What small stuff do you sweat?

[DoZ]

I keep getting things out of proportion, especially if I got my attitudes about something in childhood.

I keep finding myself wasting my whole lunch hour at the Post Office line to get 1¢ stamps, so I could use up my old few 33¢ ones. But then I buy some $2 greeting cards I'm not sure I'll ever use.

I'll put leftover bits of onion in the freezer, when the freezer baggie costs more than the bits.

I'll waste a special trip to the library to renew a book in time, just to avoid a fine that's less than the gas for the trip.

I'll cross town to use a $1 coupon for chips. Again, the time and gas for the trip outweighs the savings.

[Stones speak.I am silent.]

I sometimes debate giving a beggar my spare change.

I have dead pillows that I keep trying to "revive" by washing and slow-tumbling on cool at the laundromat. I'm sure I've paid for them twice that way.

I'll try to calculate which bridge toll lane I should be in, and sold myself for miles afterward for picking wrong.

I worry if I get a Christmas Card from someone not on my list that they will know when I send mine late.

I can get really annoyed by having to reset the clocks for daylight savings, which takes ten minutes tops.

[Chance the Gardener]

Grammar, spelling and punctuation. I don't demand it of others, but I hold myself to strict standards. When I make a grammatical error in speech, I go nuts when I realize it too late and can't go back to strike or edit the spoken words. Spelling and punctuation are easier on the mind except on message boards, where once you hit the submit button your mistakes are preserved in electronic amber.

Inaccuracies in print bug me, too. In Douglas Coupland's novel Miss Wyoming, some of his characters are moving around in Ohio but his geography is completely inaccurate. Plus, one of his characters mentions that she was in the Girl Guides when she was young. Sure, I know Coupland is Canadian, but his character is American so she should have said Girl Scouts. Sloppy editing! You call yourselves professionals?!? If I'd overlooked that as an author or as an editor, I'd still be beating myself up. What can I say? I'm an artist. I'm sure painters and dancers and the like have similarly strict standards for themselves.

I guess I don't sweat much else. I'm pretty relaxed, on the whole.

[Nessy]

I get annoyed when my kids won't pick up pennies they pass on the sidewalk. They say "We have jars full of pennies at home that we never use.

And they are right, that is small stuff now. BUt FUN small stuff!

[TheNerd]

Phone calls. I don't even order pizza (and only partially because most pizza sucks).

I will make a phone call, given a good enough reason, but it still causes me stress. So far, the list of good enough reasons is:
1. a girl
2. I'm dying

[Needs2know]

It used to be my black and white kitchen floor. I cannot keep it looking clean. I hate the damned thing. This spring I'm going to either paint it or use some of those stick down tiles. I'm going to either black and dark green tiles, black and dark red tiles or painting it a solid dark green or red. I'm sick of it!

Oh yeah, when my daughter does the dishes she won't wash the silverware. It drives me nuts! I've even threatened to ground her for it. She'll do it then but only if I specify..."Sissy, do the dishes for me this afternoon and the silverware!"

Needs2know

[tracer]

Chance the Gardener wrote:

Plus, one of his characters mentions that she was in the Girl Guides when she was young. Sure, I know Coupland is Canadian, but his character is American so she should have said Girl Scouts.
The boy scouts and the girl guides. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

[orion007]

Originally posted by Chance the Gardener
Grammar, spelling and punctuation. I don't demand it of others, but I hold myself to strict standards. When I make a grammatical error in speech, I go nuts when I realize it too late and can't go back to strike or edit the spoken words. Spelling and punctuation are easier on the mind except on message boards, where once you hit the submit button your mistakes are preserved in electronic amber.


I'm the same... I can't stand it when I screw up with grammer, spelling, or punctuation, even if it's in something like an IM or a note to my friends.

Another thing I get really nervous about is talking to people I don't know, including waiters/waitresses, cashiers, etc.

[TVeblen]

Wow, do some of these sound familiar!

