Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[Katy M]

3 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I'd do this if I could--but there is up to a 3 week wait. That is, online delivery isn't available for the next three weeks for any of the large grocery stores. And fortunately for the local Indian stores, where I get my spices and food I want to cook, there is respect to keep the distance.

This reminds me of a pet peeve. People on the internet saying that everyone should stay home all the time. No grocery shopping. I replied people have to eat and not everyone can get their groceries delivered.  Even stores that have delivery can't possibly deliver to ALL their customers.  There wouldn't be enough labor for that to be done.  I was told I was wrong.  Stores don't want people coming in.  They all deliver.  OK, whatever.  Clearly every grocery store in the country, and every city/town is exactly the same and all grocery stores are able to do 100% delivery.  I actually think if that were true, the grocery stores would close to people coming in and require delivery, or at least curbside service.  I know at least 2 of the 3 grocery stores in my town aren't doing delivery OR curbside. Not sure about the third one or the co-op.  I know the grocery store that I go to had curbside ordering, but never had delivery.  Ironically, they had to stop the curbside when Corona hit because too many people were requesting, and they needed more people inside stocking up.

The town I'm originally from literally only has one full-size grocery store. I doubt they're delivering.

[KittyMom4]

On 5/15/2020 at 11:19 PM, Nordly Beaumont said:

I love trees too - but when they start causing me problems, like growing roots in my sewer line and flooding my basement? BuhBye! Dropping giant branches that could kill someone? You gone.

Exactly what was happening at my house. 

 

On 5/15/2020 at 11:19 PM, Nordly Beaumont said:

The problem in my neighborhood is that trees drop seeds, and people let them grow where a tree shouldn't be. Like the 80 ft twin trunk cottonwood that was growing out of my neighbor's 50 year old broke down retaining wall.

Same here, the trees I had cut down were not 'planted' they were grown where they landed and were not properly trained or trimmed to grow in the right direction. I had one massive tree that was about 6 feet from my front door. When they cut it down the inside was entirely rotted. One big windstorm and it would have landed on the house. 

I will be replanting a couple new trees next year,, specifically placed where they can do no harm. 

[Mondrianyone]

Okay, this is not out-and-out bitching, maybe just minor-league whining, but . . .

I pay for Prime, but even before COVID, deliveries that were supposed to arrive in two days routinely didn't. I currently have two packages sitting at different UPS depots in New England, both of which were supposed to be delivered today. Not even close to an emergency, and my life will go on just fine if they don't show up for another month. I totally understand if my silly orders are put on the back burner while UPS rushes sled dogs through to Alaska carrying the serum. I'd even offer to drive them there.

I guess there are two things that annoy me.  One is that Amazon never offers a rebate or a credit if Prime deliveries are late (sometimes a week or more late). Two, you never get a real explanation for what it was that hung things up. With these two packages, UPS tracking says "weather or natural disaster" is the reason. So one package is stalled in RI and the other's in CT. Weather here in Maine has been clear and sunny the last two days, so probably not weather. And I'm sure if there'd been some natural disaster in CT and RI, we'd at least have seen a brief mention in the news. Somebody owes somebody an explanation. UPS also always says that they leave things at our front door.  Which they don't. Ka-vetch, ka-vetch, as Norma Rae would say.

I really love FedEx.

ETA: I picked the wrong week to declare my love for FedEx, apparently. They need to rehire a driver they fired because he was subjected to some racist bullshit and had the gall to defend himself. Until they do, I don't really love FedEx anymore.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Mondrianyone

[GHScorpiosRule]

3 hours ago, Mondrianyone said:

I guess there are two things that annoy me.  One is that Amazon never offers a rebate or a credit if Prime deliveries are late (sometimes a week or more late).

Well, they'd offered it to me when my deliveries didn't arrive when they said they would. I even bring up the "as a Prime member" argument. And that if it's not in stock, then they shouldn't tell me my package will arrive on day x, if it won't. What's the point of being a prime member?

