syn. peeved, provoked, bothered, irked, disturbed
From Bill Bryson’s “Design Flaws”:
But then most things in the world don't seem right to me. On the dashboard of our family car is a shallow indentation about the size of a paperback book. If you are looking for somewhere to put your sunglasses or spare change, it is the obvious place, and it works extremely well, I must say, so long as the car is not actually moving However, as son as you put the car in motion, and particularly when you touch the brakes, turn a corner, or go up a gentle slope, everything slides off. There is, you see, no lip around this dashboard tray. It is just a flat space with a dimpled button. It can hold nothing that has not been nailed to it.
So I ask you: What then is it for? Somebody had to design it. It didn't just appear spontaneously Some person--perhaps, for all I know, a whole committee of people in the Dashboard Stowage Division--had to invest time and thought in incorporating into the design of this vehicle (it's a Dodge Excreta, if you're wondering) a storage tray that will actually hold nothing. That is really quite an achievement.
Bill Bryson, in an annoyed state, criticizes a certain feature of his car’s dashboard as a flawed design. He initially explains the apparent purpose of the impression, but furthermore mocks how easily objects slide out of it. It would seem as if an invention such as a sunglass holder could do so much as keep the affairs of the driver steady during even a small shift of the car, but apparently this particular one cannot. Even a simple action such as “[touching] the brakes” causes objects to shift, deeming the indentation entirely useless. Bryson’s overstatement of a matter having to be “nailed to [the tray]” emphasizes his irritation with the defective apparatus. Finally Bryson resorts to questioning the makers of his car’s dashboard to give the impression that it is even more preposterous than already described. His sarcastic reference to the creation of the space as an “achievement” serves once again to reveal his exasperation.
Bryson, Bill “Design Flaws.” The Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M.
Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 194.