Car drivers who like to honk at pedestrians for no apparent reason. I can see why you’d do it if said pedestrian was about to step in front of you or something, but not when she is standing there, minding her own business, waiting for the light to change. It about makes me lose my shit. And no, I don’t know you, which is the only other acceptable (slightly) reason for you to honk at me.
People who don’t answer e-mails after they’ve begged you to get back to them.
People who come into the lab and raise all kinds of hell just because I dared to ask them for their IDs. It’s a rule, people. A tiny little rule. Poke a hole in the card and attach it to your keychain so you can flash it at me and the other lab drones. It would make our days. I am not asking to see your ID for any reason other than I have to, and if my boss comes by and catches me not doing it, he will bitch at me. Strangely enough, I do not like to be bitched at. Hard to believe, I know, since I stand here so meekly listening to your bitching.
The guy down the hall. I live in student housing (mainly because the rent for my law school apartment is lower than it would be for a studio this size anywhere else in the area), and so of course I expect around this time of year to have new first-years. Most of them are cool, but one is a Computer Science guy who just graduated last year after three semesters or something of straight As. (Yes, good for him! He must have worked very hard.) He speaks very rapidly and very loudly, and his CompSci background seems to have taught him that there is a Best Answer for everything. As a result, he blathers on and on talking about how everything the school does is wrong and asking me for the “formula” for one of his professor’s exams (I happened to have several of his profs last year for the same courses). He distills the advice down to things like “Okay, so I don’t need to remember facts” and then goes on to tell me he’s “going to go politic tonight.” News flash: If you tell people you’re working them, it doesn’t work.
Faculty Advisors. I’m working on a note for my journal. The main topic fits well within my journal’s purview but contains policy questions suited for a Family Law professor. I can’t, however, get a Family Law guy to oversee it because they’re all “assigned” to another journal, so I’m likely going to have to learn that aspect of it along with one of the profs assigned to my journal. Their numbers are slanted toward one of the narrower topics covered by our journal because the school has a few big names that like to work together.
My stupid subconscious. Listen, Subconscious. I’m dating my girlfriend, not that other girl. STOP GIVING ME DREAMS ABOUT THAT OTHER GIRL.
I pit my crappy, rotting teeth – and myself for letting myself get to this point. I had two teeth pulled Thurs., an emerged wisdom and the one next to it, which had rotted to the point of screaming pain. I have one on the other side that needs to come out shortly, plus have a root canal and cavity-filling session to look forward to in the next few months. Without insurance. Dental phobia will catch up with ya!
I hereby pit the maroons who call the paper and ask how often a weekly paper is distributed. Either my IQ is getting higher, the general population’s is getting lower, I don’t know. The correct answer is “once a week – and it’s a miracle you can read the paper. Do you just look at the pretty pictures?” Now move along.
I don’t care how many fucking e-mails I get from you, you corporate slutbag, I will NOT contribute to the United Way. I contribute to the charities I believe in directly, thank you. And while you’re at it, stop sending chipper e-mails about how much fun you’re all having at the Bake Sale, Luau, Cookout or whatever at HQ downtown and asking us to join you. Fuck you – everyone here is WORKING – you know, that thing you’re supposed to be doing on company time? We have two people putting the paper together by Tuesday night. Fuck off.
Back when I was single, my machine used to say “Hi, this is <first name>. The boys and I are busy right now, so …”
The boys in question are feline, but no one ever bothered me. I also used to use the line about “Hi, I can’t pick up the phone right now, I have a cat in my lap. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as he gets down.” Cat people understood, people who knew me laughed, and who cares about anyone else? Of course, while I was job hunting I changed it to something normal and stodgy. When job hunting all humor bets are off, sadly.
Regarding leaving messages, I had to deal with a gentleman who used to leave me the most unhelpful messages at work. “Hi, this is Val. Call me back.” And that was it. After 6 months of telling him that if he left me his name, his number, his company name, and what he needed I could have it ready for him when I called him back, he finally managed to leave me his name and company name. Well, I suppose that 2 out of 4 isn’t all bad. Sigh.
