1. The noises that endlessly thunder down from my upstairs neighbors' apartment. These include: the relentless pitter-patter of what sounds to be a toddler learning to walk, and which has the effect of Chinese water torture; the booming thuds of what I can only imagine is a pack of elephants re-arranging furniture on a daily schedule; a strange, continuous vibrating noise, which I try to believe is an electronic fabric shaver or some other innocent and mundane device; and, last but not least, the garishly contrived sounds of adult behavior, which the twosome clearly have not learned how to muffle. Ick.
2. Driving in Seattle. Don't even get me started on this topic, it is much too sore. Suffice it to say, today I spent an hour and twenty minutes driving a distance that should've taken less than half an hour, due to bad directions, roads to nowhere, and god-awful traffic. Two Master's degrees in Geography and Urban Development wouldn't prepare me to navigate the labyrinthine cluster that is the Seattle road system. Complex landscape or bad city planning: can you guess which of these is more influential in these parts?
3. People who say, "Cool beans!" Actually, they're not so much a pet peeve as just a demographic I really pity.
4. People who quote well-known and oft-quoted movies beyond one to three lines. I know you're trying painfully hard to impress us with your extensive mental catalog of pop culture references, but if I wanted to hear someone anemically recite that cult classic show number or B-movie monologue, I'd probably just put myself out my misery for being the dullest person on earth. Learn how to truncate, Mary Catherine Gallagher.
5. Canvassers on campus who ask me, as I'm rushing to make it to my 6:00 class, if I "have time to talk about gay rights." This sly phrasing inevitably sets me up to sound like a callous jerk because, of course, the answer is, "No, sorry." To which they reply, "Ok, you have great day," which makes me feel like an even bigger jerk. Not only will I NOT talk to you about gay rights, I'm gonna go have myself a GREAT day not talking about gay rights! It's a trap, I tell you, a trap.
6. Not having arms on my futon/couch that I just bought. I mean, c'mon, a sister's gotta have something to lean on! I know I got it for like $75 on clearance at Target, but isn't this Furniture Engineering 101? I have to sit on it all properly with perfect posture and such, and I feel like I may as well be strapped into a straight jacket, looking at padded walls. So not comfy.
7. Flaky friends who love to project verbal diarrhea about how much they miss hanging out, how much they really want to check out that one restaurant, how much they want to make this a "weekly thing," and how much they can't wait to see you, but who suddenly go AWOL that day you planned to get together. Why commit to the plans, folks? Just save yourself the anxiety of being a good friend, since that's obviously way too challenging for you, and just don't make plans you know you're not going to keep. Simple as that!
8. Moths, crane flies, and anything that somehow manages to weasel its way inside and then flit ominously above my head. No thank you.
9. The obscene volume of advertisements in women's magazines. I don't even read women's magazines unless I am really desperate to kill time at a mall or airport (most of them are utter crap), but I feel like every time I crack one open, the amount of ads to wade through has multiplied at exponentially alarming rates. They are all for the same five products, just with a different model or actress each time. I feel like ads have become the new content because, apparently, we women don't have big enough brains to actually read a meaningful article, we just want more MORE MORE reasons to spend money we don't have and yearn for appearances we'll never resemble. Mostly recently, I quite literally couldn't even find the table of contents in a popular women's magazine because it was spread out across several pages of ads. I swear the actual magazine didn't even start until about page 50--no joke. This is just ridiculous. As if most women's magazines weren't already petty enough with undue attention to celebrities, fashion, beauty, and pleasing one's man, they have to demean their audience even further with 100 pages of propaganda in each issue. Eff that!
10. Last but certainly not least, blisters between the toes. Those suckers hurt like a mother. What, you mean I can't walk 20 blocks in my cowboy boots on a hot fall day? And you call this America!? I think I need to revise my footwear planning.
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