The Empty Return - Part 1: The Fuel Tank

As a teenager, I can distinctly remember the way my heart would lighten ever so slightly when, on buckling into mum or dad's car, I saw that the fuel needle came up anywhere near full.

It used to never occur to me that the position of the needle on return could have the reverse effect.

www.domesticcrimes.com

Open other side

It can provide great enjoyment to poke fun at people who do things like this because you are thinking to yourself 'How can they do this, when it is so clearly marked? Is it really that hard to stop and think before acting?'.

When treading the path of the comic, it is always easy to take the self-righteous point of view, lampooning the bufoonery of others for a certain lack of intellect and skill that the comic, by implication, possesses in bulk.

However it might also provide enjoyment to some of you to know that, for all of my procedural pontification in relation to opening cartons, the other day I actually caught myself doing exactly this.

The Beached Tea Bags

I know its a little thing, but this epidemic is absolutely disgusting and inexcusable. My mother did point out once that she does this because she makes very weak tea and actually re-uses the bags (I also think that is disgusting), but most people just do this because they’re lazy.

And leaving the spent bags in the sink, although neater from a visual and wet-spot prevention perspective, is just as bad.

The thing is, that my vehemence regarding this particular crime has promoted backlash. I once drew the scorn of two past female housemates who collected an entire day’s worth of spent bags, which I later found in my room that night when I went to bed, hanging from the wooden bed head like the corks around the rim of a stockman’s hat.

Needless to say that has just served to fuel my campaign for the eradication of this heinous crime.

The CD Case

This is something I just can’t understand people doing. It is like, and this is something I actually confess to doing regularly, making the effort to sweep up but then leaving little piles of dirt in strategic locations or like taking the care to wipe your arse, but deciding to omit the paper (not something I can recall having ever done...).

The irony is that they are the very same people who come back later saying, ‘Have you seen my Massive Attack CD?’

‘No, now bugger off.’

Hardcore heavy petting....

Now I love pets, but hardcore pet lovers are wierd. And this is just plain disgusting. You'd think that for someone who's obsessed with their dog that they might have actually watched what their pooch actually does with its mouth ...

The irony is that these very same people probably can't sit on a public toilet seat without putting half a roll of loo paper on the seat ... and the other half in the bowl to provide a hygienic, splash-free landing pad.