You spend five minutes carefully peeling a price sticker off a jar, convinced this time you'll get it clean. You don't. Your fingers are now a tacky, translucent mess—basically human flypaper—and the sticker has left behind a ghost of itself, mocking you from the glass. You try to wipe it on your pants. It doesn't help; now your pants are haunted too. The jar sits there gleaming, victorious, while you stand at the sink for ten minutes trying to convince dish soap that you're worth its time.

I spent three minutes trying to peel a shipping label off a box while my nails slowly folded back like I was auditioning for a contortionist. My thumb looked like a question mark. Eventually I just grabbed a knife, stabbed the box, and now there's a six-inch gash through someone's birthday present.