I need the right word to describe a fairly specific action.
Not ten minutes ago I wanted to eat a nice apple, so gave it a rinse and then peeled off the little sticker and held it over the kitchen top rubbish bag on the end of my forefinger, waggling it around. Of course it didn’t budge, so I used my thumb to pry it off, at which point it stuck to the end of that digit, flapping about like a little oval flag. So, back to the forefinger … In all there were about seven finger transfers before trying something else that eventually binned the little bastard.
Find me the right word to describe this repetitive, somewhat stupid and lazy, frustrating, fruitless (how ironic in the circumstances) action. Doubtless, the Germans have a word longer than my kitchen bench for it, and I’d even accept that in translation.
It’s similar to running the vacuum cleaner over a recalcitrant piece of lint, repeatedly, picking it up, closely examining it, placing it back on the carpet, and resuming the dance.
Ballplayers (and sometimes jugglers) speak of “bobbling” a ball that keeps getting away from them multiple times before they either successfully seize or drop it.
Your sticker-bobbling is slower and less dynamic, but it seems like the same basic sort of inability to get the object in your hands to do what you want in repeated attempts.
