Off-center hats. Seriously, how hard is it to point a hat straight forwards or straight back? Argh.
“Alot” is annoying, but you know what really pisses me off? “Allright”. “ALLRIGHT” is not a word, people! TWO WORDS. ALL. RIGHT.
That doesn’t bother me so much since I realized that the kids doing it (and it’s always kids) look just like old farmers. Heh. I am laughing at them, not with them.
People eating ice cream with wooden ice cream paddles. That creeps me out. I have to stop what I am doing and get them a real spoon.
There are a lot of stupid little things that get me irrationally angry, some of which were mentioned here. I’m not sure what that says about me.
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Spelling errors from those who ought to know better. Which is dumb because I’ve made plenty of my own, and every now and then I come across one – often a common word – and look at it and say, “Really? Is that how it’s really spelled? Wow. I feel like a total dumbass for having spelled it the other way all my freakin’ life.” And yet I know sometimes it’s just a typo or a momentary lapse (Hi, Gaudere! Be nice) This one is relatively mild though compared to…
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Atrocious spelling, unnecessary abbreviations, egregious malapropisms and gratuitous use of numbers and the letter “z” where not intended to be ironic (parody) or amusing (lolcats). U no, like u see on other mesage bords esp. w yunger pplz who typ liek their in grade 7 n lerned 2 spell thru txt msgs n chat pages. Holy hell it drives me batshit insane. I want to shake each and every person I see intentionally typing that way and say, “PAY ATTENTION IN SCHOOL YOU IGNORANT LITTLE CRETINOUS TWAT WAFFLES!” until all of the viscous wads of dumb fall out of their ears. Although a certain amount of anger here is entirely justified, part of it is irrational because in many cases, what with the internet being the ultimate global forum, much of it is due to the poster having English as a second or even third language, so their grammar, conjugation and spelling is often atrocious by a native speaker’s standards, but it’s attributed to simple ignorance, not willful stupidity.
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Excessive and gratuitous use of abbreviated expressions of mirth, especially where there isn’t even anything funny about the preceding sentence lolol lmao.
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Obviously inappropriate punctuation? How hard is it to keep straight the appropriate uses of the four basic punctuation marks. Pay attention,
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Excessive punctuation!!!1!1111eleventyone???
Uh, yeah. I seem to have a lot of issues about spelling and grammar. Very little of it is unjustified, but the degree to which it bugs me is irrational.
For truly irrational stuff:
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People who cook stinky things on my floor. Reeks up the whole floor, but especially when you get a confluence of different international smells commingling to create this Super Stench that makes you want to hurl. Mmmm … curried chicken kipper raspberry tort tuna melt loaded with coriander. But what am I gonna do? Ask them all to meet up daily to discuss their dinner plans so only one of them cooks something stinky on any given night?
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People testing or showing off their newly installed car alarms. Especially the ones that cycle through half a dozen different types of alarm. wOOOoooOOOooooOOOOoooPew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! woooooOOOOOP! woooooooOOOOOP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! AAAAARRRRGHHHHH! Actually, an alarm that went “AAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHH!” would be kind of amusing.
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LOUD TALKERS. Even ones whose vocal timbre makes even soft speech sound loud to the listener. The ones who go on and on and on and then laugh this boisterous, braying laugh make me want to give them a surprise laryngectomy.
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Kid wearing baggy pants hanging down to their kneecaps. PULL UP YOUR OG-DAMNED F&%$*G PANTS!! Hoodies also piss me off. Are you trying to avoid recognition by the authorities or someone who might have witnessed your crime(s)? No? PULL IT DOWN and dress like a freakin’ human being. And get the hell off my lawn!
There are more, but I think that is sufficient for now.
My darling wife, if she’s watching a TV program, has to watch every fucking second of it. Including all of the credits. She cannot be interrupted. If we’re watching something on DVD and I leave the room for a few seconds to get something from the fridge or take a piss, she will pause it and rewind it about two minutes to make sure I get to watch every fucking second of it, too. Honey, I simply don’t care about TV that much.
People eating in public non-eating areas, like in the waiting room at an office.
I try to be rational, and remind myself that a person might have a busy schedule and this is the only time she has to grab some lunch. And some people have medical conditions where they really need to eat on a certain schedule.
But I still find myself irrationally fuming inside when I have to watch, smell and listen to a person eat. I’m not even talking about obnoxious chomping or anything like that, even the normal very quiet eating will set me off.
Just to be clear, I have no issues with people eating in places you normally eat, like restaurants, picnics in parks, ballgames or strolling down the boardwalk eating ice cream. But the doctor’s waiting room? The subway? In the line at the bank?
jjimm, my husband and your wife would have a fight to the death if they ever attempted to watch TV together. He watches about three shows at the same time, but usually changes channels at the commercial. Therefore, you’ll be watching one show, get interested, then it’s time to go to the next show, and the next. By the time you get back to the original, you’ve missed the part you wanted to see. It’s gotten to the point that if I find myself getting interested in a show, I go in the other room and pick up a book.
