I’m a very laid back person. So when I say that certain minor things bother me, they don’t really affect my life much. That being said, I am conscious of these things and keep them in mind when I encounter them.
Juice boxes - I give these to my 1 year old. They have their own straw with the pointed bottom that allow me to puncture a hole into the foil. It bothers me that there is very small chance that I might perforate the entire foil, and that my kid might swallow that tiny piece of perforated foil.
Strangers’ bags that touch me - When I ride crowded trains and subways, my clothes occasionally come into contact with people’s bags. Whether they’re handheld bags or backpacks, they sometimes touch you when you’re exiting or on the steps out of the station, or simply standing in a crowded car. I notice that most men, when using a urinal, place their bags on the floor. And they’re usually not too picky about the spot that they place it on. Most restrooms, especially public ones, are quite filthy. The floors around toilets are even worse. Chances are that there is all kinds of nastiness that’s picked up by bags. And it’s usually pretty hard to determine just how long ago a stranger used a restroom. Who knows, the leather briefcase that just brushed against your khahis might even have wet urine on it, or quite possibly a clingy pubic hair.
I can’t cross a street if the crosswalk signal has already started blinking. If the little green man is gone, and the red hand is flashing at me, I can’t step foot in the street. People that I’m with will sigh, and roll their eyes, but it makes my stomach clench to walk out into the street.
How about the ones who upon reaching the bottom/top of the Escalator, stop to decide which way to go. Just move a few feet and nobody will have to try and push past you.
My #1 complaint, (I live in NJ) people driving slow in the fast lane. :mad:
Must control my Road Rage [SUP]TM[/SUP], Arghh!!!
Especially when it is not just one person, but a group of them, and they take up the entire width of sidewalk. And then when you try to slip past, they crunch even closer together and grunt at you. It’s not just you this bothers.
—People who sit on the aisle seat on a crowded bus when there is nobody in the window seat, and nobody will tell them anything because who knows, maybe that person is crazy or a killer and asking them to slide over would mean the death of us all. Of course, I don’t say anything either, so I am just as guilty. But not as guilty as the person sitting there in the first place!
—When the clerk at a store or fast food restaurant gives me a bag for my item, even though I told them when I handed them the thing that I didn’t want a bag. Lookit, if I’m buying ONE candy bar or ONE carton of paper clips, I don’t need a bag, especially since the big honkin’ purse I usually carry on shopping trips more than suffices as a carrier. I am trying to save the Earth here! I’ve taken to taking my item out of the bag and folding it neatly on the nearest counter space, in the hope it will get used on someone who needs it, but it probably just gets thrown away. They’ll think it’s contaminated.
—When someone takes something of mine, say like a pen, off my desk, uses it, and then puts it back without saying anything. Listen, dude, if you want to borrow my pen, just ask. I won’t care. But when you don’t ask, and just take, that makes you not worthy of borrowing my pen. So now, I’m going to hide my pen. You’ll have to ask to use it. And I won’t let you.
People who stand around blocking the hallway or other passageway in an office and you are forced to excuse yourself while walking through their conversation.
The narrower the passage, the more likely someone will be blocking it.
Oh, and something I forgot:
—People who type for a living but wear five-inch-long fingernails. WTF? Obviously, you can do whatever you want with your body, and shouldn’t have to change your style just for a job, but why would you spend forty-five dollars on nail tips to crown your keratin pointers when there is such a high chance they will crack or chip? It’s like wearing a prom dress to an operating room.
Men adjusting themselves. I am a poker dealer and as such I am at about crotch level to folks standing up and have really gotten annoyed at this. FYI, I am sympathetic to the physiological reasons for doing so, but really, leave it alone guys, it hasn’t fallen off yet, and isn’t likely to.
Giving more than 100% (I gave 150%, so I am happy). This is a huge peeve of mine, I always want to respond with "well, I gave 2000% and you are just a slacker).
This isn’t a minor thing. Those people - and not just on the sidewalk, people oblivious to their surroundings no matter where or when, especially people who walk in one direction and look in another - are scum.
I really, really, really, really hate it when I’m walking down the footpath, or through a shopping centre, and someone will be walking a couple of feet behind me. I’ll often have to stop and move to the side so they can walk past. It just really bothers me when I know there’s someone there, just out of the corner of my eye when I turn my head to talk to hubby. And I hate them for it. Irrational rage.
People that don’t use their turn signals while driving. How difficult is it to remember to use them? At the very least, they SHOULD use them out of sheer habit!
Idiots.
People that don’t attempt to let you merge into their lane when you’re going on to a highway. Argh! Merging was the scariest thing when I was learning to drive because of this.
People who park their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle. Move. The. Damn. Cart. And don’t get all pissy with me when I move it for you. You shouldn’t have left your purse in the cart and wandered off. Which, btw, is a stupid thing I’m seeing happen more and more.
People who stand there in the frozen food aisle with the doors open so they fog over. The doors are glass. Look through the door, pick your item, open the door. How hard is that?
See, this is why I do most of my shopping at 3 am. Nobody is there to drive me up the wall.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when I’m out hiking and I KNOW that the people walking towards me can see me. During a visit to Yellowstone one year, I was nearly forced off the boardwalks several times while hiking through the geyser areas. Tourists of certain nationalities would simply not step to one side as I approached.
It was then that I developed my rather nasty strategy. When I sensed that the person coming towards me had no intention of giving me enough room to pass, I would slow down, plant my foot, and make REAL SOLID CONTACT with my shoulder.(not enough to hurt or anything, but just enough to wake the jerk up). At the moment of impact, I’d act extremely surprised and offer profuse apologies. Very rude of me, but at the same time, very satisfying.
I can’t stand jaywalkers. Nothing pisses me off more than to have to stop my car because some jackass can’t be bothered to wait for the white light on the crosswalk sign. Particularly if they don’t even look at the traffic before they start walking, as I saw one brain-dead moron do.
This seems especially prevalent around my university. Someone once mentioned in a thread that Austin has a large population of blind people who get around town independently, taking buses and crossing streets and everything. This led me to conclude that every city has a finite amount of common sense when it comes to crossing streets, and that population has it all. The end result is a bunch of college students who don’t seem to get the physics involved with a car slamming into them.
People that have four cars and inevitably park one in their driveway so that it sticks out across the sidewalk. I walk a lot in the nieghborhood, and nothing sucks more than to have to move around a car that some asshole can’t just leave in the street.
Ok, I’m perfectly healthy and I can get around in the street like you no doubt meant for me to, but a number of older folks in the area are in scooters, or walkers and having to maneuver around your car is not just hard but sometimes dangerous.
As a mild protest, I always swerve into the yard instead of the street, and hey if I tample the flowers on the way, well fuck me I’m so sorry.
Once I had a lady yell at me to please not walk through her front yard. I just laughed and said fine then next time I’ll just climb over the fucking car she had just left a minute before blocking the sidewalk.
I hate, hate, HATE when someone is pulling out of a parking lot (onto the street) and blocks the entire entrance/exit by making a wide turn and pulling their car into the center. So there I am, block traffic, waiting for you so I can pull into the shopping center; but there you are, waiting for me to move so you can see around my car and pull your car into the street.