That annoys me no end, as well. I always smile sweetly and answer, “Oh, I don’t consider it work!” Which annoys my husband! Well, there’s always a tradeoff. 
I see you’ve met my ex-husband. He also SCREAMED out his sneezes. These things were a considerable reason why we lost the magic.
All they’re doing is translating *mea culpa *into English as a courtesy to you. 
I don’t disagree with your annoyance at her cluelessness, but she kind of has a point. Would it have killed you to say “Excuse me”?
Heh, I love this. Of course, they do it because management requires them to ask. Unfortunately, management apparently never tells them what to do when the customer says, “No, I couldn’t find any garlic, or the wheat bread I usually buy, or the pickled herring.” The cashier just looks at me in confusion and says “Oh.” [NB - Yes, I asked employees in the appropriate area, but they just looked at the same shelf I had looked at, “Well, I don’t see any.” Ahhh, thanks, neither did I and I was worried I’d gone blind.]
And any cashier who tells me I have to show ID to buy a bottle of wine along with my groceries:
Cashier: I need ID.
Me: No.
Cashier: the register says I need to see ID.
Me: Tell the register I don’t need ID.
Cashier: I need your ID.
Me: Get a manager over here to tell me I look like I’m under 21.
Cashier: We card under 40.
Me: Get a manager over here to tell me I look like I’m under 40.
Usually they concede at this point. Once, a really stubborn cashier refused to ring up the wine unless I produced my driver’s license. I walked out, leaving all my groceries on the belt for them to deal with. I offer support of my contention that I do not need to show ID to purchase a bottle of wine.
Perhaps the unfortunate person who was behind me in the checkout line will drop by to bitch about old men who refuse to produce a drivers license to buy alcohol. 
A friend of mine has a very loud laugh that sounds like this:
Me: “Some guy let out a huge fart on the bus yesterday.”
Her: “SQUAAAAACCCKK!”
Sometimes I avoid saying anything funny around her so as not to damage my eardrums. Super annoying. Does she not know how irritating that is? Even my dogs give a little head tilt if she does it around them.
I frequent a few parenting message boards and the women on there jump at the chance to encourage other members to keep getting pregnant every five minutes. Example:
SuperMommy: “Oh my gosh CuddlyMommy your new baby is soooo cute! Makes me think of when my son was that little!”
CuddlyMommy: “Oh my gosh SuperMommy you should TOTALLY have another baby! Little Braedan and Mikaylah SOOO need a baby brother or sister even though you nearly died in your other pregnancies and had morning sickness that made you stay in bed for 9 months!”
OtherAnnoyingMommiesChimingIN: “Oh yes SuperMommy you NEEEED another baby OMG go tell “DH” right now that you need to start TTC right away!”
Ick. Just SHUT the F*ck up already about it, it couldn’t POSSIBLY be any of your business how many kids someone “needs”.
I also hate it when the manager of a restaurant interrupts your meal to ask you how your food is but doesn’t bother to introduce himself. For all I know he could just be some Joe Schmo sitting at the next table. My husband keeps threatening to just walk around others’ tables and ask how their food is.
**Charger **, I think you’ve just made those parenting boards more bearable.
In that same vein, it also bothers me when people use cutesy terms to refer to their children and/or spouses in front of me when they’re not around and it’s not a nickname. “My hubby/honey/sweetie is waiting for me.” You never hear guys doing it in front of people either - it’s usually women.
Also, another thing that I just can’t understand (but doesn’t bother me terribly because it doesn’t affect me) is when an adult gets some funky, cutesy skin for their cell phone. I could kinda understand a souped-up snazzy gadget if you’re into that sort of thing and can afford it, but do you really need your cell phone to be plastered with Hello Kitty? When you whip that thing out in front of your boss or another adult, are you forced to lie and say it’s your daugher’s? 'Cause that’s probably what I would do.
Loud chewing or yawning.
When the waiter/ress starts removing my plate/silverware while I’m still chewing my last bite.
Sorry, I’ve been busy travelling the world and hacking these people to bits with a cleaver; it’s just taking longer than I thought it would… I’ll get to yours as soon as I’m able… :o
Don’t know if you’ve ever been to the India Palace near Lambert, but there’s a guy there we call the plate nabber because he always does takes plates before the customer is finished chewing. He’ll often ask if you’re done with his hand on your plate even if there’s still food on the plate. We stopped going there, in part because of the plate nabber. He was even worse than the Hamburglar.
The phrase “one of the only”, e.g., “He was one of the only people to make it that far”. I never remember encountering this prior to the past decade or so, and it seems to be spreading like a mold. It makes NO SENSE, PEOPLE!! Arrrrghhh!!!
Dog owners who are too damn lazy to pick up after their furry poop-dispensers and leave it all over the sidewalk. I don’t deposit germ-ridden biological waste where they live, how about they show me the same basic courtesy?
My front yard is all trees and one of my neighbors throws her dog poop into the trees each evening. I doubt she knows I know. I guess I don’t really mind, there is no way I’m going to step in it and no doubt there are all kinds of critters pooping out there.
It still seems kind of ballsy.
Little things that infuriate me…
When people pronounce the “t” in “often.”
The use of LOL as a pause/punctuation in written messages.
The over-use of “amazing” to mean “nice” or “good”. That dress is amazing. This Oasys song is amazing. That coat rack is amazing. Really? In the space of 15 seconds you were left in a sense of dazzled awe by those items? You have an overly low threshold of impression, I think.
That was an amazing post.
She actually takes the time to bend down, pick up the poop and throw it into your trees? That’s not only ballsy, it’s mind-boggling. I’m hoping she at least covers her hand with something while she’s doing it.
Yep. She walks here dog each night (and each morning) and when it poops, she bends over and throws it into my front yard. I assume she covers her had with something, but don’t care enough to check. I am also assuming she does the same thing in the morning, but I have only seen her do it at night.
Every day at about 4:30, DH, who is in charge of dinner, has a dinner emergency…lack of ideas, lack of ingredients, staring in to the fridge etc…
Any Anglophone, whether American or otherwise, who gratuitously translates non-US terms or currency to American equivalents. We know that what they call football elsewhere, we call soccer here, so if we read about people elsewhere playing “football” we know it’s not American football, unless specified as such. Recently I was glancing at Albert Goldman’s infamous biography of John Lennon, and was pained to see in one passage how he said the admission to some club or other was “a quarter” (instead of two shillings). But then he really was a great big dick after all. He also thought Fats Waller recorded “Ain’t It A Shame”.
Chatty people who explain some process or situation to you and punctuate it with “Understand what I’m saying?” (or some variation). No teacher I ever had used such an expression–from first grade through college.
I drive around an aged customer, I call her Maureen on this board; she tells me all her problems (some of them are the reason she has me drive her around) and she uses the phrase all the time. I can’t really criticize her because she is of my parents’ generation.