Pecked to Death by Life’s Petty Problems

While trying to convince a longtime friend I’m not a whiny little punk, some complaining was necessary. Thirty minutes later, either worn out or truly in agreement, my friend conceded the point: a variety of forces are combining to peck us to death.

It’s not the big stuff -- war and peace, family problems, your health, personal finances -- but the little stuff. Little things that shouldn’t be time-consuming and utterly exasperating, but are. Little things that barge in, can’t be ignored, and which keep us from enjoying life as fully as we should.

I’m just now emerging from a spate of such intrusions.

Let’s start with my switch to digital TV (due to a price increase), which requires that a cable box be hooked up to my TV and then “programmed.” I decided to install it myself, because the earliest appointment I could make for a technician to do it was 17 days away.

Two hours and a call to the cable company later, I completed the job. Why is it that in 2003, with a century of technological advancement behind us, such a task should take even the most technologically deficient, like me, more than a few minutes?

I can’t be the only person picking up the box that day who found the instructions so near-incomprehensible that it ate up part of my evening.

That test of will came on the heels of relighting the pilot light on my water heater.

The compactness of the shed that houses the heater makes it physically impossible to ignite the pilot with one hand while depressing the nozzle with the other. Your only option is to extend a lighted match blindly into the bowels of the heater and hope the flame hits the gas.

Three failed attempts and 45 minutes later, I succeeded. Call the gas company? Tried that, but a recording informed me it wasn’t open on Saturdays.

Why can’t a water heater be simpler to start up?

Next up: In switching car insurance companies, I used a broker to get a quote from an insurer.

The figure was much cheaper than my current premium, so I signed up and wrote a check. A couple weeks later, the insurer said the broker erred and I owed another $50.

That has resulted in another exchange of phone calls -- and a little bit more chipping-away of my mental health.

Something that should be handled quickly has become a monthlong irritant; my first contact with the broker was in December. Telling them now to stick it merely means I’d have to start the process all over again with another company.

Then this: Because someone neglected to cancel an automatic withdrawal I’d ordered, my checking account was overdrawn and two checks bounced. One more hassle, all because someone didn’t perform a simple task.

My friend’s initial reaction to these hassles (and a couple of others I added to the pile) was that they were trivial matters. “Yes, yes!” I said, insisting that that was precisely the point.

Individually, they’re trivial. Collectively, they’re a persistent drip, drip, drip that, in ways either conscious or subconscious, reinforce a person’s sense of helplessness and frustration. Whatever time we spend combating trivial things is time not spent on useful labor or the pursuit of happiness that is crucial in a world that presents so many big problems.

My friend suggested that little things can cause the most frustration.

They’re frustrating precisely because they shouldn’t be. He lamented about a recent 10-phone-call exchange with a ticket company in which he wanted a refund for an airline flight that went unused. Utterly maddening, he said.

“Now, you’ve got it,” I said.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.