7ToF: irritations major and minor. Well, OK, I guess they're all minor in the grand scheme of things.

1. We are among the few dinosaurs left in the US who still have a landline. We've had the same phone number since 1992, and it is tied into everything. We had a great reminder of that last weekend: a friend from college that we haven't talked to in several years called and fortunately, we have the same old number we've always had.

2. But we've had a sudden dramatic increase in the number of automated calls we receive. Used to be that runup to elections were the worst, when we'd get a half a dozen calls a day. And I thought that was infuriating. But yesterday, the phone rang half a dozen times before 10 a.m. It's ridiculous. Sometimes we'll get twenty calls in a day. That phone call from our college friend was the first time in weeks that the phone rang and it was someone we actually wanted to talk to.

3. I thought Dean had accidentally clicked on an ad, or I had bought something from a new vendor who'd sold our number far and wide. So as annoyed as it makes me, I was a bit relieved to read this article that reports robocalls increased by 900 million during the month of April alone. It's not just us, it's happening nationwide. And if I cancel our landline (which I was on the verge of doing), we'll start using our cell numbers when we sign up for things, and then our cell phones will be inundated with unwanted calls. So I guess we're just stuck. Since our landline almost never receives phone calls we want, I may just turn off the ringer and check the answering machine once a day.

4. Remember my confession that I use face wipes to take off my makeup at night? Well, under the heading "Gross Things I Wish I Didn't Know," file this article, about enormous clumps of trash and cooking waste that are turning up in sewers in the UK. Know what they are mostly composed of? Wet wipes. They're wipes that have been flushed down the toilet, not "binned" (put in the trash)(which is what I do with my face wipes), but still. It was disturbing to read, and disturbing to realize my guilty habit really has no excuse.

5. So I'm working on a new plan. Plan A: compostable wipes. I found some at Target in the baby department. They are multi-use, not just for--ummmmmm--bum wiping, shall we say, so I'll let you know if they work. Plan B: buy one of those packs of a dozen washcloths and create my own wipes that get tossed in the laundry. I'll keep you posted. I'm not usually a DIY person, but if I can come up with an easy way to do this, I'll pass it along.

6. Why do I hate washing my face in the sink so much? I always have, this is not a new thing, but I've never really thought about why. It makes a mess. It's hard to get all the soap off, so I end up with dried soap around the edge of my face, which makes my skin itch. I hate having water drip down my forearms (sensory issues, remember? don't judge).

But now that I'm old and must wear makeup to avoid looking like one of the walking dead, I have to do something. If I skip the night-time makeup removal step, I break out. It happened on my trip-- I ran out of wipes the last night I was in California, so I figured it wouldn't matter if I just skipped a night. 24 hours later, I had one of those crater-like zits on the side of my nose. Haven't had one in years. Almost two weeks later, it's mostly gone but there's still a spot there, damn you slower healing middle aged skin.

7. You remember in the last post I said something about throwing out canceled checks from 2003? I thought I was hilariously exaggerating by going back fifteen years. But guess what I found yesterday? A whole drawer full of check duplicates going back to 2003. *facepalm*

We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinners, but we would eat Kraft dinners.

 And then I found vet bills from 1992, and EOBs from surgery I had in 1996. So, decluttering continues. As it will, apparently, for some time to come. Have a great weekend.

P.S. In case you missed the Laurel vs. Yanny debate this week (this year's version of the blue dress vs. white dress), this article from the NYTimes explains it and has a tool so you can try it yourself. I very distinctly heard only Yanny at first, but then as soon as I moved the slider, I heard Laurel, and now I can't not hear it. Funny how the brain works.