It seems to me that we are such creatures of habit, that when there is a change in our daily routine, it can throw off our whole day. Take for instance the newspaper. My husband's day begins at 4am (just so he can be out the door by 5:30 and avoid traffic - the DC area is the WORST in the nation according to some transportation forum report; we beat out LA for the title!). The first thing he does when he gets up is to make sure the coffee pot's auto feature was set the night before and is dripping, because if it is not, then he has to push the button to the "on" position before he goes into the shower. He takes a shower. Puts on sweats. Fixes a cup of coffee. Fixes his breakfast - usually a bowl of cereal and fruit or hot oatmeal. Reads the newspaper - but he has to read the previous day's paper, as our paper does not get delivered until 5:30-6:00am, and he is already gone. Now in the event a day passes without a newspaper being delivered, and he has to scrounge around for something else to read while eating his cereal (I have witnessed him reading our electric company's newsletter which contains exciting articles about the oldest resident in our neighborhood and how when they were a child, electricity was just being invented), his whole demeanor can change. He grumbles about the delivery guy not doing his job (who, by the way, probably was lying in a ditch somewhere, cut off by a crazy driver, on his way to deliver our paper), the coffee is too weak, the grapes are too soft. It effects his morning routine. Then there are the Saturday jaunts to Charlottesville for UVA football and tailgating. I drive because Chico Negativo does not like my baby SUV - apparently, it's a boat or a tank (well to the man who drives little egg cars, a Mariner would be a tank). My driving to C'ville affords Chico the pleasure of his latest addiction - SUDOKU. He read an article about keeping your mind sharp and this is one way he does it. Nothing wrong with that, except when the lack of a sudoku puzzle effects your ability to sit still in a car for 2 hours. So the Saturday that we left at 7am to be down in C'ville by 9am for tailgating and the paper was not in the driveway upon our departure, Chico searched the car for something to read - maps, old receipts, no they weren't going to cut it; so, he read the entire football program from a game 2 weeks before and dutifully passed on to me all the stats for each player on UVA's 2011 team (and some extremely interesting tidbits of info about the new coach's previous 20 coaching jobs before coming to UVA two years ago!). So you see, a small thing like a newspaper can make all the difference in the world when your well-ordered world has to deal with change.
I think the best part about this peeve is the fact that the picture perfectly depicts Pa...weren't those almost his exact words when he had to move his office???
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