The “uniform face” trained into military and police personnel, so that whenever a formal portrait is taken they appear to have been lobotomized with a 2x4, which is then shoved up their rectums.
This trooper didn’t have it. Maybe that’s why he got killed. Then again, we won 2 world wars without it.
You’d have trouble at my house. I use wooden tongue depressors as a spoon/fork quite often. :eek:
Most radio commercials are terrible. Well, most TV ones too I suppose, but for the moment let’s talk radio commercials.
Look, I know you’re recording this in your studio, not in the old folks’ home or the restaurant. So please don’t add shit into the background like birds tweeting or glasses clinking you morons.
Second, all radio husbands and wives call each other “honey.” That’s because we can’t see them, so instead of saying “Mary, when do the new appliances arrive?” They have to make sure that I understand the relationship. Guess what? I don’t give a fuck when the new appliances arrive for the fictitious radio couple. Just come on and tell me factually what your store delivery schedule is. Don’t put a couple of studio actors in a room making small talk about the great deal that they just got, and then layer sound effects and Foley artist crap on top of it. Give me the facts.
Here’s an example of a really bad commercial that I must turn off every time now:
Neighbour: Hi Susan. Where’s Jim?
Susan: Out back. Painting the windows. Again. (exasperatingly)
Neighbour: You should get *Weststar windows.
Susan: Weststar. (She says in a tone reserved for Martians have just landed.)
Neighbour: Yeah, they come in lots of colours, never need painting and you can even get oak finish in the inside.
Susan: Wow. (Again, emphasized like showing a 19th century person a television.)
Neighbour: By the way, who’s helping Jim?
(sound of ladder slipping, and falling to the ground and a falling person yelling out)
Neighbour and Susan: Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. (Never mind Jim has broken his neck out back and is bleeding from the severed carotid artery.)
Susan: Maybe I should call Weststar? (Condescendingly. 'Cause you know, there’s an extra $20,000 in the bank after all to replace windows. Stupid, dead Jim just didn’t know.)
In ascending order of irritation:
#5 - Geico Commercials. All. Except, maybe, the caveman commercials. I said “maybe”.
#4 - Bob’s Commercials. (Yeah, the ones for natural male enhancement …)
#3 - The commercial that will get me running and screaming from the room every time is from Countrywide:
No Closing costs
No signing fee
No title fee
No escrow fee
No postage fee
No attorney’s fee
No qualifying fee
No research fee
No paperwork fee
No fast food fee
No baby-sitting fee
No masturbation fee
No Closing costs
Nobody can screw you like Cuntrywide. Nobody.
Call so we can screw you today.
That’s what registers in my brain … if they don’t want to leave that impression, they should find less irritating way to get their message across.
#4 - Celebrations or rememberances of events which have long since lost their meaning. (Examples: birthdays, anniveraries, deaths, and disasters.)
#5 - Finally, I absolutely refuse to stay in the building when anyone starts (or even hints that they might start) singing that song. Especially if they threaten to sing it at me.
Why, yes it is. Number 54. Thank you for remembering. That is sufficient unto the day.
Now go away.
Lucy
Garrison Keillor.
Okay … I love his show, but it really gets old how he HAS to do a duet or sing along with every musical act that comes on the show.
Almost ruined the Wailing Jenny’s for me.
I would think you’d be grateful that the person at the second window paid for your meal.
IOW, I can’t stand misplaced modifiers.
And along the lines of the wooden paddle spoon, I can’t stand the feeling of flour.
Got Excel? If you do, here’s a quick worksheet you can whip up for dealing with this problem. Say someone has an ALL CAPS entry such as this:
JOE SCHMUCK
123 MAIN STREET
ANYTOWN, USA 12345
Copy and paste these lines into cells A1,A2,A3. In cells B1-B3 enter this formula:
=PROPER(A1)
=PROPER(A2)
=PROPER(A3)
This will convert the lines to lowercase. The only drawback to this is that it will make the second letter in the 2-letter state code lowercase.
Web forms with a pull down menu for the two letter state abbreviation. I’m fine if they allow me type the two letters in, just like I had to type in all the letters in the other 50 fields of the web form…but fuck no, I have to move from the keyboard to the mouse and scroll to the middle of the list to fill in the information that is implicit in the zip code I will have to enter in the next field…which, by the fucking way, I also had to enter on the fucking previous page so that the shipping cost could be calculated.
Oh yes, the nouns input and output piss me right off when used as verbs. Makes me want to upthrow it does.
When people describe things as ‘‘zen-like’’ without having the slightest idea what Zen really is, it really pisses me off. Oh? That coffee you had this morning allowed a deepening realization of the impermanence and interdependence of all naturally occurring phenomenon, such that your cravings and aversions fell away, you ceased to view yourself as a separate individual and therefore adopted a posture of infinite compassion for all sentient beings?
How nice for you.
Loud music you can hear despite the fact that the person is wearing headphones.
People who stop in doorways.
People asking for cigarettes and getting indignant when I don’t have any. 
I don’t even smoke; I should buy a pack just to hand out to bums?
I don’t know why but reading “please advise” in emails really ticks me off.
Maybe the first time I ever read this (and to me, it’s a new thing, like in the past 2 years) the person who typed it was already known to me as a jerk or something. Maybe he said “I still can’t get this thing to work even though you sent me explicit instructions on how to do it, which I did not follow…please advise.”
I dunno but something about that phrase just seems condescending and rude to me and I hate it with a passion.
I asked around and people have told me it’s not meant to be rude and no one else takes it rudely, but I find it completely offensive.
