Poorly practicing frustration tolerance

 "This is a great opportunity to practice frustration tolerance!" 

I used to have a supervisor who would say that, and I loved it. What a great reframe! Something sucks? You're angry? Traffic is moving too slow? What a great opportunity to practice frustration tolerance! It's even better if you say it with a huge grin and enthusiastic hand motions. 

I would like to publicly apologize to every human I've ever said that to. Including my husband, who has repeatedly and loudly informed me that it's the biggest load of bullshit ever. But that's not my point. Today. Today is... not a great day.

Here is a list, in no particular order, of petty things I hate today:

Delayed shipping. The bright side of the pandemic is that we've all learned how easy it is to get things delivered. I've done a lot of personal work to remind myself that it's not always reasonable to expect immediacy and that waiting 2-3 days is perfectly reasonable. But now?! Now I'm waiting 2-3 weeks and no one cares because apparently "guaranteed delivery" is really "arbitrary number we attach to your receipt" and no one gives two shits that you needed your thing yesterday and thought you were doing the right thing by not going out shopping in person with all of your toxic face germs. 

Conflicting/confusing policies regarding quarantine. It's only been two fucking years. How is it that we still have to comb through policies with a fine tooth comb to figure out what we're doing? Why do I have to go digging for anyone's decision-fucking-forests? 

The phrase "Decision Forest." Decision trees are designed to make decision making easier. If I wanted a forest... Nevermind. I don't want a forest. I want clear and rational guidelines one way or another. 

Seasonal coffee creamer. I'm looking directly at you, Maple brown sugar oat creamer. You made me love you in October and now it's January and I'm trying to figure out how to hoard all the cartons before we're back to ridiculous boring flavors like "vanilla" and "hazelnut." It's a fucking pandemic. Nothing is fun anymore. All I have left is my coffee. 

Shoes that make noise. WHY? Why do they make noise? I can't go to stores anymore. I certainly can't spend enough time in a store to walk around in the merchandise to make sure that they don't make a weird squeak or that one doesn't click when I turn left. 

Meal planning. I am SO TIRED of trying to figure out what to eat. I want Jetson's-era food pill machines. I've already moved to having my groceries delivered but ugh. Also, my grocery delivery keeps getting screwy so I had to order Costco three times last week just to get my dog food. And I'd hate to make someone shop just for one thing at Costco so it's not saving me money OR time at this point. 

Drink packets and other food wrappers. They're everywhere. It makes me nuts. If I pick up one more sad, depleted applesauce pouch I may commit a felony.  

Automated messages with robovoices. This is stupid. It takes 10 minutes to record an actual human, any actual human. If the robovoice can't even pronounce your company or school name correctly, get a different system. 

Things I don't hate: 

Getting pictures from my stir-crazy teenager who still isn't too old for the occasional costume