By: Jackson Liu

The most annoying things in life are often the smallest things. Like baking a cake and getting it stuck to a pan, burning cookies, and tangled earphone cords.

Let’s say you wanted to eat some partially healthy homemade cake. You make the batter, and then you put it in a mold then bake it in an oven. You take it out when it’s done baking, but you realize it is stuck to the mold! You grab a knife and attempt to separate it from the wall of the mold and after 5 minutes, you finally do it. You take it out and realize your perfectly round cake is now a squashed lump with craters all over it. This small thing causes unfathomable amounts of pain and suffering for moms around the world.

Burning cookies is also annoying. You spent 40 minutes mixing the batter and shaping them into cute shapes, then when you finally put them into the oven you are very happy. When the cookies are done baking, you take them out with high spirits but then you notice it. All your cookies smell like smoke and are completely charred to black. The smoke alarm starts beeping and you have no choice but to throw away the burnt cookies. This small thing causes unfathomable amounts of pain and suffering for moms, children, and bakers worldwide.

Another annoying thing is having tangled earphone cords. Let’s say you’re at school, and your teacher tells you to pull out your chrome books. You pull it out and plug in your earphones, but find out your cords are all tangled and you have to practically lean your head into the screen to put on the headphones. You have no choice but to slowly untangle the cord bit by bit, and by the time you’re finished, your classmates are already halfway done with whatever assignment your teacher told you to do. You get anxiety and get a bunch of questions wrong because there’s almost no time left and you don’t have time to think. You go home and plan to start playing video games. Your cords are even longer than the ones at school, and they’re tangled too. You spend most of your time untangling them, but then you finally lose your temper and completely trash your gaming setup. This tiny thing causes unfathomable amounts of pain and suffering for students and young gamers around the globe.

But, in my opinion, the most annoying thing in life is not being able to fit a plate into a microwave. Imagine this: you are very hungry, so you get a big plate and put many different types of food on it. You then arrange it in a cool pattern and you can’t wait to eat it. You try to put the plate in the microwave but it won’t fit. You spent so long making the food in a perfect design, but now you have to get a smaller plate and either dump the food on the smaller plate or rearrange your food all over again. Your face now resembles a frowning seal. This small thing causes unfathomable amounts of pain and suffering for many kids in the world and makes adults grumpy.