Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Things that bother me more than they should.


  • Handicapped licenses plates on cars doing 90. What's the rush? You always get the best damn parking spots anyway.
  • People who play crappy music too loudly.
  • People who play great music too softly.
  • Anyone, anytime, anywhere who borrows something of mine and doesn't put it back. You can use anything of mine you want, honestly, just don't make me go looking for it as payment for my generosity.
  • And speaking of not putting stuff back when you should, what is the rationale behind putting away empty containers when you shouldn't? Isn't that what we invented the trash for? Or is storing empty cereal boxes and empty milk containers some new "save the planet" campaign?
  • Men who make fart jokes around women. Never funny; always vulgar. Do that when you are spitting and scratching among your male friends like silver-backed gorillas. When men act like gorillas among men, they are adorable. When men act like gorillas among women, they are foul. Context is everything.
  • Women who talk incessantly about themselves. There's a big wide world out there, kittens, and you're not the center of it. Copernicus settled that ages ago.
  • Gristle or slimy fat in my meat. If you want to see someone gag reflexively and spit her food into her napkin, just put a piece of meat in my sandwich or soup or stew that makes a noise or - worse! - slides around when I am trying to eat it. 
  • Political correctness. Freedom means I am allowed to think whatever I like. The 1st Amendment gives me the right to SAY it. Your thin skin is of no concern to me. And don't worry. My skin is thick enough that if you don't like the rules, I don't care.
  • Hippies. Especially hippies who are leftists. If you're an honest hippie, you have to be a libertarian. Being a leftist hippie just means you are a bully as well as a loser.
  • Any recipe that is longer than two pages. If I have to turn the page, I'm not making it.
  • Vegetarians. Bunch of carrot-murdering lousy cooks. Go steam some rice or something.
  • Ill-behaved children and poorly trained animals. If it's a kid or a dog, it belongs to you. The rest of us don't want to put up with ANY OF IT. Not barking, not whining, not crying, not climbing on me as I'm seated, not jumping up on me with an enthusiasm that I do not share, not begging, not intruding, not listening. Trust me on this. 
  • "Children should be seen and not heard" -- from a distance. 
  • Women who try to turn their husbands/boyfriends/lovers into their bestest girlfriend. He doesn't want the job. Leave the poor dear alone to his football. In fact, get him a beer, and call your ACTUAL best friend on the phone. Everyone will be happier.
  • Snoring.
  • Men who think a few drinks make them better dancers. A few drinks make you FUNNIER dancers. Big difference.
  • Women who think a few drinks give them sudden and mystical powers of insight into every awful past relationship they ever had, and then proceed to share this stunning wisdom with you until they end up sobbing into the third or fourth drink past their limit.
  • Cigarette smoke. Ugh. Always. Even in my youth when I was known to smoke every once in a while.
  • People who think it is appropriate to get in touch with their inner asshole while commenting PUBLICLY on the internet.  Just like picking your nose while driving your car, we can all SEE YOU. You are not invisible. And it is just as disconcerting to run across someone losing it over a comment as it is to drive by someone scratching their brain through their nostril.

  • People whispering in a crowded room - unless they are lovers. Then by all means. The rest of us don't really need to be let in on that "secret." We can guess.
  • People who make everything a contest. 
  • Bad service at expensive restaurants. If I'm at Denny's, I don't care if the waitress is slow, rushed or inattentive. I'm at Denny's. If I am at a place where I had to bring my last two income tax returns with me to get seated, I want the most elegant, solicitous yet restrained, attentive, intuitive service imaginable. Can't do that? Go get a job at Denny's.
That's it for now.

If anyone has anything to add, please feel free.









29 comments:

  1. "People who play crappy music too loudly."
    The following it a no-shit true story. I was in my mid-40s when I finished up my bachelor's degree. I lived in an apartment that had a lot of students from the University. It seems some young black guys who moved into an apartment across the breezeway felt it incumbent on them to share their rap music with everyone else. I was not (and am not) into rap music (an oxymoron if ever I heard one). It started up, but wanting to be a good neighbor I didn't say anything, I just took it as long as I could. So, two seconds later, I opened my door and windows, put in ear plugs and put on shooter's ear muffs, turned on my stereo system, turned it up all the way, and played a selection from a CD of bagpipe music. They never tried to share their rap music with the neighborhood again. Go figure.

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    1. HahahahaHA! Delicious, sweet sweet revenge.

      A curtsy to you, sir.

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    2. This ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amNF_F6oeRU )is more my speed. ;-)

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    3. AWESOME VIDEO! I love the bagpipes. Imagine THAT sound drifting across the moors through the fog, knowing that the battle was going to be soon.

      My nephew's wife is an international Irish dance competitor. She competed at the Worlds in Belfast, Ireland last year and is going to the Worlds in Boston next year.

