The Secret To Getting Everything You Want…Sort Of

Do you have a pet peeve? I don't. Actually, I don't have any kind of pet...I'm too busy and lazy to take care of a pet. Pet peeves are especially difficult to feed and clothe, unless you're the chronically-angry type. I'm too busy and lazy to be a chronically-angry type. Plus, I have this problem with staying organized and focused, and pet peeves require a great deal of focus and organization. In order to keep the pet peeve fed, especially during dry spells when everything's going really well and nothing annoying is happening, it’s necessary to go out and look for trouble…and I already have too many to-do items on my daily list.

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Another strategy, if a pet peeve has gone into temporary dormancy, is to generate new pet peeves, at which point there’s a whole squirming litter of them, and it’s been my experience that it’s hard to farm out extra pet peeves to friends and family.

When I mentioned to an acquaintance of mine that I have no pet peeves, he remarked, “Yes you do!”

“Like what?” I said.

“Building construction.”

I thanked him for his input and went home to brood on the subject, which was difficult to do because of all the noise from the renovation of some nearby former art studios which were being converted into luxury apartments.

I decided the best plan was to take the bus to Minneapolis. Taking the bus to Minneapolis gives me the illusion of traveling somewhere else, possibly because I am traveling somewhere else. During the three blocks I was alone on the bus, I decided that building construction doesn’t qualify as a pet peeve. Pet peeves are things which only annoy certain people, not everyone. Pet peeves indicate some sort of grudge or neurosis.

I racked my brain, trying to think of something to develop a pet peeve about, something maladjusted and specific to me. All I could come up with are the kinds of things which anyone in their right mind would hate, like being called “ma’am”…or getting grossed out when people clip their toenails on public transportation…or becoming allergic to hair dye and having to go gray whether you want to or not.

Just as I was about to give up finding a pet peeve to claim for my own, a woman got on the bus. She expertly navigated paying her fare and getting seated, all while talking loudly on her cellphone.

As I listened to the woman’s conversation, I realized she was having success in every area of life where I wasn’t doing too well.

I got so envious and crabby overhearing all the good things happening to the woman and not to me, I realized I’d just developed a bona fide PET PEEVE!

My pet peeve: strangers who talk on cellphones in public, and their lives are better than mine.

For the next few miles, I explored my wonderful new feelings of resentment. I felt like I finally had something worthwhile to contribute to the global community. But then, after we crossed the achingly-lovely Mississippi River and stopped near the Guthrie Theatre, the woman got off the bus. As I watched her, something inside me snapped. I realized the woman was probably an actress rehearsing a part in a play, and the whole cellphone call was a hoax.

Just like that, my pet peeve evaporated, and my naturally-sunny personality kicked in. I found myself making mental lists of the ways I could be proactive about procuring the goodies the woman was pretending to have while she talked on her phone. I got off at the next stop and headed back to my studio…and ever since, my entire life has been an ongoing, raving success.

The trouble is, I still don’t have a pet peeve.

To Bee or Not to Bee?

When my  friend The Gardener waxed eloquent about watching bumblebees cavort in his magnificent  garden, I said in my most-wistful City Rat voice, "I wish I was a bumblebee flying around a beautiful garden."

"If I looked out my window and saw a 125-pound bumblebee flying around my garden, I'd be really worried," he replied.

Nevermind.

Finally I Get to be Right About Something

My late mother used to say outrageous things, great sweeping remarks about the nature of life in general. I’d tell her she was wrong, and she’d argue she was right… and much to my dismay, she always turned out to be right.

Except about one thing: my mother told me you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I usually don’t have flies in my loft. I have other annoying creatures, both human and non-human, but not flies. Something changed, though, when I awoke one morning with the thought in my head that I should eat more fresh fruit.

Ignoring my own advice to never go grocery shopping while hungry, I threw on some clothes and rushed to a nearby food market. The moment I walked into the place, a shelf groaning with organic strawberries caught my eye. The winsome fruit was exactly the shade of alizarin crimson I favor in oil paint, hair, wine…and strawberries.

I grabbed a pound of the berries and headed toward the checkout counter.

As soon as I got home, I washed some berries and popped them into my mouth. They tasted so good, I gave my reflection in the mirror a double thumbs up. I put the remaining berries in my refrigerator to feast upon later.

Several hours later, after a satisfying session of painting, I took a break for a snack. When I opened the refrigerator door, clouds of fruit flies flew out and converged upon my kitchen counter, which held the remains of my previous night’s party. The unwashed wine glasses especially attracted the tiny, winged vermin.

I ran a sink full of hot water and liquid soap, plunging the wine glasses into lavender-scented suds. Most of the fruit flies perished immediately. A few of them escaped, so I rolled up a copy of The New York Times and taped it into place, fashioning a deadly artisanal swatter.

Then I marched the uneaten fruit to the dumpster outside.

The next few days were hellish. Every time I thought I’d killed the last of the fruit flies, a new batch would appear. I put out a little dish of honey, thinking the vermin would get stuck in it and I could squish them to death, but they ignored the honey. All they wanted to do was hover around my head, making it difficult to do anything constructive.

It was time for a fruit fly trap.

If I’d lived near a cute little hardware store, I’d have gone there to ask if they had any fruit fly traps. But all the cute little hardware stores have been gentrified out of my neighborhood, so I had to go shopping online.

Oddly enough, no one had fruit fly traps for sale online, but I found lots of DIY hacks. Several involved filling a shallow container with apple cider vinegar and squirting a dab of dishwashing liquid into the vinegar.

Luckily I had all the required supplies in my loft, so I made a fruit fly trap and put it on the kitchen counter.

Within two hours, 43 fruit flies had drowned.

Three days, later, the infestation was over.

The possibility that my mother was wrong about other things besides how to catch flies has opened up a whole new world of potentials. For example, what if it’s not true that the early bird gets the worm? What if it’s not true that if you make your own bed, you have to lie in it?

What if it’s not true that it’s a man’s world and nobody can ever change it?

Hmmnn…