We all have our own pet peeves; things that annoy us to the point of sheer aggravation at the mere thought. I shall be listing some of mine here today.
1. Messy Bathrooms: Now, this is mostly for public bathrooms, however, if someones personal bathroom is too messy, that's a problem, too. What I'm talking about is simple and super easy to clean up. Excess water around the sink. Dude. Clean. It. Up. You're using a paper towel to wipe your hands off, yes? Before you toss it, wipe up around the sink! This happens a lot at work. I walk up to a sink and wind up having to stand a foot from the counter to wash my hands because the counter surrounding the sink is basically flooded with water. I've watched people wash their hands. These are the steps they follow: wet both hands, drip water all over to get to the soap dispenser to find it empty then traipse water all over finding the next full soap dispenser, suds up the hands, rinse, shake shake shake shake shake, and with hands still dripping wave their hands in front of the towel dispenser, dry hands, then shut off tap. Damn folks. Here's how I do it: turn on tap with left hand, wave left hand in front of towel dispenser so there's one ready and waiting for me, get soap with right hand, get left hand wet, suds hands, rinse, shake a little, grab ready towel, turn off tap. Hardly any water on the counter. This also brings me to . . .
2. Water Wasting: Seriously, folks, do you realize what state you live in? California. If you ever want a fight, what do you fight about in CA? Water. NorCal and SoCal will always be in a fight because SoCal wants more and more water from NorCal and anyone else they can sucker into it. By the way, that's what you get for living in a desert. Anyway, I see people leaving the water running, walk away for several minutes . . . several gallons wasted . . . turn off the damn tap!!! Rinse the sink, and turn off the water. California is basically in a perpetual drought. We might get enough rain one year to "help", but the crisis is never really over. A year or two ago, water was so tight, the district my parents live in had to issue water restrictions to all their users. 50 gallons per person in each household per day. (Think of the households who have kids with bath times, and serious loads of laundry and dishes, plus yards to water. It starts to add up.) My parents had to read their own meters every day for several months just to make sure they didn't go over and get fined. The water district also refused to let anyone set up a new agriculture-related business because there simply wasn't enough water. I grew up with these ideas: Don't wash your own car, go to a car wash because they recycle their water; Showers are 10 minutes or less; Turn off the tap when not in use.
3. Disney Sequels: Ok, this may be a lame soap box, but I always felt that Disney films are of the "and they lived happily ever after" variety. I don't need to know what happened to Prince and Princess Charming after the wedding at the end of the film. What really irks me is when they make sequels to movies that are, ohhh, I don't know, 6o years old. Um. Really? Now you want to find out what Bambi and friends are up to? And what's worse? They don't just continue. At the end of Bambi, he's all grown up, found himself a girl to settle down with, and whatnot. The sequel? Oh no . . . he's back to being a fawn again. Yeah that makes perfect sense. Let's not confuse the poor kids. "Oh no, honey, Bambi has some of Harry Potter's anti-aging potion".
4. Screaming at work: Unless there is some emergency (like, say, a fire, or another employee has gone postal), screaming should not really take place at work. We should all use some form of our "inside voice". Now, some people (um, like me), who are (unfortunately) naturally loud. I know I'm a constant work in progress. My talking or talking volume has been on nearly every report card since I was of the age to get report cards. I come from a talkative family. Sue me. However, at work, some people have a tendency to scream people's names from their office instead of using the phone or walking to their doorway and asking the first person they see if they could ask Bob to come over. Here's the problem. When said person is screaming someones name, all we hear on our end is a small portion of said name, but mostly it's just the sound of the voice. We're having to hear this over very loud centrifuges and machines humming away, a radio, and us as we're talking about work or the latest movie we saw. Screaming is not effective. Save your vocal cords and use the damn phone. This would also be nice, even if you're attempting to have a (screaming) conversation with the person in the office next to yours.