      My TINY little tidbit of info because of that is that the most obvious difference between Irish and Scottish dancing is that the Irish never move their arms and keep them pinned down to their sides. It is the Scottish who raise them above their arms, as we see in the famous Sword dance.

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    4. I love that Irish dancing. One of my favourite DVDs is Riverdance.

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  2. Well done Ogrrre! Love it!

    As for " as it is to drive by someone scratching their brain through their nostril." it reminds me of when I used to work as a truckie out of a warehouse delivering white goods. Our foreman had a foul habit of sticking his finger up his nose to have a good prospecting for boogers. It got too much for me one day so I said "If you don't stop that shit you're gonna end up giving yourself a lobotomy!" Didn't stop him at all - indeed it got worse because then he did it to piss us off..
    But yeah that's truly one of those things that gross me out.

    As for PC, I knew right from when it first started it was going to be a society destroyer.

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    1. HAHAHAHA! Lobotomy! HOWLING!

      Of course, typically you point something out to someone that embarrasses them, they almost always double down rather than acknowledge that what they were doing was wrong.

      People can be so amusing. Gross, but amusing.

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  3. People that don't say "please" or "thank you" when buying something at a store. It's not some fucking mind boggling task to show a little courtesy and show some appreciation for someone that is helping you with your purchase.

    The same goes for piss-ant clerks that act like they're doing you a fucking favor by taking your money. I didn't hire you and nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you stay at your job.

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    1. I had to LOL at the "piss-ant clerks that act like they're doing you a fucking favor by taking your money." HAHAHA!

      Reminded me of this clip by Louis CK on Leno. The part about clerks starts at around 6:30. I am the female counterpart to this guy - at least in temperament.

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    2. Well, Jess, Buttercup, I hope you realize that the customer is NOT always right. I worked customer service for a cell phone provider. Not exactly the job I should have. More frequently than you would believe, I'd get a call, "My cell phone isn't working. What's going on you bastards?" "Well, Ma'am, your account shows you haven't paid your bill in 2 months. You don't suppose, bitch, if you paid your fuckin' bill maybe your phone service won't be cut off?"
      Actually, I never uttered the second sentence. But, I sure wanted to, on more than one occasion.

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    3. Customer Service? HA! The job where the stupid never ceases to amaze. I worked for a major airline and they finally had to wire my mouth shut.

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  4. While I'm all wound up and pissed off: How about the dickweeds that spend WAY too much time fixing their coffee and blocking the sugar and cream? How fucking hard is it to fix a cup of coffee and get out of the way?

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  5. People who play crappy music too loudly.

    Ah. Earplugs, I'm safe there. :)

    People who play great music too softly.

    Or not. ;)

    People who expect their Rolex tastes to be met on a Casio budget.

    People who have to say "first" in comments. Was it a race? What did you win?

    People who always have to have the last word and think that means they win the argument.

    Touchpad corner buttons in Linux. Which I despise with the white hot heat of a thousand suns.

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    1. People who expect their Rolex tastes to be met on a Casio budget.

      Especially when they expect YOU to make up the difference between their tastes and their OWN budget. This is an especially fine trait of women, I might add. And grown children who don't want a job....

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  6. Oh dear I could add like 50 items to this list!

    "Women who talk incessantly about themselves." - I swear to GOD I sent you that email this morning, mentioning this very thing as a reason I have few friends - BEFORE I read this post. No shit. So yeah, that's at the top of my list too.

    Also, "People who think it is appropriate to get in touch with their inner asshole while commenting PUBLICLY on the internet." Indeed. INDEED.

    For me, something that really bothers me more than it should is when I go home and someone tells me or those around me things about Europe that aren't true, and I politely disagree because I know for a fact it is wrong because I've lived here for four damn years, and they insist they're right because they saw it or heard it when they were in Paris for 2 weeks a few years ago. UGH. Example: distant cousin visited Rome about 5 years ago for one week. Said to me, "Everybody in Europe speaks perfect English." I said, "Actually no, they don't. In fact most Europeans speak no English at all, and the reason you think everyone speaks English is because you were in Rome, one of the biggest tourist spots on the planet. Most of the people I deal with in Turin do not speak any English at all, even though they have to take it in school; same reason I don't speak French even though I took 4 years of it." She actually got MAD about this (because I challenged her and she's a snooty little bitch who thinks she knows everything), and INSISTED I was wrong, and that every single Italian she encountered spoke perfect English so maybe it was something about ME that made Italians not want to speak their perfect English. Seriously. My head almost exploded. I had to leave the room. Ha! Good thing I wasn't drunk at the time.

    - One more: being judged negatively because I don't have children.

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    1. "Women who talk incessantly about themselves." - I swear to GOD I sent you that email this morning, mentioning this very thing as a reason I have few friends - BEFORE I read this post. No shit. So yeah, that's at the top of my list too.

