Tiny disappointments in life

[TeaHagTeaBag]

Dh has just put on an episode of University Challenge. It disappoints me every time that the teams aren't actually sitting one on top of the other.

Cocoa beans, the raw ingredient of chocolate, do not actually taste of chocolate. They do not taste like a delicious, extra chocolatey bar. Oh no, they taste BLOODY AWFUL.

I was eight at the time. Such a shock!

This is such a lovely thread. Really enjoying all these stories

I must have been the same age when I tried a saccharin sweetener.
It tasted nothing like sugar, I nearly vomited.

When I was a child I went to a wedding and my Mum told me there was going to be salmon on the menu at the reception. I was so excited, we only had a tin of salmon at Christmas, and shared out amongst the family meant we each only got a taste, and I LOVED it.

When I got there and there was this whole salmon on the table, looking up at me, I was so disappointed. And it didn't taste anything like John West's!

When the Revels were dropping the peanut one, their advertising was very purple heavy, so I assumed it’s be a lovely blackcurrent cream (like the orange and coffee ones).

The appearance of the raisin still rankles, and I’m nearly 52. Bastards.

My twin sister and I wrote to Father Christmas when we were around 5/6. I think it was a service run by the Royal Mail.

Sister received a reply from Santa, a lovely card of him in his toy workshop, with plenty of ‘you’ve been very good this year’, platitudes, I did not.

Every day from then until Christmas Eve, when I knew the post would be the last one before Santa came, I would run to the letterbox, only to walk away crestfallen when my card from Father Christmas wasn’t there.

I truly thought I had been naughty and Santa wouldn’t deliver any presents that Christmas. With her being the older twin (by a whopping 10 mins), she was always given priority because she was the oldest (too many examples to recount here, and she was Dad’s favourite too). Even at a young age, I was aware of this discrepancy, so I can honestly say my absent Father Christmas card was a non event for my parents.

In retrospect, when my card failed to arrive, and having a few silent tears when I’d pick up the mail each day, as a parent I would’ve written a similar letter for me, just to keep the magic alive.

Of course, it was an opportunity for my sister to lord it over me, teasing me that I had been naughty so no presents for me (empowered by my parents unfortunately, I don’t recall at any point them reeling her in):

As a mum, I have written lots of letters for friends & family’s children, just in case their letter didn’t arrive - all calligraphy & decorated as if from the man himself - because I can still feel that wretched disappointment from nearly 50 years ago.

Another disappointment was, at 12, thinking tampons would make my periods carefree and filled with roller skating, rather than being doubled over in pain with a hot water bottle each month lol!

I like it when I open it at the end with the leaflet. Makes it easier to pop straight in the (recycling) bin.

(I don't do this for medications that anyone in the house might want to take but be unfamiliar with, and I'm only happy to do it because it's so easy to find patient information leaflets online if necessary. But yet another paracetamol/loperamide/daily prescription medication leaflet? Bin bin binnety bin.)

And this was why online shopping was invented 😂 to add some excitement into the bills and boring stuff!

Pink Lady. Every time.

That Stonehenge is soooo small!

id seen it many times from the road as a kid, got there aged 50(ish). Bucket list thing to do. And Ohhhhhh, ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

in hindsight I suppose to lug stones the size I’d assumed they were would probably have been impossible.

I loved it when contestants got locked in, and when you saw them sitting looking bored, usually playing with the crystal, if they had got it. Indeed, the fortune-telling Auntie Sabrina said to one contestant "You look like a nice strong chap, why don't you get locked in with me?" Again, I was disappointed to learn that they didn't just stay there: one contestant reports watching Blackadder videos during this time. We used to play the Crystal Maze at home, and we really got locked in (for up to five minutes).

This 100%

Wagon wheels are smaller

Not that near but yes and used to do that trail sometimes - had this username for a long time! And I think I also chose it cos I liked the beer but no idea if that is still available + it's kinda cheerful and nice sounding

You'd get on so well with my "D"H. Drives me mad and he goes on and on about it till February when if he says anything I say "It's getting lighter every day." and he stops. After 40 years of this I suppose my biggest disappointment is that he hasn't come to terms with it yet.

Oh yes! My Gran used to tell me I'd have men queueing up for me too 😂

I was always confused when John Craven presented Newsround the following day, having been blasted into space.

Tax and national insurance.
The "before deductions" figure on my old fashioned payslip was soooo much nicer than the After

A Christmas dinner family tradition with my brother’s in-laws which I think is a bit pants - they buy scratch cards for us all to do, but keep any winnings for themselves. Granted, they put the money towards future meals out and we all get on, but I will have to ask them this year what happens in the unlikely event of one of the ‘out-laws’ winning big. I’d been putting it off because I was afraid I might not like the answer!

My nurse's uniform.
Did not make me look like a sexy minx

When you have just finished eating that very expensive dessert at a restaurant and it was gone in a flash, you didn’t really taste it as you were mindlessly eating as you were chatting and what you do remember of it, it wasn’t that tasty anyway. I fall for it every time!!!

I used to wonder why Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World says "he spooned cocoa powder and sugar into two mugs", when making hot chocolate. Why use sugar? I too didn't know that cocoa is naturally bitter.

In a case of not being careful what I wished for, I was almost disappointed to find out that I would never get the cane at senior school. Roald Dahl made me curious as to what it really felt like; and I expect the Horrible Histories books would have made me curious, if they had been written then. When my school did a play of Nicholas Nickleby, they had prop canes which actually looked like they could cause real pain (they only mimed using them), with various jokes that they were genuine ones the school still had from when it was allowed. When we learned about Victorian schools at primary school, we had to imagine and write about our day in a Victorian classroom. Needless to say, I wrote gratuitously about about being caned, using Dahl's descriptions, even though I didn't know what it really felt like.

Same with bank / credit / store cards. My mum used to open her purse and I would be so jealous of all the cards then when she would swipe them and sign her name I was in awe of how grown up it all was😂

😂You should have got one from Ann Summers!

Oh god yes this ! , there are only two ways it can go so why does it always take three attempts

😂