Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore

by Ian Urbina

What can you do when the world is pushing you over the edge? More than you think.

For some of us, it's the automated voice that answers the phone when we'd rather talk to a real person. For others, it's the fact that Starbucks insists on calling its smallest-sized coffee "tall." Or perhaps it's those pesky subscription cards that fall out of magazines. Whatever it is, each of us finds some aspect of everyday life to be particularly maddening, and we often long to lash out at these stubborn irritants of modern life.

In Life's Little Annoyances , Ian Urbina chronicles the lengths to which some people will go when they have endured their pet peeves long enough and are not going to take it any more. It is a compendium of human inventiveness, by turns juvenile and petty, but in other ways inspired and deeply satisfying. We meet the junk-mail recipient who sends back unwanted "business reply" envelopes weighted down with sheet metal, so the mailers will have to pay the postage. We commiserate with the woman who was fed up with the colleague who kept helping himself to her lunch cookies, so she replaced them with dog biscuits that looked like biscotti. And we revel in the seemingly endless number of tactics people use to vent their anger at telemarketers, loud cellphone talkers, spammers, and others who impose themselves on us.

A celebration of the endless variety of passive aggressive behavior, Life's Little Annoyances will provide comfort and inspiration to everyone who has ever gritted his teeth and dreamed of sweet retribution against the slings and arrows of outrageous people.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Short Stories

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the responses to these minor annoyances are sometimes amusing, they are also astounding and confounding in the lengths that some people will go to for retaliation. Each vignette displays reactions that are petty, narrow-minded, and just as obnoxious or even more so than the original annoyance. I, and others, might just admit to imagining carrying out such passive-aggressive actions, but the sane majority of us would never actually do so. The movie Frozen offers great life advice – let it go!

Recommended to those who want to briefly indulge their inner mean, annoying, and immature self. 🤪

[Kirsti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmmmm. A few of these were inspired, very funny, or even practical:

* www.sweetchillisauce.com: Hilarious (and consistently entertaining!) scamming of would-be Nigerian scammers.

* www.junkbusters.com: I have used tips from this site for a couple of years, and I have dramatically reduced the amount of junk mail I get. Less hassle for me, good for the planet. (I have nothing against junk mail, as I used to make a living writing it, but it's wasteful if I'm sure I will never buy the products.)

* Registered Call: Allows people to record copies of telemarketer and business calls and store those calls as computer files. The person who founded the company was the only one in the book whose story was a near-tragedy rather than a minor annoyance. His girlfriend broke her neck while vacationing in Namibia, and her health insurer kept him on the phone for an hour without coming close to resolving the billing issues. His calling card ran out of minutes, he called back, and they had no record of the call . . . so he had to start all over again.

* The idea of using the Spanish-language operator (who evidently always speaks English) when the wait for the English-speaking operator is too long. I haven't tried it, but it's an interesting idea. Apparently you just apologize and say, "I couldn't get through on the other line."

However, many of the tactics described seem ineffective, pointless, or even downright cruel. Why call up a volunteer during a public-TV pledge drive and harass that person? If you don't like pledge drives, then either donate so they don't have to do the beg-a-thon or STOP WATCHING PUBLIC TELEVISION. Sheesh.

I don't like dealing with thoughtless, rude, or incompetent people, of course, but some of the suggestions in this book could get me screamed at. Or worse. Listen, I live near Chicago, and we are apparently about to lose our handgun ban. I don't know about you, but I can't be too careful.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really was prepared to love this book, and there were parts that I did get a kick out of. But I've worked as a clerk and a telemarketer back in the day, and I've been behind a direct mail campaign--and too many of the anecdotes were sticking it to the people who really didn't have the power to change any given annoying policy. After a while (and I did sit down and read the whole thing in one gulp which may be part of the problem), I started cringing.

[Gina Boyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these anecdotes made me chuckle, but a lot of them left a really bad taste in my mouth. I think the world might be a better place if people channeled their passive-aggressive energies into doing something that really mattered.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I once wrote "KARMA" on a piece of paper and stuck it to the windshield of a truck parked across two spaces in a crowded parking lot. But the level of dedication some of these people had to go the lengths they did for these minor inconveniences--what a world we live in.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this would a be something funny to read. Although a few of the stories were funny, for most of them all I could think was why do people waste their time with these things?!