1. Dishwashing: I scrub dishes by hand then put them in the dishwasher. Twice the water and energy, but scrubbing is the only thing that really gets off crud. The dishwasher just sterilizes in water hotter than my hands can take.

2. Buying anything: do I really need it, is it really worth the money, blah, blah, blah. Stupid, nitpicky and I still do it anyway.

3. Borrowing anything: drives me nuts. Can't rest easily while I have it, can't wait to return it--whatever "it" may be.

Honestly, I'm pretty laid back. But a few small things itch at me.

Veb

[Quadzilla]

Count me in on grammar/spelling. I tend to be really bad in French classes, where I know the teacher is probably sitting there correcting my every mistake silently while I'm speaking.

Talking to strangers.

Getting on to my residents for violating quiet hours. I'm in fits and giggles 'till 10:59, but at 11 PM I turn into the proverbial Evil Bitch RA. I hate the transformation :(

Writing holiday cards. My friends are all in that fun 18-25 age range, and many of them are trying out different religions and belief systems, and sometimes even "Happy Holidays" becomes a touchy greeting.

Trying to blend in during class when I haven't done the reading.

Figuring out when to cross in the crosswalk in front of the parking garages - trying not to cut any drivers off, but not wanting to wait forever, either.

[Space Vampire]

1) If a tear off my copy of the receipt, am I smart for not creating a stupid extra step for the clerk, or stupid for throwing them off their routine?

2) If I buy this copy of Fight Club with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton on the cover, will the clerk think I'm just a semi-literate schmuck who only reads books that become movies? Is there an unobtrusive way to indicate I read Palahniuk's other books first? Oh well, I just won't buy it.

3) I guess I'd better have that official transcript I ordered held until that solitary B gets bumped up to a B+.

4) Is what I've written really worth reading? Will anyone find what I've written interesting or amusing? Naw, I won't post this crap. (I've noticed many here and elsewhere don't have this problem.)

5) Another freaking 95? When was the last time I got a 100? How am I going to make up for those occasional 80-somethings?

6) Should I correctly pronounce a foreign name in the middle of an English conversation? What if it's an English conversation with a native speaker of said foreign language? Not a problem with romance languages, but those aren't my thing.

7) If I call this girl about homework I missed because she's the only person whose surname I've learned all term, and is therefore the only person whose number I can look up, will she get the wrong idea and think I'm pursuing her? Does the fact that I'm worrying about this mean that some part of my brain IS interested and I don't know it?

8) What if not liking this boring. pretentious art movie means I'm not as smart as the people who do like it?

9) What if the reason that practically everything I like isn't popular is that everything I like sucks and I'm the only one who hasn't noticed?

As you can see, my brain is a teeming mass of perfectionist neuroses. Now I'm going to make myself hit "submit."

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

I am a lousy housekeeper and completely indifferent about all things in the domestic realm. Except I'm extremely fussy about how our towels get folded. No idea why.

[CanadianSue]

If I see kids clothes on sale I always buy something for my son whether he needs it or not. We have enough socks and superman undies to last us till he's 45, but hey, he needs them. Then later, I kick myself for spending the money.

I too wash my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Whats the point of having a dishwasher and dishpan hands?

I say yes way too much to people and then wonder why I said it.

I wash my bed linens twice a week. Partly cuz I love the feeling of fresh sheets but partly because I just think I should. They can't possibly be dirty, I shower in the morning and bathe at night.

[waterj2]

I think I was the only person at my school's dining hall to always have the fork on the left, and the knife and spoon on the right, even if I was just having pizza, and didn't need the silverware anyways.

I've been known to get quite agitated at salt and pepper shakers randomly situated on the table.

I compulsively wipe dust from things, especially other people's things.

Mostly, though the only stuff I sweat is little drops of salty water.

[obfusciatrist]

I sweat no small stuff. And it is all small stuff.

