Saturday, July 07, 2007

Pet peeves #1

It is easy to find things that piss me off. People that just step out into traffic and cause everyone to stop. People that want to do a lifetimes worth of transactions at the ATM. Oh, and the people who bang on my door at 1pm every stinking day asking if I am open yet, I open at 1:30. Day after day I explain this!


These are just minor irritations when compared to the big one, bags of charcoal! In the US $10 buys you a lifetime supply of Kingsford, well maybe not quite that much, but a whole bunch, certainly enough to survive a long weekend of BBQ’ing and beer drinking. Here in Canada you need to take out a second mortgage to buy one briquette. Odd really, we have so much lumber and so much waste lumber, yet we pay top dollar to have it burned elsewhere and then import it back in.


I was ‘grousing’ oops sorry, my theories are not necessarily everyone else’s, but that’s besides the point. If us Canadians are not smart enough to make our own burnt wood, we should not point fingers.




What really ticks me off though is the way they seal the bags. They stitch em shut, and the theory is you pull the string and the top opens. Now I do not have exact statistics, but my success rate is about once out of every 50 attempts. Inevitably I end up using sharp knives or tire irons, or just about any other implement I can lay my hands on. In this day and age of high technology why is it so difficult to open a stinking bag of charcoal!


Why is this? And why do they have to make the bags this way? My personal theory is that Kingsford hate Canadians, and this is their way of getting revenge.

3 comments:

Bruce A. Bateman said...

It's easy to take care of these irritations, Simon. Take people stepping out into traffic as an example. Just run 'em down like the dogs they are. End of problem.

Charcoal is similarly easy to deal with. Go to your neighbors's house. Set it on fire. Stand well back, enjoy the view...maybe roast a couple of marshmellows. Go back over a day later when all has cooled down and bag up all the charcoal you need for the coming cook-out season. Put TWIST TIES on the bags.

See? No need to stress yourself.

BB

Bruce A. Bateman said...

PS: You might want to go over to http://saipanuvian.blogspot.com/ and check out the posting I just put up about you. If for no other reason than to protest your ill treatment or to set the record straight.

bigsoxfan said...

Simon, if I might be familar, I used to work in a brewery. Got your attention? More to the point, we received our malted barley from England in 50 kilo bags, about 110 pounds, if Canada is metrically deficient, tied in the same fashion as those friggin charcoal bags. Go to a store which sells charcoal with; a razor knife, box cutter, anything you can't get on a plane with, and practice. There is one string to cut out of the three, pull the two you didn't cut, and the whole mess comes off with great ease. Practice. You'll piss off the shopowner, so do it at least twenty miles from the flagpole at home. By the way, I worked in small breweries for ten years and only met two people who made a living tasting beer (unless you count the large brewery geeks or Arthur Anderson consulting types) check out "Micheal Jackson, Beer" the other paid tester was blind. Not sure if tasting beer for a living is worth the sight thing. If I sound a little weird, it's because I recently left Saipan, after a five month visit, which turned into 22 months, a wife, and a baby. Now I'm staying in Ulan Baatar, Mongolia (outer) Plus, I know Bruce. Best of luck in your new career. Mark Scease. http://welovesaipan-bigsoxfan.blogspot.com/