Life's Annoying/Frustrating Coincidences
 

I'm sure we all have them: annoying or frustrating coincidences in life. We can't do anything about them, but they bother us just the same. It's as though the gods are against us, or maybe some meddlesome imp has a grudge against you. What are yours? They may be recurring, or maybe a frustrating one-off....

Feel free to add more as you remember them, or as they happen to you!

[Usage note: contrary to popular culture, these are not "ironic" situations. (Damn you, Alanis Morrisette.) These are coincidences or incongruities. Irony is a discrepancy between what is expressed or evident and an intended meaning. A common error. Henry Watson Fowler put it well: "[...] any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this: that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same."]

Here are mine:

1. The kitchen in my apartment has a trickling hot water stream, which is very annoying when washing dishes, and I wash all my dishes by hand. The cold water tap is fine. However, at work, the tap I use to fill the kettle and coffee pot has a trickling stream of cold water, though the hot water is fine—even though I don't use it.
   
2. My SO, as a teacher, is off a week in March and during the summer: As one who works in the book publishing industry, these are my two most busy periods of the year. However, when I'm least busy (after book launches and promo, and before next season's submissions), my SO is neck-deep in report cards and other year-end or term-end duties. Both situations, twice a year. We are on inverted/opposite schedules. Man, it's so weird and so annoying!

My hot water heater is weird... and counterproductive.

When I convince myself to wash some dishes, the "hot" water is about the same temperature as a glacier-fed lake, but when I indulge in a relaxing bath, it is luxuriously warm and inviting. Do you think God is trying to tell me I shouldn't be washing dishes?

My apartment doesn't have a dishwasher.


And I didn't notice till a day after I moved in.

When I lived in a dorm at my university, my heater would put out cold air in the wintertime and my refrigerator would be warm.