My favorite, though, was when I worked for a home builder. Minor backstory here: I worked in accounting and dealt with closing statements. When a home closed, I checked over the paperwork, pulled our copies, and took the originals to the executives for signature. Not bad work, and very profitable when I bought my own home some years later. On this particular occasion, we received the closing statements in the late morning, ready for the president’s signature. I checked them over, and left them with his secretary, since he was out of the office. The title company called me a couple of times about when they might be ready. They were very polite and had an excellent reason for asking. A Stupid Realtor. I don’t class all realtors this way, just this one. She was driving the title company up the proverbial wall demanding her commission, which she would not receive until the signed documents were back at the title company. So, they asked if they could give her my name and number. I agreed, thinking she might accept the truth from me, since she didn’t believe them. She duly called, whining and demanding. I told her that the documents were on Mr. <President’s> desk and that he was out of the office. She demanded to know when he would be back. I responded icily “I’m sorry, Mr. <President> doesn’t consult ME with his schedule.” :rolleyes: I also offered to call her when the documents were back in my hands. My coworkers were somewhat suprised, but amused when they heard her side of the conversation.
I don’t mind at all when people don’t leave proper messages - delete and forget about it. If it’s important, they’ll call back and possibly have grown a brain by then.
I pit the piece of popcorn I just inhaled. ARRRGH! It was the first piece of the entire bag, and it tried to assassinate me!
You know what I really hate? People who overuse ellipses. It’s not necessary to replace every single comma and period with three dots! REally, it isn’t! I know they exist to denote pauses in speech, but nobody speaks like that unless they’re really wimpy and trail off at the end of every statement (like some I know and want to strangle). It’s completely petty, but incredibly irritating to try to read. Call me a grammar nazi, I don’t care. The Nazis got results, yo.*
Another thing I need to pit–person, actually–is a girl named Angelica. She represents all the things I hate about all the people I’ve ever hated. All I have ever seen her do is:
Agree with people, even when said people are mocking her religion.
Act so pathetic all I want to do is shoot her to get her out of my misery.
Speaking of religion, she’s a fervent Wiccan, and that’s no good at all. Wicca has that unfortunate property of attracting the extremely weak-willed, which Angelica has enough sense to recognise, but not enough sense to realise that she’s one of them.
Angelica speaks as I was describing above, starting out incredibly nasal and high-pitched and slowly trailing off into a nervous giggle. She’s also physically repugnant, with huge, cow-like eyes and even huger udders. When she walks, her barely-covered bosom jiggles like plastic sacks filled with liquid. She doesn’t just have melons, she has watermelons. In sum, she is the stupidest, weakest, most pathetic human being I have ever known. I have to avoid her, since I keep a knife on me at all times and I’m afraid I might stab her with it–not that it’d do any harm since it’s not likely to penetrate the layer of fat that sheathes her.
Oh, and she calls herself “Angel” and always stinks of incense.
Okay. I think I’m done, now.
*[sub]This Callous Remark brought to you by your local Politically Incorrect Store. Stop in today![/sub]
The unpitted Sicilian olive that tried to spontaneously leap down my windpipe instead of meekly lying atop my tongue and waiting for its disembowelment. I thank Og I have a strong gag reflex, or you people would be reading my obit and thinking, “well, at least it wasn’t a pretzel.”
Myself, for trying to use my Dyson to vaccuum the shag-cat-fur-upholstery off my futon this weekend. Now my upper back hates me. Unfortunately the attachments don’t do much to remove said upholstery.
The reek that spoiled half my movie-viewing-experience of the Brothers Grimm with a friend in the Pac 11 theater downtown. If you guys have ever smelled the spices that you use on roast turkeys, right? Hold that image in your head now… Now turn it singularly sour and penetrating. That’s approximately what it smelled like. I had to resort to using the orange essential oil lotion I have in my bag to resist the urge to throw up or flee.
