Before I get to Val's story, which will be in many installments, let me list a few of the irritants that we all must endure each day. Some years ago, the Surgeon General declared that it is not the Vesuvius-like stressors that wreck you (by producing massive amounts of the evil chemical cortisol in your body; no, it's the accumulation of minor little irritants that take the true toll. Cortisol Unleashed!

1. Telephone menus (solution: don't use the phone)
2. Cell phones with buttons too small for your fingers (solution: glue on claws)
3. Slow talking telephone robots (solution: some say press O and you will get a human, but I've found it usually doesn't work. Don't use the phone.)
4. Courtesy callers (solution: get on the NO CALL list)
5. Steel-like plastic packaging that requires a blow-torch to open (solution: buy a blow-torch)
6. The COST of throw-away razors; the COST of printer ink cartridges; hell, the COST of everything (solution: there is none)
7. PDF formatting (detestable--solution: avoid it or pay someone to do it for you)
8. Medical commercials on TV that make you utterly paranoid (solution: don't watch TV)
9. Eight-year lightbulbs that burn out in six months (solution: keep returning them to where purchased)
10. Lost socks and coat hangers (where do they go? solution -- go barefoot and thrown your clothes in a heap on the floor

MORE TO COME. CHEERS!