I love you, but I loath you

Anyone have a love-hate relationship with various things in their life? For instance, I love getting a new magazine in the mail - particularly Better Homes and Gardens; the pictures are beautiful. But then sure enough, those same pictures taunt me with their perfectionism. The magazine should be called Better than Your Home and Garden. I know I've lost it when I start yelling at my magazine "For crying out loud - can they please feature a kitchen that doesn't look like all of the kitchens they feature every month! I mean come on! How many white cabinets, cup-pull handle hardware, island painted a different color with turn-table legs, massive hoods over a professional stove, subway tile back splash can they put in here? I swear it's the same kitchen every month from a different angle. " Yet I'm hooked.

Then there's the water filter. In my dream kitchen (that may or may not have a subway tile back splash) I will have a fridge with the water/ice dispenser in the door. Until then, we have a giant Brita tank in the fridge. We love it, but here's where the hate comes in: I HATE filling it back up once it's empty. The ultimate form of disrespect in our marriage is when the other person uses all of the delicious cold water and neglects to fill it back up for the next thirsty soul. Empty toilet roll; we can deal with that. Taking all of the hot water: workable. Leaving the water filter empty: heads will roll.

The last one I will mention here is our digital converter box. Thanks to it, we get more channels. But nothing can get us angrier than when we're in the middle of an important part of Masterpiece Theater and the signal gives out and starts breaking up into those cursed little boxes. Quoting Ryan "Why? WHY does it do that every time there's something important happening? How does it know?" My only consolation is "At least we're not paying fifty bucks for the signal, unlike when we had Charter cable and it did that". Now that was mostly a hate relationship with a tiny bit of love.