Amen! There’s this one checker at Kroger whose appearance and manner would suggest some marginal intelligence, but who always does this number:
He: Hello sir, how are you? Do you have your Kroger Plus card?
I: I’m fine. Yes. Here it is. How are you?
He: I’m blessed.
I: (sotto voce) Yeah. Like that a tree isn’t falling on you, or a Breeko block.
(I will avoid his lane unless he’s the only one open.)
I get annoyed when I see someone jogging slower than most people walk.
Something that REALLY REALLY bugs me is when someone says, “all right, relax, I’ll <whatever>” when, in fact, I’m already completely relaxed. Wow, does that piss me off.
I thought of another one!
I hate when you are justifiably irritated with someone, and they say “Are you having a bad day or something?” This is akin to asking me if it’s my time of the month. I mean, you just think I have no reason to get irritated, but you get me irritated, and AARGH!
pant pant
I particularly get this a lot because it’s really hard to get me mad. So when you do, maybe you should think about what you did, asshole!
I think I love you.
People who are on the jogging trail at the park with their stupid dogs on a leash yakking on a cell phone. First of all, I hate stepping in dog poop and I know you’re far too important to clean up after your mutt. Second, get out of the way of people who are actually exercising! Walking around a park with your mutt on Sat. morning isn’t aerobic exercise.
“Can I get a flavor?” How I HATE that expression!
Argh, yes! I hate that! No, I’m not having a bad day, YOU’RE just a grating shithead! As a matter of fact, my day was great until YOU pissed me off!
flails
I hate it when a regular customer comes in and tells me what they want to drink.
This is someone who I have seen every day for a year, who orders the same thing and whose order I have never gotten wrong.
Him: “Can I get a can of Bud Light with a glass?”
Me: “No you freakin’ moron. I have decided that you have been drinking that for too long and you must now drink Kamikazes. What do I look like, the missing link?! You see me getting your beer AND glass and setting it in your regular spot. Do you really think you need to tell me what you want? And for the record, My name is MELODY not Melanie, Marissa, Betty, or any of the other names you decide to call me. Asshole.” GRRR.
The name thing is another pet peeve of mine. Melody and Melanie are NOT the same name so please don’t tell me they are.
When my husband is eating, he picks up something with his fork or spoon, doesn’t matter what it is, and he then kind of shakes it up and down a little, like he’s tapping it on something but not really tapping it on something, as if it’s all drippy and he needs to make sure it’s safe to get to his mouth. But usually it is not something drippy. He does it with everything.
He also scrapes the ice cream bowl over and over and over to get every last drab of ice cream, like we’re destitute and he’ll never have ice cream again.
My Audit teacher used to say “We are in a litigious society.” But he would pronounce it li-ti-gu-ous. It drove me crazy.
This one’s really stupid. In the National Anthem the word “perilous” is almost always pronounced, by everybody, as “per-u-lis.” How stupid is that? Listen for it this weekend.
But I REALLY can’t stand it when people make the sounds of the letters P, M, F, B, V without putting their lips together. They make the sound with their upper front teeth on the lower lip. I can’t describe it correctly–I’m sure there’s a word for it. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton speak that way.
Worst of all…when the administrative assistant is busy or on another call one of us will answer the phone. Every single time the person says, “Where’s Sharon?” But I also ask it if I’m out and call in to the office. My bad! (Don’t you hate it when people say that?)
People who ask me to repeat everything. I answer the phones at work, and by the end of the day I’m just gritting my teeth every time. I have a very clear, unaccented speaking voice and I take special pains to enunciate properly (a skill I polished while working the drive-thru speaker at McDonalds). Yet I still have to say everything two or three times, slowly, while the other three lines I have to answer are ringing like mad. Pay attention, motherfuckers!
Oooh, this is mine, too!! I usually respond with something like, “Mmm (not “umm”, but more like an argle bargle they can interpret as “fine” if they wish), how can I help you?”
They are only asking me how I am because they are calling about their past due bills and want to butter me up anyway.
The whole Tom Cruise/Matt Lauer thing reminded me of this, but I hate it when I’m aggravated about something or disagreeing with someone and they just say my name over and over, as if that’s going to calm me down. “Rubystreak… Rubystreak… Rubystreak… Rubystreak… Rubystreak…” This is what you do to a fractious child, not a fully cogent adult with a legitimate beef. One of my co-workers did this to me and I threw my sweater at her. She thought I was ticked off before? She’s lucky it was a sweater and not a cinderblock.