Honestly, ask anybody who knows me well. I love the stress of important things and ignore the stress of minor things.

[tracer]

Out of nowhere, I will dredge up old memories of confrontations I'd had with store clerks (etc.) which I lost. I will envision that know-nothing lady at the DMV window who didn't know how to read the DMV's own reports but still insisted she knew more than I did about my registration history. I will imagine myself saying the "right" things I should have said at the time. I will imagine myself slapping said store clerk silly. I will imagine myself taking a 12-gauge shotgun to said clerk's head -- no, first I will pin said clerk to the floor and shoot his/her arm or leg, so that he/she will know excrucuating pain and fear right before I blow his/her brains all over said floor. I will raise my own blood pressure several notches with these musings.

[Cat Whisperer]

My small stuff is mostly work-related. No matter what I'm doing, it has to be as correct as I can get it, and it drives me nuts when co-workers don't place the same importance on correctness that I do. The funny thing is I haven't had a job I cared about in ages, yet I still feel compelled to do my best work all the time. Something wrong with this picture.

[blur]

My car is a total disaster. It has clothes,spo rts gear, soda bottl es, wrappers, you name it, you could probably find it in my car. But you won't find anything in my glove box. Nothing at all goes in there except the manual for the car, the registration and my insurance card. I cannot have anything else in there, just incase I need to find my car's paperwork.

[Stones speak.I am silent.]

Originally posted by Stones speak.I am silent. I can get really annoyed by having to reset the clocks for daylight savings, which takes ten minutes tops. [/B]Speaking of resetting clocks, here it is that time of year again. This time, though, since I've already admitted it's a quick task, I'm not going to let myself sweat it.

However, I just read a whole lot of other new things to sweat about! :(

[drm]

I worry about pretty much everything, but I actually called up the power company the other day because my bill didn't get here on the day it was supposed to, to make sure I wouldn't miss the payment. On the same front, I call up bell every month about a week after I mail in a payment just to make sure they received it. I could literally go on and on for ours, seeing as I'm an obsessive compulsive.

[tevya]

Not only do I wash the dishes by hand (well not a thorough wash, more of a super rinse) before putting them in the dishwasher, but the dishes must be put into the dishwasher in a very specific way. If someone else loads the dishwasher incorrectly then I will very often rearrange the dishes until they are arranged correctly. It takes an act of will to not rearrange them. If anyone cares to know, I can describe the correct method.

I also often feel the need to clarify what I am saying or writing so that it comes out as honest as possible (which is why you will often see many parenthetical statements in my posts). This probably drives the grammar folks wonky. (I think I just made that word up or maybe used it incorrectly but I like the sound of it). I don't feel the need to do this if I am speaking or writing something humorous. In that case over explanation can just screw it up. Also, it is ok (or even desirable) to leave things gray or fib a little when trying to be funny. I think this comes from a fear of being misunderstood and / or being caught in a fib. Unfortunately it probably often makes things less clear rather than more clear.

P.S. [b]Stones Speak[b] wins my special "Lurker of the Year" award for coming back to a thread she / he first posted in over 10 months ago to update the first post in a relevant manner.

[Sn-man]

Punctuality. It’s such a small thing, but being even a couple of minutes late bugs me. I get tense; I will exceed the speed limit. Sometimes I can relax about it, but most of the time…

[Gatopescado]

waiting in line for almost anything. drives me nuts. never moves fast enough..........

that stones is something else, and tracer needs serious help of a professional nature...........

[Oreo]

Count me in on the phone-thing too. My friends get quite exasperated with me because I refuse to call and order a pizza. I don't know how many times I've ordered Papa John's instead of something else I wanted simply because I can order Papa John's online.

Anything that can get done via email or snail mail, I do it that way. The phone is only used when it is the only option available.

I once tried to take a job in an in-bound call center. I couldn't do it. I quit after two weeks because the stress was just not worth it.

Caller ID is a wonderful thing.