5. Naive/Stupid People: Some people are smart. Some are rocket scientists (literally). Some are average. Some . . . well, let's just say it's a low wattage bulb hanging out in there. Some things are common knowledge, some things not so much, and then there are reason why we have Ph.D.'s. There's something for everyone, right? Now, I do realize that we all have a moments or days where we feel incredibly stupid, but it's not all 365 days. In all of my jobs, classes, and life in general, there has always been someone to prove to me that some people are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. For instance, I worked for Petco for 3 years; I once had a gal ask if she could put a boy and a girl hamster together and not get babies. Um, no. One guy asked if he could put "sticky paws" on his car to keep the cats off the car (btw, "sticky paws" are a product you place on your couch to prevent your cat from scratching your furniture). I couldn't necessarily refuse him the product but I blatantly told him Petco wouldn't be responsible for the products damage to his paint job. (Turns out his daughter scolded him and forced him to return it! lol). I had several people (mostly adults) who couldn't comprehend the difference between freshwater and saltwater fish. Kids I can understand. Adults? No. One guy was even snickering at his wife because she really didn't get it. I wanted to slap his face so freakin' hard. And don't even get me started on the people that would sit in the back of the store for hours making a huge disastrous mess trying on clothes on their damn dogs. One gal I lived with for a year believed that my 12 inch oscillating fan took up more energy than running an A/C. People, I cannot make this shit up. I'm not sure if she fully believed that, but she was the kind of person who would argue til she was blue in the face just to prove she was right even if she was wrong. Same person would "dry" her clothes for two days because she'd keep forgetting them in the dryer and apparently had never heard of the damn fluff cycle. Same person also called her mom one night while cooking herself dinner and asked point blank "Mom, how do you boil a hot dog?". Seriously folks, I can't make this shit up. A week later, she boils the hot dog on her own but has to call mom to ask "how you do thaw a hot dog bun?" (of which she had done this by herself the week before). Being around these dim people really puts a strain on your psychological health. Stay away at all costs. I repeat, stay away at all costs.
1. Messy Bathrooms: Now, this is mostly for public bathrooms, however, if someones personal bathroom is too messy, that's a problem, too. What I'm talking about is simple and super easy to clean up. Excess water around the sink. Dude. Clean. It. Up. You're using a paper towel to wipe your hands off, yes? Before you toss it, wipe up around the sink! This happens a lot at work. I walk up to a sink and wind up having to stand a foot from the counter to wash my hands because the counter surrounding the sink is basically flooded with water. I've watched people wash their hands. These are the steps they follow: wet both hands, drip water all over to get to the soap dispenser to find it empty then traipse water all over finding the next full soap dispenser, suds up the hands, rinse, shake shake shake shake shake, and with hands still dripping wave their hands in front of the towel dispenser, dry hands, then shut off tap. Damn folks. Here's how I do it: turn on tap with left hand, wave left hand in front of towel dispenser so there's one ready and waiting for me, get soap with right hand, get left hand wet, suds hands, rinse, shake a little, grab ready towel, turn off tap. Hardly any water on the counter. This also brings me to . . .
2. Water Wasting: Seriously, folks, do you realize what state you live in? California. If you ever want a fight, what do you fight about in CA? Water. NorCal and SoCal will always be in a fight because SoCal wants more and more water from NorCal and anyone else they can sucker into it. By the way, that's what you get for living in a desert. Anyway, I see people leaving the water running, walk away for several minutes . . . several gallons wasted . . . turn off the damn tap!!! Rinse the sink, and turn off the water. California is basically in a perpetual drought. We might get enough rain one year to "help", but the crisis is never really over. A year or two ago, water was so tight, the district my parents live in had to issue water restrictions to all their users. 50 gallons per person in each household per day. (Think of the households who have kids with bath times, and serious loads of laundry and dishes, plus yards to water. It starts to add up.) My parents had to read their own meters every day for several months just to make sure they didn't go over and get fined. The water district also refused to let anyone set up a new agriculture-related business because there simply wasn't enough water. I grew up with these ideas: Don't wash your own car, go to a car wash because they recycle their water; Showers are 10 minutes or less; Turn off the tap when not in use.