Thanks, but using a *third *program for the one freaked out address a day this refers to, is just too much.
furryman, you can hang out with me, because I, too, burst into song all the time. In fact… I-i-i-i-i-i-i feel a song comin’ on…
And, speaking of song, Iris DeMent’s voice makes me want to poke sharp sticks in my ears. (And I’d never seen her until, in checking the spelling of her name for this post, I came across a YouTube clip of her singing, and now I want to poke my eyes out, too.) The Dementors in HP should have been based on her. She is far more ghastly than what Rowling came up with.
I have a commonly misspelled first name. Now, I’ll forgive you for misspelling it the first time, but there is no fucking excuse for misspelling it when you’re responding to an e-mail from me, when my name is right there in my signature.
Along the same lines, ZipperJJ, is people whose voice-mail greeting says, “I’ll return your call at my earliest convenience.” I think they think they’re saying, “As soon as I can.” Or maybe they really ARE saying, “I’ll return your call at the earliest moment it is convenient for me to do so, which, depending on whom the message is from, could be six months from now – or never.”
People who chew with their mouths open or talk with their mouth full.
One of my co-workers will, out of nowhere, make this loud clucking noise with her tongue that drives me up the freaking wall! We’re sitting there, quiet, and then suddenly “CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK!” What the holy fuck is that!?
Please, please, may I use that as a Facebook quote? Pretty please?
I hate when people touch my hands. It gives me the jibblies. Ditto for giving me a limp handshake or touching me with your bare feet. Ew. I also hate people interrupting me or talking over me.
But the thing I hate most is people pronouncing words incorrectly. I want to stand up and yell “Con-TRIH-bute! Not CON-tri-bute!” or whatever the word is they happen to be saying wrong. My apologies if CON-tri-bute is actually a legitimate pronounciation, it was the only recent example I could think of off the top of my head.
Go for it! Though my ire is admittedly not very Zen. 
To add something:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I HATE MOLD. To an irrational degree.
The other day my husband was cleaning out the fridge and he said, ‘‘Should I throw these out?’’ He was holding up moldy plums. I read him the riot act for being so insensitive as to make me look at the stuff, knowing the aversion I have to it (he hadn’t seen the moldy side.) I was seriously shaken up. I shudder yet at the memory.
AHHHH!!! I hate mold. And I am allergic to it.
For this reason, The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe is the most horrifying horror story ever written in the history of horror stories.
I can’t stand certain, um, textural things, for lack of a better word. The texture of some book covers (the most recent reprinting of Kurt Vonnegut’s work–the ones with a big V on the front–are the archetypes of this) drives me up the wall. I shiver whenever I touch it. Knives sharpening, or metal scraping against metal in most other contexts, has a similar effect.
Confusion of “its” and “it’s” kills me. Other grammar errors bug me a little, but usually I can keep that in check by reminding myself that people who don’t study linguistics are less likely to care about such things as consonant cluster reduction, gapless relatives, etc. But that “its”/“it’s” thing slays me. The worst was a recent MPSIMS thread where they were actually reversed. Thankfully, my rage didn’t burn hot enough to shit on a thread started by a deceased Doper’s husband, but damn.
COnversely, it really bothers me when people nitpick on which utensils other people should use for their food. I was out at a local sushi buffet (I know, only in San Diego, right?) with my mom, my uncle from Minnesota (who was happy to be eating sushi at all), and my mom’s coworker, who’s half-Japanese. He stared at me while I tried to eat fried rice with chopsticks and literally said, “That’s driving me nuts. Do you want me to get you a spoon?” in a pretty nasty way. It really bugged me, because it turned awkward fast. I knew that he would have actually called a waitress over and asked for a spoon for me, which would have been embarrassing. And it would have been positively humiliating for me to go up and get a spoon just to put his mind at ease. I ended up pushing the plate away and getting something else. Later, when he got fried rice, he ate it with a spoon and said “See? I’m not above using a spoon when I have to.” I fired back with some quip and I figured we were even, though I can’t remember exactly what I said.
I guess it bugs me in general when people butt in to other peoples’ business and tell them how to do little things.
Sure it is. People use it. It has a meaning. Everyone understands that meaning. How does that not define a word?
Stupid word, infantile word, juvenile word, maybe. But it’s a word, just like any other.
Og damn, that drives me up the fucking wall!
Have you read/seen A Clockwork Orange? Cause I’m picturing you as Alex now. 
Be grateful; it’s that or the ladle thing.
I don’t know if I want to cry or cut myself, or both. Quit toying with me! AGGGGGGGGGHHH!
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I call this Ovaltine Syndrome. “WOW! Rich chocolate Ovaltine is like a sunshine enema! From space!” Strangely, it seems to be worst on LA radio stations. I’ll never figure that out. Surely there are a few talented voice actors looking for work in LA?
Public transportation related: For some reason it infuriates me to see people who are REALLY EAGER to get a vacant seat on buses or trains. If they would casually walk to it like a normal person, that would be okay. But there’s always somebody who - as soon as the door opens - frantically pushes his way through the crowd with wide eyes and then sits down with smug satisfaction. Even if there are a million vacant seats! Ugh. Nothing pleases me more than watching their dreams crumble when forced to stand.
Anti-pot commercials: Not only do they grossly stereotype and exaggerate pot smokers, I can’t fathom how their effectiveness could warrant the money and time spent to create them.
Maybe all the talented ones are looking for work.
A lot of these seem like common complaints, but I’ve never heard anyone else mention my quirk:
If my arm is around my wife, with a blanket over us, I can’t stand the feeling of the blanket rubbing back and forth across my fingernails as she breathes.