It actually bugs me when people don’t say the “www,” because there are plenty of internet addresses that don’t start with it (like http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/ :D). Most browsers will automatically add the “http://” for you if you don’t type it, but an extraneous “www” usually doesn’t work. So if someone gives me an address and doesn’t specify those three letters, I won’t type them in; I’ll assume that the person giving me the information knows what they’re talking about. 
Was this a kind of joke?
You were irritated about being addressed like a child so you threw your sweater at her?
Good luck with the adult treatment next time.
Exist.
Hi, World Eater. You took my answer. I hate you now.
Trunk, think of how much tamer people would be if they thought they had a soft, fluffy sweater coming upside their head were they to say the wrong thing. I, for one, plan to bring an arsenal of sweaters to the office and start chucking them at people who piss me off. I’ll throw the lighter, cashmere ones at the people who actually say ‘knock, knock’ as they knock, knock on my door and chunkier, cable knit ones at people who ask me if it’s hot enough outside for me.
In addition to many of the things that have already been mentioned here (we’re a picky lot, aren’t we?):
Ergh. Two things.
One, the guy who constantly makes half-references, or says something really cryptic, then -pauses the conversation- to wait for me to ask to explain the mystery term to me. IF YOU KNOW I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, JUST EXPLAIN IT TO ME!
Two, the guy who obviously wants to say something, and has to say it RIGHT NOW, so whatever I’m saying to him will immediately end with him saying, ‘yeah’ and immediately launching into what he wants to say, without responding to my own query / statement. Grrr, this guy gets to me. There are -many- instances where it’s so bad, I’ll go back to my original topic, and he won’t even remember me starting it, or what I said.
People who say “what?” before you’re done with your sentence, like they missed a word halfway into what you were saying and you should have to start over again so they catch every work you say. As if they couldn’t figure it out within the context of the rest of the words you were saying.
I’ll wait untill the person is done talking and then if the word was that important I’ll have them repeat just the part of it I missed.
Lots of things my MIL does. She has some sort of disorder that causes her to double check everything she or anyone else does.
It especially drives me crazy when she double checks the things I do. Like really crazy.
I’ll just finish up with the dishes and she will wander over to the sink to make sure the faucet is turned ALL THE WAY THE FUCK OFF. The handle must be FIRMLY seated. Not just to the point that the water is off, but to the point that the next person who uses it must overcome great friction to turn it back on. Turn off sink HARD, place hand under faucet to check for drips, turn faucet harder even though there were no drips, place hand under faucet again triple check the faucet handle. UGGGHHH!
Also, the door locks. She must double check every door in the house before we leave. Usual routine; Close door, turn knob to make sure lock is engaged, push on door to make sure it is latched, pull on door, turn knob, push on door, repeat upwards of five times.
I could go on…and on…
She’s a lovely woman, but when she has to double check my work, it’s insulting. I try, people, I try.
Don’t get me started on her compulsiveness with the ‘safety’ of the children. We’re talking biblical length thread post.
I’m with you on that. Although at 5’5" I just make a wish that all the butts would fly back into their own back seat and make a smoldering pile of used butts. Preferably that they wouldn’t notice until after it damaged their car.
Local news readers do things that drive me nuts:
A local anchorman with years of airtime who still can’t properly pronounce Wisconsin. He pronounces it Wes-consin or West-consin. This has bugged me for years.
More of a comment on news writers perhaps than readers. But the mixing of tenses bugs me. For example," Local man is gunned down in broad daylight. Early this afternoon John Doe of 1234 Anystreet was the city’s 20th drive-by shooting victim this year."
In one sentence, John Doe IS. In the next, he WAS. Make up your frickin’ mind! Pick a tense and stay with it! Hint: If he died hours ago, he WAS. If he’s oozing life live on camera, he IS.
People who drag their teeth along their fork when they are eating, producing this horrible metallic sound. My ex used to do that, and I drove me absolutely bonkers. Mind you, I have issues about chewing noises anyway.
Repetitive noises can drive me crazy : snoring, coughing, chewing, etc. I know people can’t help it, but it sometimes drives me into a murderous rage…