Also, if you’re sitting in the veeeeeerrrryyy back of the theater, the fact that your yakking could bother my friend from our seats TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY UP during reasonably noisy parts of the movie should clue you in that a) The art of silence during a movie is a lost one, and b) You’re TOO GODDAMN LOUD SO STFU.
To my subconscious: I have my Master’s degree. I have graduated from college. I have graduated from high school and middle school, as well. You’ve had 4 years to process the first, and more for the others. So WHY must you give me dreams where I’m back in middle school, high school, college, or grad school? And why must I wake up and spend a couple minutes wondering, as I wake up, if my waking life or the dream is actually real?
My ex-best friend, whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in 4 years: Don’t fucking send me an e-mail – at my work address, which I know you got from Google – out of the blue because you just found out that a mutual friend of ours from high school died. Don’t tell me you’re shocked and ask me for more information like it hasn’t been 4 years, and like I didn’t tell you repeatedly to never, ever contact me again. What the fuck are you thinking?? :mad:
This afternoon I will drink forty ounces of water and experience the wonder of a vaginal ultrasound. Not to hear a baby’s heartbeat or watch it wiggle on a monitor while we giggle about the sex. But to find out why I my empty uterus is spotting instead of getting pregnant.
Drivers who don’t look for pedestrians when turning right in busy downtown areas, until they nearly hit the pedestrians in question.
Drivers who honk at the driver in front of them, who is waiting for pedestrians to cross before turning.
Coworkers who call me on the phone instead of coming to my office. We’re all on the same hallway, doofus.
Cities in the Bay Area that have beer and wine festivals, and don’t have shuttles between BART (the subway system) and the festivals. Way to encourage drinking & driving, idiots.
To the drivers on either side of me at rush hour: Yes, I know there’s about a car length of empty space between me and the car ahead of me. No, I’m not so nice a person that I was saving that space just for your vehicle. That space exists for my safety not your vehicle. You see, I’m a cheap little bitch and I don’t want to rear-end someone or be rear-ended. I also know the more lane changing you do, the more you slow down both lanes of traffic. How do I know this? Simple. I’ve seen two lanes of traffic come to a dead halt from a slow crawl because someone is insisting on fitting his car into a gap that’s too small. Keep out of that gap! This goes double if you’re not using your #$%#! turn signal!
Thank you.
By the way, Anne Neville, I echo your complaint about designers who don’t think women need pockets!
I cannot possibly agree more. I HATE drivers who do not turn on lights in bad weather conditions. And I know what their argument will be:
“But I don’t see any better.”
Hey, dipshit! Haven’t you ever noticed how much easier it is to see other cars when they have their lights on?
Another peeve of mine is driving with parking lights on. They are parking lights. To use if you are parking or parked, Why the fuck are you driving with them on? It takes JUST AS MUCH EFFORT to turn the lights on all the way. Hell, I find it takes less, because it’s easier to just turn the knob till it stops than to turn it just half a turn ever so lightly.
My cousin has finally flipped out. He was always on the verge, but his dad’s death last year did him in. Or maybe he self-sabotaged. Anyhow…He’s not good as a money manager, is probably very deep in debt and near bankruptcy. So how does he plan to handle this? By dragging his sister into court and saying that he should have had more money from their dad’s estate, claiming that she committed financial elder abuse, and who knows what else.
I hope he doesn’t really have a case, but if he does, his sister has asked me if I’ll be one of her character witnesses. She doesn’t want me to mention this to my folks, but I don’t see how I’ll be able to keep it a secret if I wind up having to go to court.
So thanks a lot, cuz, for pissing all over your dad’s memory and making false accusations against your sister, who spent years taking care of your dad. (Yes, I was there a lot and I know.)
Parking lights in general. Why make it so easy to not be sure if you’ve got the headlights or the parking lights on? Just put the parking lights on a separate control, already.
Food. Why is it that all the good stuff (like sour cream, and cheese, and guacamole) is bad for you? Why can’t it be the tasteless stuff like iceberg lettuce that’s bad for you?
It’s work-related for once.