I wouldn't yell. But imply they're lying. and I would get a partial or full credit depending. Or a credit to use for a future purchase. But this was like a year or so ago.

I don't know if they'd stopped doing that because of the current state of affairs or not. 

[Guest]

They might be tagging covid as a natural disaster for lack of a different category and using it as a catch all.

[Mondrianyone]

8 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

But imply they're lying. and I would get a partial or full credit depending. Or a credit to use for a future purchase.

I've never had them offer me any kind of credit, but I was already planning on mentioning it this time.  Because this isn't entirely recent, and it was going on before the COVID issue was even a twinkle in anyone's eye.  Jeff Bezos is rich enough to give me a 20% rebate, I'm guessing.

7 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

They might be tagging covid as a natural disaster for lack of a different category and using it as a catch all.

Yeah, I figured that as well, but I think we're long enough into this so that a tiny company like UPS has had time to add another reason to their excuse list.  When I see "natural disaster," I keep imagining a volcano erupting in Warwick, Rhode Island.

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Mondrianyone said:

Yeah, I figured that as well, but I think we're long enough into this so that a tiny company like UPS has had time to add another reason to their excuse list.  

Don't be so sure they will ever add a reason.  I got a message of "customer redirected shipment" the other day, to which my reaction was "no I didn't, did someone hack and steal my delivery?"

Apparently, we delivered this to the wrong place and the recipient redirected the shipment are under the same category.  I don't think they create a category that may imply they did anything wrong in anyway or if they do, no one along the delivery chain picks them. 

[theredhead77]

19 hours ago, Mondrianyone said:

I keep imagining a volcano erupting in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Dude. Don't tempt nature!

[bilgistic]

I have to bitch about Spectrum again. I called to cancel my internet service since I moved yesterday. My $70 bill, which was sent to me two weeks ago, was due today. I asked for the prorated amount since I had the internet-only service for just two weeks. This of course was after the previous cable-and-internet service that was erroneously terminated, which I paid $99 for, in advance, apparently.

"We no longer prorate service prices as of July 2019." So I just had to pay $70 for two weeks of internet service after paying $99 11 days ago.

Fuck you, Spectrum. Fuck you forever. May you die in a fire. If I can help it at all, I will never give you another cent.

[Moose135]

2 hours ago, bilgistic said:

"We no longer prorate service prices as of July 2019." So I just had to pay $70 for two weeks of internet service after paying $99 11 days ago.

I found that out when I switched to internet-only service with them last October - I had to pay for a full month of cable/phone/internet even though I was switching halfway through the month. I went round and round with a supervisor, saying it was fraud to charge me for service I wasn't receiving. She kept saying it was the policy and no one there could change it.

2 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Fuck you, Spectrum. Fuck you forever. May you die in a fire. If I can help it at all, I will never give you another cent.

I've said this many times myself.

Hope your move went smoothly!

Edited May 24, 2020 by Moose135

[Browncoat]

Warning, pettiness ahead.

My street is considered by many (too many) to be a shortcut to avoid a couple of stoplights.  The speed limit is posted as 25mph.  It is routinely ignored -- most people drive in excess of 35mph, despite it being a neighborhood with kids and a primary/elementary school nearby.  There is way more traffic than there should be, and faster than it should be on a residential street with no sidewalks.  That's my peeve.  

Today, though, they're doing some work on the street, and have it blocked off, starting right in front of my house.  There's no advance warning, either.  I've been way too amused watching the speeding vehicles nearly screech to a halt when they realize they can't go through.  A couple of them have nearly hit the cones that are blocking the street.  (The work they're doing involves a deep trench cut across the width of the street.)  Unfortunately, it won't stop them forever, and that's my other peeve.  I actually wish the town would put speed bumps on my street, especially near the school.

