Things that drive me nuts about people

People tend to drive me nuts. Maybe I’m just a bit too anal, impatient, difficult or particular, but the thought processes of some people is utterly baffling. I’ll put forward one thing that still drives me nuts: mattresses. I’ll get to a few others later in the post.

I have had to, over my lifetime, buy mattresses. Obviously, most other people I know have probably also gone through the trouble of buying one. And yet, many people I know will try to buy the cheapest mattress they can. I fail to comprehend this idiocy. If there is one part of your life you shouldn’t skimp on it’d be the mattress. You lay on that thing 1/3 of your life! It’s important to get a good one. If you have to save money someplace, save it on bedroom furniture — you’re rarely there and when you are, most of the time your eyes are closed!

Yet, I’ve watched people go out, buy a new mattress, and then complain about how uncomfortable it is.

But it gets better. Some of my friends and family also have cottages. Guess what some of them do with those old, tired, lumpy mattresses? Yup, take them to the cottage.

Now, everyone who knows me knows I hate cottages and I hate camping. But if I had a cottage I’d be putting some fine mattresses up there. Again, you’re going up there to relax, to come back refreshed. How in the world are you going to come back refreshed from a weekend, week, or month at the cottage if the mattress pokes you in the back, is uncomfortable, and makes you toss and turn all night? Sheer lunacy.

And it’s not just mattresses, oh no. I’m in high tech and I have a nice chair. I figure if I’m sitting for hours I should be comfortable — I’m sure my boss appreciates the fact I’m concentrating on work and not how uncomfortable my ass is. Yet again, I know people who go out and buy a cheap chair. They justify the cheap chair by saying the expensive one is, well, too expensive. But is it, really? Comfort is worth money. And good chairs from Aeron, HumanScale, Steel Case, and others are well worth the $800 – 1200 they cost. Besides, I have friends with Aerons from more than a decade ago. These things last. It’s not like it’s not going to be with you for a while. Same with a bad chair. It’ll also last, but you’ll be uncomfortable until you finally break down and get a proper chair.

The irony to me is that some of my good friends will buy a cheap, crappy chair and then spend thousands on a desk that they’ll dump LCDs and tonnes of paper on. Go figure. I’ve had them come into my home office and stare in disbelief at my slab of a desk that’s just two old desktops spliced together and supported by strong bracing. Works like a charm. And it’s cheap. Plus, my drawers are IKEA kitchen cabinets lifted 1/4″. Again, inexpensive. My “desk” is 10′ long. Plenty long enough for a couple of monitors, my papers, some plants, a stack of books I’m reading, etc. Everything close by. I don’t even see the desktop as it’s covered by papers.

I could go on. Shoes and the women in my life who love shoes but seem to buy on style over comfort. I’ll never understand that. Or cars. I don’t get why people buy  cars they hate. It boggles my mind. I can understand those that just want an appliance of a car, something reliable to go from Point A to Point B. But I don’t get the ones that buy a car that’s utterly utterly boring and then complain about their commute in said conveyance. Spend a bit more, buy a better car. It’s not like all the better cars cost $100,000 or something. You can buy a fun car from $15k on up. Some cars are pretty funky. You can buy something like a Mini if you want something small and fun to drive or something like a Pontiac G8 GT (while they last) if you want something big, brawny, and sexy looking. Plus, there are a lot of great cars up and down the range from a variety of manufacturers — most of whom have pretty much equivalent quality today. In fact, if one looks at the quality numbers one quickly realizes — if they’re honest with themselves — that the average car today has better quality than a Lexus of a dozen years ago. That’s seriously impressive!

Yet I’m sure I’ll hear from my friends buying boring cars, uncomfortable mattresses, horrid chairs and the like about their problems. I’d love to sympathize, but I just can’t. Not when there’s that much choice out there and the prices are totally reasonable to get something much much better.