pet peeves

After more than a week of hiatus from writing my blog, that little nagging voice in the back of my head that urges me to write something has become rather pesky. I thought about engaging in a variety of socio-political rants, such as: the recent announcement of Glenn Beck's upcoming departure from his Fox News propaganda hour; the inequitable amount of funding and benefits allocated to college athletes (USA Today just came out with a figure of $120K per player); the exorbitant salary that celebutantes like Bristol Palin, Snooki, et. al. "earn"; or, the fact that the House just passed a bill saying college campuses are required to provide the same amount of funding to heteronormative, "traditional values" student groups as they do to LGBTQ-supportive student groups. But then, I thought: Why am I so negative? So, I proceeded to try and brainstorm more warm and fuzzy blog topics, like how much I enjoyed my vacation(s) last week or how much I love kittens and bunnies and other super cute things. (Kind of disappointing to me how short my warmfuzzy list is compared to my grumpyrant list...) And then, I came to the conclusion that good news is boring and bad news is depressing, so why not strike some sort of balance? Naturally, I decided to write a blog about random pet peeves I have. While this may seem more slanted towards the cynical side, I figured it might garner a few laughs, chuckles, chortles, or at least head nods in the process. So, here we go--

1. Incessant mispronunciations of common English words. E.g. "jew-lery" instead of "jewel-ry." Let's not turn something sparkly and fun into something that sounds like an antisemitic slur, ok people? Or, e.g. "real-a-tor" instead of "real-tor." Do these people also say "real-a-ty" or "spesh-ee-ality"? Ok yeah, they probably do...

2. Nonsensical slaughterings of common English figures of speech. E.g. "I could care less!" instead of, "I couldn't care less!" I won't be condescending enough to explain why this is logically problematic... Or, how about the evermore popular "I literally died, you have no idea!" Oh, really? Well, I literally think you don't know what the word literally means because if you literally died, you literally wouldn't be standing here! :)

3. People who can't be bothered to return emails, phone calls, texts, or Facebook comments that would take one minute to complete. This is especially annoying when they openly invite such correspondence, as in the example of so-called "professionals" who say, "Feel free to call or email me anytime at <insert contact info> if you have any questions or concerns. I'd be happy to help." So, I guess what they really mean is, "Yeeeeah, feel pretty wary about using any conventional method of communicating with me unless you are on fire, brown-nosing, or bringing me food. Mmmmk, Peter?"

4. Parents who walk around with their kids on leashes, disguised as cuddly animal backpacks. I think even a three-year-old knows they don't have jack to carry around in a backpack. Whatever happened to hand-holding? I know kids have a tendency to wander, and I'm all for protecting your little ones from danger, but really? Every time I see this, I have to lower my gaze in vicarious shame at the poor tyke's loss of dignity. I wonder if there has been an increase in toddler whiplash injuries lately? Hmm...

5. Men who wear Hawaiian shirts. At first, I was going to add a qualifier to this one, like, "...when they are on vacation" or, "...on casual Friday." But, then I realized there's no occasion that makes Hawaiian shirts flattering. 'Nuff said.

6. People who answer their cell phones in the middle of a customer service transaction. All my FCC ladies can back me up on this one! The worst is when you have to proceed with the transaction in a whisper, just to accommodate the useless conversation they could have easily waited two seconds to have. Would you tell your doctor to hold on while taking your blood pressure so you can tell your teenager to pick up milk at the store? Would you hold up a silencing index finger to your server when they're taking your order at a nice restaurant? Just because we're in customer service positions doesn't mean we have any more interest in your personal conversations than any other worker would. It's called silence your phone and call them back. Kthx.

7. Couples who post pictures of themselves making out on Facebook. A cute little kiss-on-the-cheek, we-like-each-other photo is fine. Even a little webcam-couples-photo-shoot is tolerable. But if I wanted to see what you two sucking face looks like, I'd become a Peeping Tom. Save it for the bedroom, not your 200+ friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances.

8. Following suggested routine maintenance of my car. No justification for this, I'm just lazy and would rather spend my money on things that are much more fun and frivolous!

9. People who say, "I don't do drama." Newsflash: If you maintain any type of relationship with another human being, you're going to encounter drama. It's our nature. Perhaps you consider yourself assertive when it comes to handling drama, and you aim for as little confrontation and fallout as possible, but it's still there. The people who say they're anti-drama usually fall into one of two categories: 1)They secretly love drama and thrive on random bursts of aggression, or 2)They legitimately fear conflict and are extremely passive-aggressive communicators. Just sayin'.

10. Last, but certainly not least: fluoride trays at the dentist. Is there anything worse than having a giant piece of foam with sharp edges shoved into your mouth, having to clench onto it for three minutes (which feels like three hours) to the point of inducing lock-jaw, all the while feeling acid-y sour ooze trickling onto your tongue, ineffectually posing as "bubblegum" flavor? I think not. If I go to hell--which my irreverent, cynical and generally snarky blogitude yields fairly probable--fluoride trays will be there. Pleh!