[JessEnigma]

I always zip up my friends' backpacks all the way. One of them usually leaves an inch or so unzipped on each of the pockets, so if I'm walking behind her, I'll zip it up. She thinks I'm insane.

Crooked and/or unevenly spaced things drive me nuts. I always go back and erase my writing because the letters are too close together or too far apart. I was drawing some straight lines with a ruler last weekend for a project and realized that the ruler was warped, so I had to go back and fix it all. Shame that I can't draw or cut a straight line to save my life without a ruler, though.

Misplaced hair. Mostly it's with guys, so they probably think I'm flirting when I reach up and brush their hair back out of their face. Nah, it just bugs me. Go comb your hair! Right now! Better yet, buzz cut! Your bangs will *never* fall in your eyes then!

If I'm pronouncing a foreign word, I usually have to stop and ask someone how to pronounce it, so I won't embarrass myself trying to say it. Of course, since I'm usually the only one with any inkling of the pronunciation anyway, it doesn't matter, but I want to be right.

The silverware drawer is my domain. You don't put steak knives and butter knives together. Period. And the forks with the long prongs (or whatever you call them) are separate from the forks with the short prongs which are separate from the silver forks my dad's mom gave him. I go in and rearrange all the silverware all the time.

I also hate the phone. I e-mail and IM as much as possible. I'm just afraid that I'll call and bother somebody. One of my "friends" calls all the freaking time, which I really hate. I don't want to be like her.


jessica

[Zebra]

Spelling again but with a twist.

I actually don't care that much about spelling. My own or anyone elses as long as I can understand them. But when somebody corrects my spelling then suddenly I am just mad again and I stew for days over it. It all has to do with the hell I put up with in 'school' but it just really eats at me when ever someone corrects my spelling.

I also will go over bad confrontations from the past. Stirring up all the rage over and over again. I still get mad over some work confrontations that took place at a different job over six years ago. That can't be good.

[xizor]

Originally posted by tevya
but the dishes must be put into the dishwasher in a very specific way. If someone else loads the dishwasher incorrectly then I will very often rearrange the dishes until they are arranged correctly.

I do this too, but only with silverware. The handles MUST go down, with the dirty goes-in-your-mouth end sticking up to get completely clean and sterilized. If I empty the dishwasher and (god forbid) I find an item that did sneak through a cycle pointing the wrong way, then it just bought itself another washing.

[tevya]

Originally posted by xizor
Originally posted by tevya
but the dishes must be put into the dishwasher in a very specific way. If someone else loads the dishwasher incorrectly then I will very often rearrange the dishes until they are arranged correctly.

I do this too, but only with silverware. The handles MUST go down, with the dirty goes-in-your-mouth end sticking up to get completely clean and sterilized. If I empty the dishwasher and (god forbid) I find an item that did sneak through a cycle pointing the wrong way, then it just bought itself another washing.

I'm not sure where I heard this so it may just be something I made up,but I live by it anyway: I heard (read, saw on tv, made up, whatever) that it doesn't really matter which way the tines are pointing (dirty side up or dirty side down). The real way to make sure the silverware is cleaned properly is to avoid "nesting" the silverware. For example, if you place all of your spoons together in the same slot (either facing up or down) they will tend to nest together making it impossible for at least one side to get clean.

So I load silverware like this: one spoon, one knife, one fork in each slot facing down. In the event of more silverware, repeat the above only facing up. If I have even more silverware, I start back over and hope that no nesting occurs.

But my obsession does not end there! On the bottom rack, the plates must be aligned from smallest closest to the center to largest farthest away. Cutting boards or large pans go all the way to the outer edge. I have rearragened an already loaded dishwasher to accomodate a new dish into the preferred pattern. On the upper rack, coffee mugs and glasses must go on the outer edge. Wine and pilsner glasses must go on the left outer edge towards the back. Large utensils (large knifes, spatulas, serving spoons, etc.) must lay flat on the right hand side towards the center of the rack.

