There are specific features that all objects and individuals possess. We buy those objects, the features of which satisfy our needs. We choose to be with those individuals who have features/dispositions/mannerisms/values etc. that we feel comfortable with or that give us happiness.

But sometimes when we get close to some individuals, those likable features turn out to be different from what we had assumed. When that happens, do we feel like sending them back to the time and place where we found them so could move on without having to live with them?

I do.

These people don’t come in brown paper bags wrapped up in ribbons or with receipts but I  still wish I could return just that specific feature that annoys me the most about them.

Let’s work with examples here.

1)     Pedantic writing – There is nothing more sleep inducing than extremely formal form of writing.

Feeling – Return the book with a formal (pun intended) note to the author.

2)     Slovenly Writing – Hope I am not guilty of it. Nonetheless, I hate writing where incorrect grammar, verb and tense disagreements and fragments abound.

Feeling – Return to the trash can.

3)     I slog in the kitchen to make that one dish that I learnt from his mother. My husband  gobbles it all up and with a satisfying rub on his belly and then  announces that it is not like his mother’s.

Feeling- Return him to his mother.

4)     Before an upcoming party, I work out, I pick the right dress and the right makeup and I even manage to look great after days of efforts and then this one girl comes with a plunging neckline and steals all the attention.

Feeling – Throw her out of the party.

5)     Importance given to the royalty or other celebrities – When they wear something a second time it makes news, when I wear it for the hundredth time, everyone notices the frayed edges.

Feeling – Ban the royalty or celebrity from making news for unnecessary reasons.

6)     Spilling out to the entire group of FRIENDS OF FRIENDS on Facebook that you went to a particular restaurant and the FRIENDS living in the other hemisphere pressing LIKE. What do they of the food being served in the restaurant.

Feeling – Poster and Commenter, please get a life.