3. Disney Sequels: Ok, this may be a lame soap box, but I always felt that Disney films are of the "and they lived happily ever after" variety. I don't need to know what happened to Prince and Princess Charming after the wedding at the end of the film. What really irks me is when they make sequels to movies that are, ohhh, I don't know, 6o years old. Um. Really? Now you want to find out what Bambi and friends are up to? And what's worse? They don't just continue. At the end of Bambi, he's all grown up, found himself a girl to settle down with, and whatnot. The sequel? Oh no . . . he's back to being a fawn again. Yeah that makes perfect sense. Let's not confuse the poor kids. "Oh no, honey, Bambi has some of Harry Potter's anti-aging potion".
4. Screaming at work: Unless there is some emergency (like, say, a fire, or another employee has gone postal), screaming should not really take place at work. We should all use some form of our "inside voice". Now, some people (um, like me), who are (unfortunately) naturally loud. I know I'm a constant work in progress. My talking or talking volume has been on nearly every report card since I was of the age to get report cards. I come from a talkative family. Sue me. However, at work, some people have a tendency to scream people's names from their office instead of using the phone or walking to their doorway and asking the first person they see if they could ask Bob to come over. Here's the problem. When said person is screaming someones name, all we hear on our end is a small portion of said name, but mostly it's just the sound of the voice. We're having to hear this over very loud centrifuges and machines humming away, a radio, and us as we're talking about work or the latest movie we saw. Screaming is not effective. Save your vocal cords and use the damn phone. This would also be nice, even if you're attempting to have a (screaming) conversation with the person in the office next to yours.
5. Naive/Stupid People: Some people are smart. Some are rocket scientists (literally). Some are average. Some . . . well, let's just say it's a low wattage bulb hanging out in there. Some things are common knowledge, some things not so much, and then there are reason why we have Ph.D.'s. There's something for everyone, right? Now, I do realize that we all have a moments or days where we feel incredibly stupid, but it's not all 365 days. In all of my jobs, classes, and life in general, there has always been someone to prove to me that some people are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. For instance, I worked for Petco for 3 years; I once had a gal ask if she could put a boy and a girl hamster together and not get babies. Um, no. One guy asked if he could put "sticky paws" on his car to keep the cats off the car (btw, "sticky paws" are a product you place on your couch to prevent your cat from scratching your furniture). I couldn't necessarily refuse him the product but I blatantly told him Petco wouldn't be responsible for the products damage to his paint job. (Turns out his daughter scolded him and forced him to return it! lol). I had several people (mostly adults) who couldn't comprehend the difference between freshwater and saltwater fish. Kids I can understand. Adults? No. One guy was even snickering at his wife because she really didn't get it. I wanted to slap his face so freakin' hard. And don't even get me started on the people that would sit in the back of the store for hours making a huge disastrous mess trying on clothes on their damn dogs. One gal I lived with for a year believed that my 12 inch oscillating fan took up more energy than running an A/C. People, I cannot make this shit up. I'm not sure if she fully believed that, but she was the kind of person who would argue til she was blue in the face just to prove she was right even if she was wrong. Same person would "dry" her clothes for two days because she'd keep forgetting them in the dryer and apparently had never heard of the damn fluff cycle. Same person also called her mom one night while cooking herself dinner and asked point blank "Mom, how do you boil a hot dog?". Seriously folks, I can't make this shit up. A week later, she boils the hot dog on her own but has to call mom to ask "how you do thaw a hot dog bun?" (of which she had done this by herself the week before). Being around these dim people really puts a strain on your psychological health. Stay away at all costs. I repeat, stay away at all costs.
you are hilarious! I love it!! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I completely agree with every single one of those. I would also add incredibly slow drivers because personally it's difficult to keep my cool behind somebody going 10 miles under the speed limit!
ReplyDelete