[BooksRule]

I think it's great that we have the option to put material that can be recycled into our little green and yellow miniature trash cans so that they can be dumped into the 'not garbage' truck that comes through once a week.  I recycle what I can as well, but don't generally have a bunch of stuff to put in recycling--mainly the occasional canned cat food box.  That being said, I sometimes find myself chasing pieces of paper, newspaper, bubble wrap, light bits of cardboard box, aluminum cans, etc. that come sailing through my front yard after they escaped from a neighbor's can as it was being hoisted by the automatic grabby arm to the top of the truck. It seems to have gotten worse in the last several weeks.  I'm chasing trash through my yard every Monday. Either someone has become really diligent at sorting their recyclables or the person operating the grabby arm is in a real hurry and just flings the contents in the general direction of the truck. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by BooksRule

[HissyFit]

Is there a Pet Peeves Anonymous where a person can learn to ignore a longtime annoyance? I'm an admitted word nerd who cringes at the incorrect use of lie/lay, less/fewer, composed/comprised. But I'm ready to throw in the towel on lie/lay. The worst offenders are true-crime TV programs. In almost every one, someone describes a body laying on the floor, a gun laying in a drawer or a bloody shirt laying in the trunk. Why can't I shrug off this petty peeve? 

[peacheslatour]

45 minutes ago, HissyFit said:

Is there a Pet Peeves Anonymous where a person can learn to ignore a longtime annoyance? I'm an admitted word nerd who cringes at the incorrect use of lie/lay, less/fewer, composed/comprised. But I'm ready to throw in the towel on lie/lay. The worst offenders are true-crime TV programs. In almost every one, someone describes a body laying on the floor, a gun laying in a drawer or a bloody shirt laying in the trunk. Why can't I shrug off this petty peeve? 

User name checks out.

[bilgistic]

The continued utter and complete incompetence of internet service providers is going to put me in an early grave.

I already told my tale of woe here about the shitheads at Spectrum. I had taken my internet business to AT&T, starting a new account at my boyfriend's place, into which I moved on the 23rd. I set up the order before that, and my equipment arrived and was ready to be set up on the 16th. We didn't actually get around to setting it up until this weekend.

He already had AT&T internet and TV (the worst TV service ever). As a new internet customer, I got a very good deal, of course, with faster speed. We dropped the TV part, because we stream a lot of stuff and cobble together the rest.

My account wasn't activated, despite my having the equipment. We had to cancel his service first. OK, fine; I get that in theory, but what happens when someone moves and hasn't yet shut off their service and the new tenant tries to activate service? They just can't have service and have to wait until the former tenant cancels their service?

So we cancelled his service yesterday. It was going to be on until midnight and then I would have to call back today to activate my account/equipment, despite my account already being active since the 16th. OK, whatever.

Cut to me still on the phone with them some 45 minutes later because...you guessed it...they closed my account when they closed my boyfriend's account. Is this sounding familiar??

What the actual fuck is happening??

The rep (the second one I had to talk to) reactivated my account or started a new order--I DON'T KNOW--but my service won't be on until TOMORROW AT 2PM.

😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

Edited June 1, 2020 by bilgistic

[Guest]

On 5/26/2020 at 3:31 PM, Browncoat said:

Warning, pettiness ahead.

My street is considered by many (too many) to be a shortcut to avoid a couple of stoplights.  The speed limit is posted as 25mph.  It is routinely ignored -- most people drive in excess of 35mph, despite it being a neighborhood with kids and a primary/elementary school nearby.  There is way more traffic than there should be, and faster than it should be on a residential street with no sidewalks.  That's my peeve.  

Today, though, they're doing some work on the street, and have it blocked off, starting right in front of my house.  There's no advance warning, either.  I've been way too amused watching the speeding vehicles nearly screech to a halt when they realize they can't go through.  A couple of them have nearly hit the cones that are blocking the street.  (The work they're doing involves a deep trench cut across the width of the street.)  Unfortunately, it won't stop them forever, and that's my other peeve.  I actually wish the town would put speed bumps on my street, especially near the school.

