The Annoyance List and Yippy Dogs

I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, and in an effort to make myself feel better, I am going to present the Annoyance List (the opposite of my Happy Lists) and then stomp on it. (Yes, bad moods do give me the right to behave like a two-year-old, thank you very much.) Therefore:

• Magazine subscription cards
• Being stuck behind people who walk slowly
• Fluorescent lights in bathrooms and dressing rooms
• Having the blinking light on my answering machine turn out to be a wrong number or dial tone
• Zits
• Headaches
• "U" for "you," "RU" for "Are you," "l8" for "late," etc., anyplace except text messages
• Mistakes in books I've edited (this one qualifies for the Hate List, actually)
• George W. Bush and his Administration (ditto)
• George W. Bush's face, voice, and style of speech
• Everything George W. Bush has done for the past five years (cf. Karl Rove)
• The Republican political leadership in general (cf. Karl Rove)
• Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who give rational and loving Christians a bad name
• Glib, hypocritical, unsympathetic conservative political commentators
• The scent of urine in public places
• People who, upon finding out that I work on the Harry Potter books, tell me immediately that they disapprove of the American translations, especially the "Philosopher's" -> "Sorcerer's" change on the first book. Do I immediately tell *you* I find your work condescending and unnecessary without understanding or really thinking through the reasoning behind it? No, I have better manners than that. You should too.
• Losing at Scrabble because the person who played the last letter gets the value of my tiles and I lose those points
• Car and pharmaceutical commercials
• Dust from opened Jiffy padded mailing envelopes
• Karl Rove (cf. zits)

*stomp* *stomp* *stomp*

That does feel better. But I reserve the right to stomp a little more, or to move to Australia.

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In any case, one of the few good things this week was going over to Melissa's house Monday night and having our enormous HBP download conversation at last. J. K. Rowling announced in her interview with Melissa that Ron's Patronus is a Jack Russell terrier (don't worry, spoiler-haters, that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot), and Melissa and I proceeded to have the following conversation off this interesting fact (my recollections based upon hers):

Cheryl: A Jack Russell terrier.
Melissa: Yeah.
Cheryl: So it kind of makes sense because Jack Russells are loyal and you know, Ron is nothing if not loyal. But still, it's small and -- yippy.
Melissa: Ooooh, I'm a dementor, I run at the sight of a small yippy dog! AGGH!
Cheryl: [with hand motions] Yip yip yip!
Melissa: I am wearing my big black cloak of doom and can suck out a man's soul and -- AGGH! It's a small yappy type dog! [Melissa's note: Eddie Izzard lovers, the rest of this conversation is done in a really bad impersonation of him.]
Cheryl: [chortles]
Melissa: I --I am trying -- to suck the soul -- and -- goddamn it -- I suck the -- I can't get the dog -- off my robe -- I shall suck the soul but the dog is stuck to my robe -- be gone, yappy dog, be gone!

At which point we collapsed laughing and drank more wine. Good times. Small dogs. Yip!