My friend Sandra misses her olives.

She’s eaten a salad from Willie’s Food Court at least three times a week since the beginning of the year, and these salads always had green olives. But about a two weeks ago, the olives suddenly disappeared, and they since haven’t come back. Her salad once was super; now it’s so-so.

The post office raised the price of stamps by one cent, and the general populace took it as a personal affront. Nevermind that one would have to mail 100 letters to lose a stinkin’ dollar.

When the Chicago Tribune debuted its redesigned newspaper March 19, hundreds of people wrote in to complain. Their favorite comic was missing. The margins were too small. The crossword puzzle used to be at the bottom of the page, not the top.

Hannah, the housekeeper in my hall, can’t stand it when residents leave their shoes in the suites. She and her fellow housekeepers deal with endless hairballs in the shower, ramen caked on the kitchen counters and the weekly carnage leftover from munchies, bless their souls. But it’s gotta be the shoes, man. She hates moving the shoes to vacuum, and I don’t blame her.

It’s just one more thing, as my mom would say.

On a recent road trip to Madison, Wis., my buddy Sam and I drove my brother’s ’94 Ford Tempo. The car has some major quirks: It takes about 45 seconds to go from zero to 60 mph, it’s missing the passenger side rearview mirror and the air-conditioning doesn’t work . (The heat works all too well.) When it was Sam’s turn to drive, though, none of that really bothered him. What drove my friend crazy was the brake light. It’s always on – unless the car is braking, that is.

And that really irritated Sam.

The Madison folks we visited almost got into an argument over which ranch dressing to purchase for general apartment consumption: One roomie wanted to cut costs and try the generic brand. Another thought using generic ranch dressing was like committing salad sacrilege. Luckily, the ranch argument didn’t explode into a full-blown fight because they each took a cooling off period and vowed never to mention it again.

Jessie, the 5-year-old I baby-sit, refuses to eat his bologna sandwich if the crusts are on it. His 2-year-old brother, Ben, gets a kick out of making me read the same Teletubbies book over and over. (My record is 22 consecutive times.) The boys’ dog, Terrapin, only stops barking if I scratch him in a specific spot on his back.

Last Wednesday was rough. I had a lot on my mind – heavy things – like graduating, starting my career, leaving Chicago and growing up. I decided to take a walk.

About 30 minutes later, I was still walking and brooding, brooding and walking.

I almost walked smack into a tree branch that was hanging out over the sidewalk at eye level. Fortunately, I stopped just short of it, dazed.

One tiny flower bud caught my eye and focused my attention away from my thoughts. For about three minutes, I could do nothing but stare at that bud.

It was so beautiful.

It really is the little things in life that make it worth living. nyou