I don't know if you live in a conventional neighborhood that happens to let out on two streets, but the neighborhoods around here that are big enough to access two different main roads will put a gate on one of the two.

Not being a fully gated community makes county still responsible for the road maintenance but only the neighborhood can use it as a cut through because everyone else hits a gate they can't go through.

[Browncoat]

We aren't a neighborhood with a homeowner's association -- we're just a bunch of houses that were built a long, long time ago on some old farmland.  My house is among the oldest, at about 60 or so years old.  There are businesses and shops at either end (and steep hills), so even if a gate were possible, it isn't practical.  

[SoMuchTV]

38 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I don't know if you live in a conventional neighborhood that happens to let out on two streets, but the neighborhoods around here that are big enough to access two different main roads will put a gate on one of the two.

Not being a fully gated community makes county still responsible for the road maintenance but only the neighborhood can use it as a cut through because everyone else hits a gate they can't go through.

Wow! It’s amazing how much things can vary from place to place. I’m assuming you’re in the US? Where I am, there’s no way a “neighborhood” (whether represented by a HOA or not) could just put up a gate on a city/county street. Although I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people in my neighborhood who would leap at that solution if it were legal and feasible - we are also in the 25-mph-popular-cutthrough-street situation. Diligent neighbors have been working with the city for years on “traffic calming” solutions. 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

Wow! It’s amazing how much things can vary from place to place. I’m assuming you’re in the US? Where I am, there’s no way a “neighborhood” (whether represented by a HOA or not) could just put up a gate on a city/county street. Although I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people in my neighborhood who would leap at that solution if it were legal and feasible - we are also in the 25-mph-popular-cutthrough-street situation. Diligent neighbors have been working with the city for years on “traffic calming” solutions. 

I'm in the US.  I don't know how they managed it. It might have been the developer who made it happen when the neighborhood was constructed.  I thought it was interesting that they only gated one side instead of making a gated community.

We haven't been able to get them to put a light on our main street even though there is a real road opposite our neighborhood, but I know the developer a nearby shopping center negotiated one as a condition of building.

So its probably one of those tax revenue talks things but since we are already here nothing happens.

 

[peacheslatour]

17 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I'm in the US.  I don't know how they managed it. It might have been the developer who made it happen when the neighborhood was constructed.  I thought it was interesting that they only gated one side instead of making a gated community.

We haven't been able to get them to put a light on our main street even though there is a real road opposite our neighborhood, but I know the developer a nearby shopping center negotiated one as a condition of building.

So its probably one of those tax revenue talks things but since we are already here nothing happens.

 

They probably got an easement from the City.

[JTMacc99]

On 6/1/2020 at 12:56 PM, HissyFit said:

I'm an admitted word nerd who cringes at the incorrect use of lie/lay, less/fewer, composed/comprised. But I'm ready to throw in the towel on lie/lay.

That's funny to me, because lie/lay is pretty much the only grammar rule that I know exists but have never got around to memorizing. I could literally google it right now and commit it to memory, but instead I'm choosing to just change whatever sentence I'm about to use to avoid it. "The shirt is laying sitting in the drawer."  

[HissyFit]

2 hours ago, JTMacc99 said:

That's funny to me, because lie/lay is pretty much the only grammar rule that I know exists but have never got around to memorizing. I could literally google it right now and commit it to memory, but instead I'm choosing to just change whatever sentence I'm about to use to avoid it. "The shirt is laying sitting in the drawer."  

Avoiding it is smart. Lie/lay is one of the toughest rules to memorize because the past tenses are so incestuous. As a retired editor, I wouldn't want to count (or admit) the number of times I looked up lie/lay. Often it was easier to omit the word altogether. "The body was on the ground. The shirt was in the drawer." Who cares whether the shirt was lying or laying or doing a tap dance?

Anyway, since grammar no longer is my bread and butter, I'm trying to learn to let some errors slide without having a hissy fit (you caught me, @peacheslatour). I hope that occasionally venting here will help.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

Who cares whether the shirt was lying or laying or doing a tap dance?