People who leave the windshield wipers on in the car after it’s stopped raining. Or people who have the wipers on too high a setting for the current rain conditions. Drives me bat shit crazy. It’s worse if the wipers are squeaky, but it bothers me even if they’re just quietly flapping back and forth across the windshield. I have to close my eyes or turn and look out the side window to keep from yelling.
It’s totally stupid, completely irrational, but it bugs the hell out of me.
The brakes on the school bus…
I live near a school, and every school morning from 6:30 until 8:30, I hear the roaring, shrieking, long howl of school bus brakes. Seriously, it’s every bus, every time! I know buses are heavy and powerful, and thus wear down brake pads easily, but come on! Do they never, ever do a brake job on these?
And it has such a high pitched squeal that just grates on my nerves…
You are not alone. I WILL reach over and turn your wipers off when it’s done raining.
Hearing people swallow. I swear on hundreds of amplified esophagus’ (?) that it just doesn’t ever need to be that loud. EVER.
Mouth breathers. My sister has been mouth breathing lately, and I swear to shit she is just a tad wheezey, and it drives me bat shit insane. I want to scream at her that her nose is a perfectly acceptable place to breathe, and if she insists on calling me five times a day, would she put the fucking whistle away?!? Is it too much to ask that I not be aware of every damn breath you take?
No? Just me then?
A recent board occurence brought this to mind. Thankfully this doesnt hit TOO close to home (yet):
DANCING BANNER ADS. When I get into a quasi-road rage incident driving on the highway, I get so angry that I am somewhat calmed by the absolute state of rage I am in, if that makes sense. I guess it clears my mind. Same thing happens with banner ads. I am too angry to be full of rage at them. I guess they put me on the left-end of the “fight or flight” continuum.
I won’t be very popular with you then… you should read my thread on the Annoy-a-tron. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=445923
For me, it’s when you’re driving on a 4 lane road (2 lanes in each direction) and you are blocked because two cars in front of you are mindlessly going the same speed. grrrr!
That’s because we all know the word is “sammich”.
People with whistly noses.
True enough - though my verbal glurge is usually limited to my writing instead of my speech. Hence the username - I can’t seem to provide an answer without also offering a dissertation on how I came to my conclusions.
I think what bugs me most about my mom’s constant chatter is that she’ll actually follow me around the house if I leave the room or raise her voice so I’m sure to hear her in other ares of the house. She’ll eventually find me quietly reading in the front living room (well away from a television) or downstairs on my computer and say, “Watcha doin’?” in this really cutesy voice that always precludes a lot of useless information. And if I don’t respond or if I tell her I just need a few moments to myself, she start asking why I’m mad at her and sometimes even get really upset/offended/start to cry. “Why do you hate me? Do you want me to leave?”
Urgh. There I go again.
I don’t mind off-center hats, but I really hate the trend of wearing the baseball cap with an absolutely flat brim (in my day–and yes, I would like it if you’d all get off my lawn–a flat baseball cap brim was the sign of a dork who didn’t know enough to bend it) and…even worse…LEAVING THE FRICKING HOLOGRAPHIC STICKER ON IT! You know, the one that shows what size the hat is?
Basically stupid clothing decisions make me angry. I was at Popeye’s last night and saw a teenager at the drink counter wearing a perfectly nice pair of white basketball shoes, but he was wearing them like slippers–his feet shoved into them and his heels pushing down the counters (and these were ankle-length puffy basketball shoes, so there was quite a lot of material to displace). It looked like he didn’t have the mental power to comprehend the proper way to wear shoes. Somehow I don’t think it was because he’d outgrown them and was too poor to buy a new pair, either, since these looked quite new.
Everytime I come into one of these threads, I realize that a lot of things bother me irrationally.
I hate when people don’t signal when changing lanes or turning.
I hate it when allergy season comes and my husband won’t stop clearing his throat. It’s gotten to the point where it’s practically a nervous tic now.
It drives me crazy when the lady behind me at work says “I seen” instead of “I’ve seen” or “I saw.”
It also drives me nuts when she asks me questions on how to use Microsoft products when I know that a) she’s been working with the same products at the same company at least 7 years and b) she took a class on them that ended a few weeks ago and still needs to ask me how to insert page numbers.
I’m driven to near-murderous rage when my husband won’t get out of bed in the morning. I have to wake him at least three or four times before he’ll move. I’ve resorted to sitting our kid on his chest when it’s my morning to watch him. I only have one child, dammit - I don’t want to treat you like one, too. Set an alarm. Why do you think we have two clocks in this room?
I absolutely loathe when people use the term “cow-orker.” It’s not cute or funny. It doesn’t somehow display or further emphasize your true disdain for your co-worker. It makes you look like a moron who’s trying way too hard.
I hate it when people lean on their shopping carts in the market while meandering down the middle of the aisle like no one else is there.