Is it just me? I hate new stuff. No, I don’t live in the past. No, I don’t get buyer’s remorse. No, I’m not anti-progress. (Would that be antigress?) It’s that new stuff hates me so I just return the sentiment.

Let me start from the beginning. I got a new pan couple of weeks ago. I needed a good, all-purpose, use for anything, go from stove top to oven, can’t hurt it no matter how hard you try pan. So I got one. A top ranked, best buy, do it all carbon steel pan. It does everything it should do. It seasoned easily. Nothing sticks to it. Its construction was clearly well thought with a welded handle so there are no interior handle rivets and that handle is a perfect length and angle so it fits comfortably on top of the stove or inside the oven. It’s everything I wanted – and it hates me. It heats much faster than my old pan so I burnt everything I put into it for the first three days. It’s not too heavy but heavy enough that when I was using an older smaller pan and flipped an omelet I over compensated for the weight I didn’t have at the end of my arm and ended up having to clean half-cooked egg off of a textured ceiling. (While we’re at it, I hate textured ceilings also.)

Give me another two or three weeks and I’ll love my new pan but right now it hates me so I hate it. And I figured out I go through this with everything. I’ll get a new TV and I spend the first month with it adjusting the audio and picture settings. I got a new keyboard and experimented with every tone, tempo, and special effect before finally settling on the default settings. My new car is coming up on two years old and I still haven’t found just the right position for the seatback. New shoes – soles are too slippery. New book – pages stick together. New tablet – reset bookmarks. New pen – it’s probably easier to never write again! Seriously, is it just me?

Antigress? I think I’ll submit that as my nomination for best new word of 2016. I should start using it more now sto that by December I’ll be more comfortable with it.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?