Hell, I'd pay good money to see that.

[HissyFit]

I would never correct a person for making a grammatical error, unless it was my job to edit that person's copy. My hissy fits are internal. But I'd like to teach my inner editor to chill when she hears something that makes her shudder.

Edited June 3, 2020 by HissyFit
Editing.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, HissyFit said:

I would never correct a person for making a grammatical error, unless it was my job to edit that person's copy. My hissy fits are internal. But I'd like to teach my inner editor to chill when she hears something that makes her shudder.

Lol, I know what it's like to be a grammar and spelling Nazi. I just keep scrolling but it's hard sometimes. There have been times when I just couldn't let it go. Saying "less" instead of "fewer: is enough to set my hair on fire.

Oh and I just thought of another one. Getting "infer" and "imply" mixed up. Gah.

Edited June 3, 2020 by peacheslatour

[Bastet]

I think lay vs. lie in the present tense is easy.  But I have to stop and think about some of the others.

Here's a guide:

Lie (intransitive verb):  To be in or assume a resting position on a surface.  Examples in all the tenses:

I am lying down.
I lie down at 3:00 every day.
I lay down to watch TV yesterday afternoon and fell asleep until dinner.
I have lain down on the couch in the past, but now I nap in bed.

Lay (transitive verb [which means there has to be an objective of that verb in order for the sentence to make sense]):  To place someone/something down on a surface.  Examples in all the tenses:

I am laying my dress on the bed.
I lay the baby down in her crib every afternoon.
I laid the folded laundry on the dresser yesterday and it's still there.
I have laid the mail on the table many times, even though there's a bin for it.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Bastet

[MargeGunderson]

So lie=person and lay=object? I just might be able to remember that! 

[auntlada]

59 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Oh and I just thought of another one. Getting "infer" and "imply" mixed up. Gah.

That always makes me think of "The Simpsons." Lisa and Homer had an exchange about it.

32 minutes ago, MargeGunderson said:

So lie=person and lay=object? I just might be able to remember that! 

Not really. A book can lie on the table. But you must lay the book on the table. I learned my method of remembering it in college. It has to do with sex.

[peacheslatour]

5 minutes ago, auntlada said:

That always makes me think of "The Simpsons." Lisa and Homer had an exchange about it.

Not really. A book can lie on the table. But you must lay the book on the table. I learned my method of remembering it in college. It has to do with sex.

As in "wow, he was an excellent lay?"

[Bastet]

39 minutes ago, MargeGunderson said:

So lie=person and lay=object? I just might be able to remember that! 

I think it's easier to just think in terms of lay = object and lie = no object, but understand it's about the presence or absence of an object of the verb: 

Subject + verb = lie
Subject + verb + object = lay

So:  Is someone/something lying down or is someone laying another someone/something down?

Simple in present tense.  And I think the various tenses of lay are fairly easy to remember/figure out because they all still look like lay.  But conjugating lie can get tricky: the past tense is lay and the past participle is lain.  Come on!

[auntlada]

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

As in "wow, he was an excellent lay?"

Yes. And the past tense of lie is not laid because laid requires an object.

[peacheslatour]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I am not necessarily talking abut grammar.  Have you ever worked with someone or know someone that no matter what you did it wasn't good enough?   It gets to the point where I ask them to do it, just so I don't have to hear them bitch about how I was doing it wrong.  Planting a plant, mowing the lawn, ironing a shirt, doing the dishes.   Those types of things.

 

Gee, that sounds mighty specific. Are you married?

[topanga]

19 hours ago, auntlada said:

Yes. And the past tense of lie is not laid because laid requires an object.

So is "She got laid" grammatically correct?

[JTMacc99]

22 hours ago, Bastet said:

Here's a guide:

Fine. Heh, I said I was happy not knowing, but now that you have officially educated me, I will probably not get it wrong again.  

Looks like to me, I just have to ask myself "Can I substitute the word 'put' in this sentence?" If so, it's lay.

