Seven Quick Takes Volume 45

Seven Everyday Annoyances

— 1 —

Forming the plural of a noun by adding “ ‘s” (apostrophe s). The apostrophe indicates possession. That means that if I write about car’s, I mean something that belongs to a car. It’s not that there are two car’s in my parents’ driveway- that is incorrect. There are two cars in my parents’ driveway. The car’s proper place is in the driveway, meaning the place that belongs to the car.

— 2 —

Recipes that call for baking soda without aluminum. I see this most often on natural-health conscious blogs, and it drives me nuts. Why? The chemical formula for baking soda is NaHCO3. That means baking soda contains sodium, hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, all in one molecule. It doesn’t contain aluminum, nor has it ever contained aluminum. Baking powder on the other hand, is a mixture composed of an alkaline component (usually baking soda), an acid salt (sometimes sodium aluminum phosphate or sodium aluminum sulfate, but often sodium acid pyrophosphate), and an inert starch (corn starch or potato starch). I understand why these bloggers believe that aluminum is to be avoided. It has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and breast cancer, among other adverse effects. However, you would be hard pressed to find baking soda with aluminum.

sodium bicarbonate – no aluminum

— 3 —

People having meetings by the photocopier. I am an administrative assistant. That’s a fancy way of saying I do stuff for other folks in the office, and I’m on the lowest rung of the ladder. Therefore, I share a cubicle, while other higher-ups have their own offices, with doors that close, walls that are solid and go all the way up to the ceiling, and extra chairs. These features make offices ideal places to meet with a co-worker. The copier is right outside my cubicle. It is in a hallway, with no chairs and no privacy. I have to hear everything you say when you have a meeting there. It makes concentration a bit hard.

NOT a meeting room

— 4 —

Generalizations. All Christians do… all atheists are… women like… secretaries want… We can’t really know the minds, intentions or actions of everyone in a particular category. I think it would be better to limit such sweeping statements to the features that define a group – Christians share a belief in Jesus. The way we apply and express that may be different. Christians are not all holier-than-thou types. We aren’t all hypocrites. True, we are all sinners, but even our sins are diverse.

— 5 —

When someone says “be more open-minded” but they really mean “accept my view (because I think yours is wrong).” Quite often, I have noticed that people who urge open-mindedness actually want us to change our views, rather than just accepting that others have a different view. Sometimes people advocate diversity, when what they really mean is that they want the group that is discriminated against to be accepted, and the discriminators (or perceived discriminators) to be vilified or ridiculed. To me open-mindedness means understanding that there are different views, many people disagree with me, and although I may explain my reasoning, I can’t change their minds any more than they can change mine.

— 6 —

Traffic. Those of you who live in a larger metro area and commute by passenger car, I don’t know how you do it. The traffic in Columbus has been frustrating lately, with construction and accidents clogging up the highways. I have been so tempted to start riding the bus. Tuesday, there was a big accident that shut down the freeway near downtown and traffic had to be diverted through the surface streets. Brett was delayed in picking me up from work, and it took about an hour to get out of the city. A co-worker who lives near me, about 10 miles away from the office, told me it took her an hour and 45 minutes to get home. The weather is beautiful these days; the pavement isn’t wet, icy, or slippery. So why are there so many collisions?

Thank goodness this isn’t Columbus.

— 7 —

Not knowing what to write. I try to write seven quick takes… and this is what I get. No wonder I have so few blog entries over the last few weeks. I can’t even think of seven things that annoy me. Is it writer’s block or apathy? I’ll say it’s writer’s block. I do have a lot of things on my mind that I could write about, but it is not yet time to share many of them.

Here’s hoping that you have a wonderful and annoyance-free weekend!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!