Some people are truly irritating. They have an ingrown toenail ability to be painful, and they invariably get under my skin. For instance, I find nosy people who like to meddle most annoying.

When I was engaged to be married, my mother-in-law treated me to a day of pampering at a famous beauty salon in Chicago. The hairdresser told me that I had beautiful eyes and eyelashes, but that if I’d get my nose “done,” I’d be drop-dead gorgeous. I said, “I don’t want to drop dead, and I think I am gorgeous enough!”

Barbara Streisand did every girl of Semitic origins a great favor when she didn’t have a “nose job”, because it could affect her million-dollar voice. Shortly after that, Vogue Magazine put her on the cover, stating that she was as beautiful as Nefretete, the Egyptian Queen, and  Semitic noses became fashionable. From then on, Jewish girls could thumb their noses at plastic surgeons and feel like Egyptian Queens.

I know that the nose is designed for breathing and blowing, but unfortunately some women use it as an escape valve for the voice. Granted, women's’ voices are pitched higher than most male voices, however, I find a high pitch through a nasal passage vexing.

Also, when a person wears too much perfume or aftershave, it makes me sneeze, and is especially upsetting when I am sitting in a crowded theatre or in a  restaurant. And, it is well to point out that when in a restaurant, linen table napkins, as well as tablecloths, belong way under one’s nose—not wrapped around it.

Sometimes, I think I’d be better off staying home, because the minute this well-adjusted, happy person leaves the house, it seems as if someone is out to ruin my day,—-If it’s not the guy speeding past me, so he can get to the red light ahead of me, just in time to pick his nose,—it’s the Mariachi band that arrives at my table in the restaurant (playing “Vaya Con Dios”) just in time to drown out the punchline of my joke. And, then, the waiter shows up saying, “Are we enjoying our meal?”

A friend and I were having lunch on the terrace at a fancy restaurant. We enjoyed the view until two children started hitting each other on the head with croquet mallets.  Their mothers had their noses deep in their second or third martinis, and refused to recognize those kids.  It was indeed a sticky wicket.

So to sniff out  an answer as how to exist in this irritating world, I looked up Warren Buffet’s philosophy. It was simple. He suggested, “Be lovable.” What can I say about that except,
“Be rich enough to pay someone to go away.”

Esther Blumenfeld