I am putting my dress on the bed.
I put the baby down in her crib every afternoon.
I put the folded laundry on the dresser yesterday and it's still there.
I have put the mail on the table many times, even though there's a bin for it.

Whereas that doesn't work at all for lie:

I am putting down.
I put down at 3:00 every day.
I put down to watch TV yesterday afternoon and fell asleep until dinner.
I have put down on the couch in the past, but now I nap in bed.

 

Which now means that I can now do this: "The shirt is laying sitting lying in the drawer."

[Guest]

Have I ever mention that my pet peeve is when a thread gets side tracked into picking apart grammar?

My fear at voicing this peeve is so great that I ran this post through grammar check tool.

If my grammar is bad it is not my fault or it is at least not bad enough that the grammar check found my errors.

The grammar check tool did not find any errors so my grammar is at least as good as the grammar of the software designer.

The sentence proclaiming that my grammar rises to the level of the software designer originally had an error in it.

I am not convinced that there was an actual error.  I think the software is a narcissist.

My sentence accusing the software of being a narcissist had two errors in it.

My first correction had one error in it.  

I think that proves my point.  

I don't know what my point was.

Ohh, what time myself start that myself were only moving to torture you are a that bite taking that badly grammar translation tool this myself find {Oh, when I started this I was just going to torture you a bit with this bad grammar translation tool that I found.| 

[ABay]

Peeve: Overly picky citation requirements.

I'm spending more time and energy on trying to make the citations the way the online course mods want them than on the actual content of the assignment.

[bilgistic]

They started at dawn at my old apartment complex.

[PRgal]

On 6/4/2020 at 6:51 PM, icemiser69 said:

My grammar is really bad.   Commas are free, I stick them in everywhere. 

 

 

So you're a fan of the Oxford Comma?

[peacheslatour]

I just ran into one of my biggest PP's. I must have four hundred and eighty seven thousand "tupperware" containers. How many lids do I have, you may ask. TWO! I just made a huge batch of chili and I was trying to portion it out to the freezer, where do they go? Where?

[Moose135]

1 hour ago, PRgal said:

So you're a fan of the Oxford Comma?

The Oxford Comma rules!

 

7 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I just ran into one of my biggest PP's. I must have four hundred and eighty seven thousand "tupperware" containers. How many lids do I have, you may ask. TWO! I just made a huge batch of chili and I was trying to portion it out to the freezer, where do they go? Where?

The same place all those single socks go...

[Anela]

21 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I just ran into one of my biggest PP's. I must have four hundred and eighty seven thousand "tupperware" containers. How many lids do I have, you may ask. TWO! I just made a huge batch of chili and I was trying to portion it out to the freezer, where do they go? Where?

I have the same problem. I try to keep them together, dad just throws them into this huge dark cupboard (that's awkward to navigate, and I need to use my phone light when seriously searching). He then complains when I buy more of those containers, because I can't find anything that matches. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

A few years ago I was sick of the damaged or missing lid, and the plastic container cupboard.   I took all of the containers out, lined them up on the counters, and table, and then matched the lids to the containers.    Anything that was missing a lid, or container, or anything damaged went in recycle.   I ended up with only a few matching pairs, and the right sizes.   Then I tried to figure out what sizes I actually use, and then bought some of the plastic containers that click onto the lid.     I ended up with so much room in that cupboard, and I can actually find a container when I need one.    

Edited June 6, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[GaT]

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

I just ran into one of my biggest PP's. I must have four hundred and eighty seven thousand "tupperware" containers. How many lids do I have, you may ask. TWO! I just made a huge batch of chili and I was trying to portion it out to the freezer, where do they go? Where?

https://www.amazon.com/Piece-Attached-Plastic-Container-Seen/dp/B00KPP2RI8

[Nordly Beaumont]

I'm peeved by the different brands that makes "tupperware" that looks the same, but is slightly different. I have some short round ones and tall round ones with screw on lids. They look almost exactly alike (the edge around the top is slightly different) But the Glad lids only fit the Glad container, Ziplock only fits Ziplock. They come so close to fitting, but not quite.

