9 things that bug the shit out of me
September 9, 2013
And now for something lighter: I can’t believe I’ve never shared a list of pet peeves before! Roughly in order, then, from most annoying.
Fingernail clipping. I don’t shave my legs at the office, please have the courtesy to at least go into another room if you must spontaneously groom in the middle of the workday.
Open-mouth chewing. I get that you’re enthusiastic about your baby carrots. But I have started leaving for my lunch break when you make your lunch because I can’t take another half hour of your open- mouthed chomping. Crunches carry. To twenty feet way.
Smokers in front of building entryways. This one particularly gets my goat when I get to work in the morning. I am all freshly showered and optimistic about how much ass I’m going to kick today. I get immediately cranky when I have to walk through your cloud of fumes and smell it in my hair for the next hour. Thanks for ruining my day before it gets started, chump. Move your stinky habit a few feet away from the door.
People in front of me walking more slowly but not in a straight line so I am unable to pass. I know I’ve ranted about this before. Walking in public throughways would go ever so smoothly if only people observed the same conventions when walking as they do driving. Stay on your side of the road, slower traffic to the side.
People in front of me walking three or four abreast so that I am unable to pass. Please have some awareness of yourselves in the wide world. You are not the only bodies in motion and some of those other bodies would like to get around you.
People walking toward me two, three, four abreast who don’t break rank and expect me to give way. I don’t. I’ve bumped into people. Why should I flatten my solo self against the wall because you’re too self-important to have common courtesy?
Fellow bicyclists who blow through red lights and stops signs. You are breaking the law. You are a safety hazard.
SUVs on the road. We live in Minnesota and we have snowy winters and you want to feel secure on the road. I get that, especially since I have a little gnat of a car and often feel very insecure in winter driving conditions. But so often it seems like you drive with an air of entitlement and complete lack of consideration toward your fellow road warrior. It is not all about you. We’re all rushed and trying to get somewhere.
Not saying please or thank you. I might have told this story before, too. One night at closing time in my youth, I barked a command at the night manager. He completely stopped what he was doing, turned to me with his full attention, and say, “You know, I would like my job so much better if you guys just said ’please’ and ’thank you.’” That has stuck with me for these last thirty years and I try very, very hard to abide by it every time. Every time. It’s not hard and it does make things so much nicer for the party on the receiving end.
Litterers. Show some respect for the neighborhood at small and the world at large.
Other people’s toddlers and small children, usually. It most often happens at the farmer’s market or other crowded gatherings such as the State Fair. Your child is not the most precious thing to the rest of the world and nobody wants to hear it badgering you until you give in because parents these days are afraid to say no and mean it. If it is so young that can’t self-locomote, leave it and your double-wide stroller at home.
Please, was that eleven things? Thank you.
Everyone knows that smoking stinks (addendum)
March 5, 2010
I had a really stressful few days at work. I handed off the project at 1:00 this afternoon, at least for the next twenty-four hours. On my way home, I stopped to get some comfort provisions—sushi and beer. Posted next to the door of the sushi place was this placard. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
Everyone knows that smoking stinks
March 5, 2010
I should know, because I used to smoke. I managed to stop cold turkey in the spring of 2004 after I had been so sick with the flu that I didn’t go to work—or do anything, let alone smoke—for three and a half days. I had been wanting to stop, and with that head start, my brain finally got behind the effort.
Even when I was a smoker, I was a hypocrite. If I was not puffing away myself at the moment, I was not in favor of smelling other people’s pollution. It seems a lot of smokers feel that way. I was, um, lucky enough that none of the city, county or, eventually, statewide indoor smoking bans had gone into effect while I still smoked, so I didn’t have to deal with enforced outside-going to engage in my nasty habit.
But people who still smoke do have to go outside. And that brings us to the pet peeve that is my topic today. Hey smokers: please move a respectable distance away from the door to engage in your filthy habit!
As has been the case several other times in the course of writing this blog, I learned something new. I thought I had remembered that part of the ordinance detailed that your smoking is not supposed to occur within a certain distance of building entrances. That is not the case, it is not written into the law that you must be ten or twenty or any number of feet away from the door before you light up.
That part is, if you think about, simply common courtesy.
I accept that it is your choice to continue smoking and contribute to your eventual demise. My beer drinking probably isn’t doing me any great favors. But what bugs the living daylights out of me is having to walk through your stink to get in or out of a building. I have no choice where the door is. You do have a choice about where to create your smokescreen. Here’s a simple request: please move a little farther away.
Now you’ll try to convince me that in cold or otherwise nasty weather, you’re more sheltered from the conditions closer to the building. If you’re that concerned about your health and welfare, quit smoking!
I’m not really going to preach here; you’ll do what you want to and, like religion and politics, my little rant doesn’t stand a chance of getting you to change. But it feels good to put the bug in your ear for a minute, anyway. If I can influence just one smoker …
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