# Tiny, Insignificant Things That Tick You Off
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 27, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205 "2010-07-27T17:32:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/21 "2010-07-27T20:28:24Z")
People who pronounce the “t” in “often” make me stabby. Yes, I know it’s an accepted alternate pronounciation. But tell me, do you sound the “t” in “soften” also?
_grrrrrrrrrr_
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/22 "2010-07-27T20:29:50Z")
People behind me. This manifests itself in two infuriating ways.
Out of my office and down the hall behind me a short distance is a conference room. Often there will be meetings scheduled back to back, so people who are waiting for the next meeting will gather around. They’ll usually have conversations, so I get the noise thing. And I feel like they’re looking over my shoulder when I’m trying to read the Do-, er, work. And during meetings sometimes someone will come out of the conference room to talk on their cell phones. They’ll usually pace back and forth right in front of my door. It’s at times like that that I wish I had a blowgun and poison darts. (And no, I can’t close my office door.)
The other situation is if I’m walking down the street, especially if I’m walking with a friend, and there are people behind us having a loud conversation. They won’t move around us or go past us, and we can’t lose them at a crosswalk, because they’re following the same walk signals that we are. And their loud conversation Just. Won’t. Stop.
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### Author:  [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/23 "2010-07-27T20:41:13Z")
People who put that little divider bar between our groceries on the conveyor belt.
I put down 1 carton of ice cream and a toothbrush 3 feet away from your fucking precious People magazine and your tub of hummus from the organic aisle, and you look at me like I just shit on your child and start building a Berlin Wall of sticks between us so your delicate hand-selected stack of cat fud cans won’t get contaminated by my toothbrush cooties. From 3 feet away.
Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.
I really feel stabby when this happens, but I do recognize that I might be over-reacting.
That’s a good thing, right?
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### Author:  [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/24 "2010-07-27T20:41:57Z")
People who walk in the street instead of on the sidewalk! Gah! These drooling cretins make me utterly Lose. My. Shit. Seriously, I can’t freakin’ take it. I get all apoplectic and the Mr. fears for my blood pressure. It’s inexplicable.
I know my neighborhood doesn’t do so well keeping the walks clear in February. But it’s July! There hasn’t been any snow in months! Get out of the street and onto the fucking sidewalk!
Totally irrational, but I just see red.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/25 "2010-07-27T20:51:20Z")
People riding bikes with no hands–while talking on their cellphone.
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### Author:  [@hobscrk777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hobscrk777)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/26 "2010-07-27T20:54:24Z")
My roommates use the sponges I buy and don’t replace them.
My roommates refuse to take out the trash even when the refuse is OVERFLOWING and spilling down onto the floor.
One of my roommates thinks his room is an American Idol audition stage.
No, I’m not harboring any resentment, why do you ask?
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/27 "2010-07-27T20:57:34Z")
Lazy and or germ-phobic people who use the handicap access buttons to enter or exit the office restroom.
I have visions of people roaming the building with vestigial stumps for arms because they’ve withered away from lack of use. Their immune systems are also withering away from non-use.
The ironic thing is that the button’s not likely any more sanitary than the door, and these people’s phones, mice and keyboards are all but guaranteed to be swarming with germs.
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### Author:  [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/28 "2010-07-27T21:26:11Z")
> [@ducati](#):
>
> People who put that little divider bar between our groceries on the conveyor belt.
> …
> I really feel stabby when this happens, but I do recognize that I might be over-reacting.
Well, yeah…but it’s more that you’re not seeing the point. It comes down to being a matter of courtesy. In most grocery stores, the conveyor only stops after something blocks the invisible beam across the belt near the checkout person. That little divider serves to stop the conveyor so that the checker can tell – without really paying attention – where my purchases end and yours begin. Since I’m usually at the other end of the bagging area, it also serves to keep you from having to inform said checker of where your purchases begin.
So, it’s actually a matter of me being nice for both the checker and you.
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### Author:  [@Al\_Bundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al_Bundy)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/29 "2010-07-27T21:29:41Z")
It used to bother me when women would stand in line for minutes as everything was tallied up. At the very end and only then would they reach for their wallet inside the big purse and ultimately the tiny coin purse elsewhere to make exact change. Over the years that morphed into not reaching for the check book and having to fill out the complete check as people waited. Now it’s the debit card that never presents itself until the end.
As they say in Miami, “Never pull out until you see the whites of their eyes.”
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### Author:  [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/30 "2010-07-27T21:30:47Z")
People who put down those paper toilet seat protectors and then leave them to fall into the water.
People who bike on sidewalks full of pedestrians, where it’s illegal.
Back when I worked retail, I hated processing returns that people had received as gifts, because the price tag was almost always removed. I started leaving price tags intact on gifts as a result, and either blacked the price out with a Sharpie or just left it on. I’m not in the habit of giving gifts to Martians, so they’ll have an idea what the gift costs anyway, and it will be easier to return it they want something else.
