :-)

Credit: Pat and Mat, Czechmovie

Many, many years ago, as a young couple, my husband and I were living our bohemian life in a small, very shabby apartment in downtown Amsterdam. We did our best to make it cosy and charming, and, more or less, it felt as a happy place. We had a tiny kitchen, probably 2 by 2 sq. metres, which didn’t allow more than one person to cook at a time. Once, a friend of ours came to visit for the weekend and, at one point, offered to cook his “signature dish” for us: chicken with banana (don’t ask for the recipe, didn’t make it to my regulars). He spent hours in our little kitchen, cooking and drinking, and the result was an inedible dish and a disastrously dirty kitchen (would have been a true inspiration for Helene Appel²), which, I think, I had to clean for two days afterwards. It probably wasn’t actually two days, but it certainly felt like it. And as someone once said, don’t let the truth spoil a good story.

Since this traumatising event (or trauma with a small “t”), my irritation # 2 is when people (except my husband and daughter), try to cook or “help” in my kitchen. It makes me incredibly nervous and somewhat angry, even though I know it comes from a kind place. My close friends know this and are fine with it. They also don’t expect me to jump in and offer help in their kitchens, so I guess that one is under control.

Credit: Helene Appel: Sink (with dishes), 2024

As a short person, I am convinced that taller people have a “few centimetres” advantage and, generally, a broader horizon (in the most narrow and literal sense of the word). If you are tall, there are fewer obstacles in your line of sight when, for example, walking down the street…a shorter person like me mostly sees other people’s backs.

If you ask my husband (who is rather tall), short people with umbrellas can be a real danger on the streets. But if you ask me (who is relatively short), tall people at concerts can be really, really annoying often completely uncooperative, as I experienced it during the Pulp concert in London last summer. As a die-hard fan, it was a concert I had been anticipating for months, only to end up standing behind a group of tall “lads” with beers, who refused to move a centimetre to the left or right so I could even catch a glimpse of the stage.

Anyway, one place where short people do have a slight advantage is in bakeries or patisseries. The display is at our eye level, and we can easily choose what to order. But then a tall person arrives, bends down to look at the display, inevitably pushes everyone behind them, orders something, changes their mind, goes back and forth, bends down again and finally orders a cinnamon bun instead of a walnut one.

One of my favourite bakeries here in Stockholm is Le Fabrique. It’s a very small, charming place with, in my opinion, the best walnut buns in town. But, as with many things in Stockholm, you have to work for your bun. The queue is usually long, and you have to patiently wait your turn after eventually securing a tiny table (which you most often than not have to clean up yourself). Once, I found myself squeezed between two very tall and indecisive people, with even taller backpacks. I was completely unable to move as they bent down repeatedly to look and discuss the buns, shuffling back and forth in the process. And inevitably, I got angry. The question, of course, is: was I angrier than I should have been? Perhaps. They were generally polite and said sorry a few times and, to my credit, I didn’t make any comments and tried to give them enough space to make their choice. After all, if you’re in Stockholm, you really do have to try the buns.

Credit: Visit Stockholm

I could go on, but I’ll stop here: my top three irritations give you a clear idea of what I’m getting at. Funny, isn’t it, that our petty grievances are usually because of someone else: about the noise they make, or the mess they leave behind, or behaviour that makes us feel uncomfortable. And as Mr Bennet (one of the most charming cynics in literature) famously says:

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

But reflection matters. We have all been that person at airport security who hasn’t yet learned that, YES, the laptop needs to come out of the bag… or the person in the cinema unwrapping sweets from a plastic bag throughout the entire film… or the short person with an umbrella bulldozing their way through the rain. We have been all of these people at one point or another in our lives.

It might sound patronising, but perhaps the trick is not to try to eliminate irritation completely, that is defiantly not realistic, but to recognise ourselves in the people who actually annoy us. A little self-awareness here, a touch of humour there would perhaps work better.

What are your small daily irritations?

Do you occasionally overact, why?

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Somewhere there, behind the lads :-)

1. https://czechmovie.com/blogs/about-czech-films/laugh-and-learn-with-pat-and-mat?srsltid=AfmBOooLazTP0tXUy0rH7Maylo3it1TQDDDHOQ9V5zJXY37SNPsPCsUQ

2. https://www.p420.it/artists/38/Appel-Helene