What You'll Put Up With

Yesterday, in a fit of home improvement mania, I replaced a pane of glass in a basement window that had been broken and held together with packing tape for over a year. Today, as much out of boredom as anything else, I fixed the front fender on the 420 bike, substituting screws for the zip ties that had held it on but failed to prevent it from rubbing whenever I rode the bike in the last six months. And then, undoubtedly setting the gold standard for lifestyle amelioration, I had Jen cut the tag out of one of my favorite shirts so that it would stop tickling and scratching me anytime I moved my arms or neck.

What’s most impressive about these acts—other than they were undertaken during the doggiest dog days of summer, when it’s all I can do to raise my head off my chest where it’s fallen as I “read” another few pages of one more forgettable pop novel—is how long I waited before undertaking them, especially when each of them represented a relatively simple solution to a situation or problem that had really bugged me every time I confronted it.

For someone who doesn’t put up with much, I sure put up with a lot: petty little annoyances that annoy me, pebbles in my tennis shoes, bad feng shui, like our spice cabinet whose shelves are too skinny and from which the spice bottles routinely drop, often breaking dishes sitting on the counter beneath.

And while I tolerate these irritations, they are, no doubt, like the drip-drip of a Chinese water torture on my psyche: while I’m not entirely conscious of how crazy they are making me, they are. Such annoyances are the reason I (figuratively) kick the dog, (occasionally) snap at my loved ones, and (typically) scream obscenities at drivers who almost run me down in traffic.

Clearly, I shouldn’t put up with putting up with what I put up with.

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