[peacheslatour]

18 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I'm peeved by the different brands that makes "tupperware" that looks the same, but is slightly different. I have some short round ones and tall round ones with screw on lids. They look almost exactly alike (the edge around the top is slightly different) But the Glad lids only fit the Glad container, Ziplock only fits Ziplock. They come so close to fitting, but not quite.

Absolutely, THIS!. I have filled containers only to discover the lid I had was just slightly different. Cue dumping the food in a another container and washing first container. Now I make sure the lid available fits the container before I put the stuff in.

[theredhead77]

21 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I just ran into one of my biggest PP's. I must have four hundred and eighty seven thousand "tupperware" containers. How many lids do I have, you may ask. TWO! I just made a huge batch of chili and I was trying to portion it out to the freezer, where do they go? Where?

 

20 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

A few years ago I was sick of the damaged or missing lid, and the plastic container cupboard.   I took all of the containers out, lined them up on the counters, and table, and then matched the lids to the containers.    Anything that was missing a lid, or container, or anything damaged went in recycle.   I ended up with only a few matching pairs, and the right sizes.   Then I tried to figure out what sizes I actually use, and then bought some of the plastic containers that click onto the lid.     I ended up with so much room in that cupboard, and I can actually find a container when I need one.    

I do this one a year or so and on my last trip to visit my parents I did it with my moms Tupperware cabinet (filled with actual Tupperware).

This reminds me of a recent word problem I created:

TRH had 4 scrunchies. One broke and she had zero left.
TRH ordered a pack of 6 scrunchies which arrived a few weeks ago. How many scrunchies does THR have?

[Bastet]

Years ago, I replaced all my plastic food storage containers with glass (two of the 18-piece Pyrex snapware sets in the Costco coupon book; that was more than I needed, but 18 wasn't quite enough between pantry items, refrigerator items, and containers available for leftovers).  I'm very happy with them (and they have a lifetime warranty, although I have heard they're no longer offering that with new purchases).

I never had a "where's the lid?!" issue with the plastic stuff, probably because I didn't have a ton of containers so they were all in one small place and they were all the same brand.  At my parents' house, my mom used to have them - of varying brands - in three different places, and with it being hard to tell sometimes what lid goes with what container (as y'all have said, the different brands are so similar the slight difference can be missed when putting washed containers/lids away), it could be a chore to find the matching lid.  Thankfully she had me help her sort all her kitchen stuff several years ago and get rid of some excess, including enough containers that they're now all in one place.  The "dammit, that's a Gladware, not a Ziploc" confusion can still happen, but at least there's only one spot to paw through looking for the right one.

[SoMuchTV]

23 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

This reminds me of a recent word problem I created:

TRH had 4 scrunchies. One broke and she had zero left.
TRH ordered a pack of 6 scrunchies which arrived a few weeks ago. How many scrunchies does THR have?

Ooh!  Ooh!  I know this one.  Seventeen, dusty and under the couch, where the cat batted them.  But they're all about to break at the seam when you go to put them on.

[GaT]

25 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

TRH had 4 scrunchies. One broke and she had zero left.
TRH ordered a pack of 6 scrunchies which arrived a few weeks ago. How many scrunchies does THR have?

If she has cats, none. 

LOL, I see @SoMuchTV got there ahead of me. Also, check under the frig.

Edited June 7, 2020 by GaT

[peacheslatour]

34 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

 

I do this one a year or so and on my last trip to visit my parents I did it with my moms Tupperware cabinet (filled with actual Tupperware).

This reminds me of a recent word problem I created:

TRH had 4 scrunchies. One broke and she had zero left.
TRH ordered a pack of 6 scrunchies which arrived a few weeks ago. How many scrunchies does THR have?

9 because as soon as the scrunchies she ordered showed up she found the missing ones.