There's more but I think I may have revealed too much already.

[tevya]

I just remembered an exception for the silverware: knives must always face down. The fear of getting cut trumps the fear of any knife nesting that may occur.

[Dinsdale]

Don't think of much small stuff I sweat. Yeah, I'm pretty much always early to avoid being late, then I invariably have to wait around. I'm getting better, tho. On occasion I am purposely just on time or even a minute or two late. And of course those are the only times things go off on schedule!

A biggie used to be leaving the house with the family. Even if it didn't matter when we got somewhere, if we said we were going to leave the house at, say, 3:00, I see no reason why people can't be ready at friggin 3:00. Over the past 16 years, I have learned that Ms. D is apparently incapable of leaving the house at an appointed time, so I simply get ready, and then sit down in the front room with some reading material until she has her coat on and is heading out the door. Then I even fake a laugh when she makes her incredibly clever joke that she "always has to wait" for me.

Just thought of another time one. I do a lot if not most of the cooking in our home. Dinner will be ready, I'll set it on the table, and will have to go all over the house to call my wife and 3 kids to table. I used to just say, "Dinner's ready." Then when no one showed up, I'd kinda resent having to call them a second time and they'd say, "Oh, you meant now?" So I decided to give them an accurate 1 or 2 minute warning. "Dinner will be ready in 2 minutes." Which generated one of 2 responses. Either everyone would immediately crowd the kitchen with the appearance of starving slavering jackals while I made my final prep, or the alloted time would pass with no one showing.

I guess I'm a real asshole when it comes to time.

Now the dear Mrs. D sweats all kinds of small stuff with which I unintentionally drive her nuts. Short list:
-I don't close closet doors, dresser drawers all the way.
-all clothes, estpecially socks, have to be folded/rolled some special way.
-my collar seems to never be lying just right.
-I apparently don't know what it means for clothes to "match."
-things not being presently used must be "put away."
-bottles/jars have to be wiped before recapped and put away.
-there is a miniscule margin of error for parking the cars in "the right spots" in the garage.
-apparently I do not know how to make a bed properly.
-towels are to be folded "just so."
-apparently I leave incredible amounts of water around any faucet I use.

Man, aren't I a whiner? I must be an absolute bitch to live with. Complying with all those rules at home, you should see the pigsty that is my office.

[snermy]

I live in a historic distric, and my apartment building is minimally converted to mod cons. No washer dryer hookup.

You'd think I was going to the Yukon, the way I avoid the laudromat. (3 blocks away, on the left. I drive. It's usually empty.)

The tremendous amounts of laundry that must be amassed--The bitching, moaning, and bringing of reading material, refreshments, headphones, phone, kitchen sink--The 2 hour loading of the car 1 basket at the time--the numerous breaks to read the SDMB...
Not to mention how many times I've loaded the car and so completely lost any will to launder that the laundry has sat in my car until the next day.

Laundry is hard.

[Zazie]

It is weird, because I am not a neat freak (faaaaaar from that!) but some things have to be a special way or it bugs the hell out of me !

The roll of toilet paper has to be put in a certain way, so the paper unrolls from the top... (same with paper towel if you have this hanging stuff). I go as far as changing it in other people's house when I use their bathroom!!! It is just so much easier and just plain logical!

Another thing that drives me INSANE is the guy for the Champion commercial on TV (the loan company)... "when your bank says no, Champions says YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" oh GOD the way is keeps this SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS going makes me want to strangle him!

[GKW]

I have no dishwasher. Globs of organic peanut butter left on knives drive me crazy. I loathe the aroma that wafts up to my face as the hot water hits the peanut butter smeared knife. It makes me want to gag. It makes me want to take the knife and and wipe the excess putrescent goo on his favorite black turtleneck sweater. Cognitively, I know this is small stuff but my olfactory nerves are sending me a different message.