defeating the grinch

Things that could steal all my Christmas cheer:

1) I have just moved house, and finally left behind me the most patronising, unhelpful, annoying, idiotic, unethical landlord known to man. I have not mentioned him all year on this blog, just in case he ever came across it, because it's probably not a good idea to antagonise him, and we've had to be polite to him and treat him like a respected elder while he tells us we're unintelligent, messy and bad tenants (which is so not true - I cannot WAIT for him to discover in 2010 that he had it extremely good with us). I had to open up the house the other day for him to show prospective new tenants around, therefore I had to put up with him for a couple of hours.
However, that morning I had noticed (I'm sorry, this is gross) a small squashed decomposing creature of some kind on our driveway, which I could not bring myself to move because it was so foul. After he left that day, though, my other flatmate and I noticed the creature had gone and were astounded he'd done something helpful for once.
WRONG! I got a text message from my flatmate a couple of hours later - he had put the small dead animal IN OUR RECYCLING BIN.
Who's unintelligent now?! It would be funny if we didn't have to burrow in there to get it out.

2) This morning I put out our rubbish and organics bins on the kerb for the truck to come past and empty them. Because I am in a new house I did not realise that you aren't supposed to put them close to a corner, which meant the truck driver just drove straight past with a scornful look, probably thinking to himself - "GIRLS." Because I am in a new house we have a huge amount of rubbish this week and the bin was packed to the top. Great. We have to wait another fortnight with a steadily mounting pile of rubbish.

3) This morning, also, I parked at the mall, not realising I was parking in front of a "Restricted Park". Bang! A $45 fine.

I could be very angry and annoyed right now. But it's Christmas Eve!!!! I'm not! I'm happy! I'm wrapping presents! I feel like dancing round the room singing "Merry Christmas, horrible landlord! Merry Christmas, rubbish disposal truck! Merry Christmas, parking wardens!"

Merry Christmas, everyone!