[C · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book annoying :(

[H. Givens · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hoped it would be funny, but ironically, it just annoyed me more and more. Most of the stories were just petty, or actually harmful. Almost all of them were more annoying than the original stimuli.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I would find this book amusing... but really I just judged people for having too much time on their hands.

[Clinton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, albeit very quick, read, Urbina recounts stories of people who got fed up at the little annoyances of everyday life (excessive cell phone charges, tailgaters, telemarketers) and decided to do something about it. In general, the stories read more like accounts of grumpy people who are just being ornery, but a few of the entries are humorous and even useful. My personal favorite: the guy who adjusted the sprayer on his car's rear window to spray onto cars that are tailgating.

A moderately entertaining distraction, but not a book to approach too seriously.

[Eldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read. Easily provokes a snort, chuckle, guffaw, belly-laugh or roar.

If there is even a small part of you that has ever been annoyed, a small part that is not adamantly in-your-face, a small corner of your psyche that admires creative revenge, ahem, solutions, read this book.

If that part of you is not so small READ THIS BOOK!! You can thank me later.

[Valice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun to read about how other people deal with "annoyances", many used the things I've done to "fix" those problems, but most in this book go further than me. I wished there had been longer pauses or ringing bells, or something between the segments instead of just jumping into the next.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely hilarious collection of wonderfully offbeat, passive-aggressive solutions to such everyday problems as loud cell phone talkers, Nigerian e-mail scams, and people who fail to clean up after their dog.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun book, bought on a whim with Jenn in Edgartown during the birth of our ongoing "Annoyedtown: population us" joke.

[Martin Bihl · Rating 2 out of 5]

One joke, over and over and over and over and over again. A couple of funny lines though...

[Denise Hoecker · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit outdated regarding what annoys people. Easy read though.

[Tonya · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Random read - I was ready to LOVE this book in part to my smart ass nature. The book was slightly amusing, but fell short of it's potential.

[Deena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how irrelevant some of these stories would be nowadays.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The people described in this book are my kind of people and my kind of problem solver. Reading this book made me feel better about reality in general. :-)

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this to read while staying at the hospital. I really wanted something that would be funny enough to make us laugh out loud. This was not it. There were a few mildly amusing stories, but all in all it was a bunch of boring stories about people who take their anger out on the wrong person; like the ones who are passive aggressive with store clerks because they don't like the policies of the company. Dude. Don't shop there if you don't like it. If you insist on shopping there, don't take it out on the poor clerk who makes minimum wage and probably doesn't like the policies either.

I did really like The Rejection Rejection Letter.
A paragraph from the tongue-in-cheek letter: Despite your company's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my requirements at this time. As a result, I will be starting employment with your firm on the first of the month.

[Jeff Lloyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who hasn't gotten frustrated answering a telemarketer's call at dinner, or been frustrated in traffic, or disgusted by junk mail. I am not saying I didn't relate to the everyday problems discussed in this book, but aside from an occasional chuckle, most of the time I was reading i was thinking"Get a life - let it go,"
If the book had been any longer, that's what I would have done "Gotten a life and put the book down". Reading this book was similar to channel surfing for a couple hours - I remember doing it but don't recall what I watched.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an advertisement for passive aggressive behavior. Some of the stories were very funny, but some were punishing the people who really had no control over the situation. Some of the annoyed people were brilliant, some just needed to get a life. Mildly amusing, though.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was funny at first. Later it just became sad. The people in the book did things out of frustration, and the things were mostly worthless. They helped the person vent, but rarely got effective action done, for their issue.

[Monica Penthor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and entertaining book. It surprises me to what lengths people will go to in order to get rid of / seek revenge for annoyances, be it telemarketers, religious persons who call at your door, unwanted mailings, etd. Some of the solutions take a lot of time and effort to execute.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but really just found the negativity and passive-aggressive nature of individuals a little disheartened. Would've loved to see people use their hours of time and effort on something more life giving.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

[no review recorded]

[Ctron82 · Rating 5 out of 5]

looking for a good laugh? this is the book for you

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cute, humorous book and a quick read. It has stories in it about annoying things that happen in life and how they have been dealt with.

[Liliana Bachelder · Rating 4 out of 5]

when push comes to shove
some made me cry from laughing

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this quick audiobook read by Stanley Tucci. It's very funny to hear some of the lengths people will go to just to get back at people or companies. Very fun to listen to indeed!