Top Ten Things that Could Make Other People Mad

Giving someone driving directions that lead directly into a lake
Wearing a tan suit to a press conference
Surreptitiously removing a single piece from your friend's in-progress 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, then acting surprised and dismayed when there's one piece missing after she finishes it
Wearing a bright blue suit to a major religious leader's funeral
Revealing the secret—once closely guarded—of how to fly business class for the price of economy
Calling another driver a "peckerhead" when his lane unexpectedly ends and he tries to merge into yours
Humming "Don't Worry, Be Happy" during someone's root canal surgery
Calling another driver a "peckerhead" when your lane unexpectedly ends and you try to merge into his, but he won't let you in!
Something something something acetaminophen
Excessive use of "tush push" maneuver

Posted September 24, 2025

Commentary

This is one of those list titles that seems promising and intriguing but can be kind of deflationary once you actually read it. It brings back memories of our list on Top Ten Challenging Situations which turned out to consist mainly of riffs on Biden's 2023 State of the Union speech. Oh well.

Anyway, we've been looking for an opportunity to spoof an idea introduced in a dramatic scene in Dunder Mifflin Infinity (Episode 2 of Season 4 of The Office), and finally found a way to use it in item 10. We must have had The Office on the brain lately, as we referenced a different episode of The Office in our previous top ten list on negotiation tactics.

For this list of Things That Could Make Other People Mad, we worked in a couple of parallelism jokes in items 9 and 7 and items 5 and 3, which is always fun. Items 2 and 1 are riffs on current issues in public health and professional football. Item 6 is a spoof of a frequent internet headline. (Apparently, we finally tired of making jokes about the old "click me" headline regarding whether the floating door could have supported the weight of both Jack and Rose in the movie "Titanic.") Ah, memories.

Item 8 is based on an idea from our webmaster, who is a puzzle enthusiast. Recently he completed two puzzles that were missing a piece. Of course, that's probably because the old grouch lost the piece while assembling the puzzles, right? But now he's gone and cooked up a conspiracy theory that he's circulating as if it were fact. How irresponsible! He's even thinking of joining KlugAnon.

This image of "a frustrated person who just completed a jigsaw puzzle, only to find that one piece is missing" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.