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### Author:  [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/31 "2010-07-27T21:40:32Z")
People who glared at me when I put the Celtling in a stroller to move her from place to place. No, I am not going to stop and explain my medical history to every judgemental @$$hole who decides to be nasty about it, but as a matter of fact I slipped a disc while I was pregnant, and it had to wait so long that now there’s little to be done about it, and I paid extra for this special stroller because I could slip her car seat and all in and out of the truck without having to bend/twist as much NOT because I think it’s some sort of badge of wealth, and I have all the pain I need thankyouverymuch without you adding social embarassment on top of it, and you can all shove your pruned up glaring little faces RIGHT the #e// UP each others @$$e$! ! !
Phew. That was therapeutic! thank you pbbth!
😉
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/32 "2010-07-27T21:55:05Z")
Ticks.
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### Author:  [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/33 "2010-07-27T22:14:51Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#):
>
> People who pronounce the “t” in “often” make me stabby. Yes, I know it’s an accepted alternate pronounciation.
Huh. If I knew anybody who said “offen” that would make _me_ stabby.
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### Author:  [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/34 "2010-07-27T22:42:37Z")
People who add an extra T to “in absentia.”
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### Author:  [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/35 "2010-07-27T22:57:51Z")
Co-workers who can’t be bothered to put a new roll of toilet tissue on the spindle. It’s such a little thing, but just how difficult is it to grab a new roll, unwrap it, and put it on the spindle? You’re sitting right there, presumably with nothing better to do with your hands for a few moments, right? So why is it that, every night when I go to work, I have to replace at least one, often two rolls? Grr, and grr again!
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/36 "2010-07-27T23:18:10Z")
> [@TruCelt](#):
>
> People who glared at me when I put the Celtling in a stroller to move her from place to place. No, I am not going to stop and explain my medical history to every judgemental @$$hole who decides to be nasty about it, but as a matter of fact I slipped a disc while I was pregnant, and it had to wait so long that now there’s little to be done about it, and I paid extra for this special stroller because I could slip her car seat and all in and out of the truck without having to bend/twist as much NOT because I think it’s some sort of badge of wealth, and I have all the pain I need thankyouverymuch without you adding social embarassment on top of it, and you can all shove your pruned up glaring little faces RIGHT the #e// UP each others @$$e$! ! !
>
> Phew. That was therapeutic! thank you pbbth!
>
> 😉
Hey, I’m not glaring or being nasty. I _silently_ judge. Sheez, you’d think I had no class.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/37 "2010-07-27T23:20:42Z")
This stupid laptop is going to drive me bugshit if it doesn’t start \*going on standby \*when I tell it to.
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### Author:  [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/38 "2010-07-28T01:40:43Z")
Everything seems to be “skyrocketing” these days. It’s the most overused word there is.
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### Author:  [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/39 "2010-07-28T01:55:28Z")
I have to say, some of the stuff in this thread isn’t really “tiny” or “insignificant”.
Anyway, I can come up with a whole list of shit that just is not important to anybody but will still get me ranting like somebody just… did something not insignificant? Anyway…
- people who refer to post-potty trained children as their “baby”
- the way so many people will name Texas before Alaska if you ask them to name a big state (not because Texas isn’t big but because there are actually people out there retarded enough to believe that Alaska is a small state off the coast of CA over by Hawaii, as shown on every map ever)
- the fact that apparently every chick in the world has, at some point, taken a picture of herself behind the wheel of a car wearing the most hideous sunglasses known to man
- the new Sunchips bags which, I’m sorry, eff the environment, they are too loud
- when I order something like “Oh, I’ll have a number 3 with a tea” and the person RIGHT IN MY FACE TAKING MY ORDER looks up and says “And what to drink?”
- people who talk with their hands
- this girl at school who failed every class she took last semester and is SHOCKED, OMG now that she got denied entrance into the next half of her program; of course, this is the school’s fault because they don’t round up on GPAs (this whole thing honestly makes me want to run her over with a car)
- that movie, Overboard
- how everybody on Facebook will copy and paste stupid status updates just because it says “Copy and Paste this to your wall!” at the end of it; somewhat related, how every week is something new (and sometimes the same week will be two different things) like “It’s daughter appreciation week! If you have a daughter and you love her, copy and paste this to your wall!” or “It’s NURSES WEEK!” etc. I’m still waiting for the totally cynical status updates to start circulating like “Copy and paste this status if you hate your parents and hope they DIE” but it’ll never happen.
None of this stuff actually affects me AT ALL, where things like gigantic strollers and oblivious people blocking grocery aisles and what not would. Even so, RAWR, it gets me fired up.
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### Author:  [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-insignificant-things-that-tick-you-off/548205/40 "2010-07-28T02:00:04Z")
I have a million, billion of these things. Right now the one I can think of best is people who tell bad jokes and puns all the times. And what is worse is that they tell the SAME jokes. I had a boss once who said to me every time I went to the bank “Bring back some free samples, ok?”
These aren’t the people who tell racist jokes or can’t shut up. They’re not trying to piss you off. They just get one or two lame jokes stuck in their heads and think it’s so freaking funny and new.
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