      We are SOOOOO on the same wave length. I just sent off a RANT about this very thing to you. HAHAHA!

      She actually got MAD about this (because I challenged her and she's a snooty little bitch who thinks she knows everything), and INSISTED I was wrong, and that every single Italian she encountered spoke perfect English so maybe it was something about ME that made Italians not want to speak their perfect English.

      I have witnessed almost that exact thing. I am open-mouthed. It's just stunning. If you actually do know more about something and you even slightly attempt to correct someone, then YOU are the bitch. WTH?

      I am always amazed at how people will ARGUE for their own stupidity. I have a "friend" who is the type who would start going on about quantum physics because he read some article in SCIENCE magazine, and if an ACTUAL physicist interrupted to say, "Yes, well, I AM a physicist and that isn't entirely correct," this "friend" would start arguing with the poor physicist about it. Honest to GOD. It's that bad.

      So here you've lived in ITALY for YEARS and yet, she knows more. Okie dokie. You gotta just walk away. Just walk away and no one gets hurt.

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    2. Oh, and the kids thing. I get it. It goes both ways, actually. I had kids in my late twenties and so all my friends had already decided NOT to have kids, so when I did, it was kind of a reverse judgment. They were annoyed with the time it took and that I didn't have the same schedule I once had, etc., etc.

      I think people just tend to be so self-centered they judge everyone who isn't doing life "their way", whatever that is.

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    3. I had actually thought about renting my kids out to childless couples to insure they'd stay childless.
      As I've gotten older, I realized that small children are the reason God invented backhoes. Those little snots are annoying, even if they are your darling little angels. Corral the little shits, especially in stores and restaurants. In fact, unless you are going to McDonald's or the like, leave the little hellions at home with a baby sitter.

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    4. Ogrrre, damned right. Everything you wrote! HAHAHAHA! But YES!!!!

      When my kids were small we either got a babysitter or stayed HOME! What a NOVEL idea. We never brought our children to functions that weren't specifically family oriented and other children would be there. Children are wonderful. I love mine. They're mine. I have NO tolerance for someone else's adorable little princess screaming at the top of her lungs because she doesn't want to sit through dinner at a very nice restaurant. Your first mistake was bringing the little snot. Your second mistake was in not immediately scooping up Cupcake and carrying her soggy little butt to the car -- and I don't CARE that you haven't eaten.

      We were just in Vegas and I was ASTONISHED at the number of kids running around in the casinos! WTH? Who needs to gamble so much that they will take their kids? America is going down the toilet. We really are.

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    5. Not to pick on any lady here (I hope) but what's this crap about wanting honesty from your spouse/parner, then asking us, "Honey does this outfit make my butt look fat?" No matter what we answer, we're screwed. Ladies, if you have to ask the question, you already know the answer. I got in so much trouble when I finally told my wife (now ex-wife), "Baby, your ass IS fat, so quit trying to blame it on your clothes."
      Do women ask that question just to start a fight?

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    6. Okay, I'm going to break the code for you. When a women asks a man she loves whether her butt looks big, she already knows it does or she wouldn't be worried enough about it to ask in the first place. She isn't asking you for the objective, clinical truth; she is asking you because she wants you to reassure her that she is beautiful to you - no matter what. So the correct answer is always, "Honey, you look gorgeous in anything and PARTICULARLY in that."

      'K? Got it?

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    7. Then, why don't you gals take it easy on us neanderthals and just ask, "Honey, am I pretty to you"? Or, even, "Honey, am I pretty?" Why do women insist on communication, then put the important stuff in a cipher? And, then get mad when we don't have the key to the cipher? And, once you know we don't do codes, why do you insist on speaking in code?

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    8. Because we are women. We are not men with tits, darling. Code is what we do. It's your job as a male to learn the code.

      LOL!

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    9. Soooo ... basically, women ask that question just to start a fight. Got it.

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  7. "I think people just tend to be so self-centered they judge everyone who isn't doing life "their way", whatever that is."

    Yep, it's as simple as plain ol' human selfishness, Buttercup..

    As for the thing with people who actually *do* know more than them, some people can't handle their pride taking a knock.

    That's the thing about getting on in years like me - by now I've found I know bugger-all and so the fact that so many people *do* know better than me bothers me not at all. Indeed I want to learn from them.

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    1. I'm with you, Morris. I LOVE meeting people who have deep knowledge about subjects with which I only possess a superficial acquaintance. I pester them with questions.

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    2. It was Sam Clemons who said, "Everyone is ignorant, just in different subjects." Even in the fields in which I have knowledge, I know there are folks who know more than I, and I always enjoy listening to them.
      I think most people are too afraid of appearing foolish about a subject, so they end up appearing really foolish when they refuse to acknowledge they might have something to learn? Hmmm ... not only really foolish, but downright asinine.

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