One of Those Weeks

I don't know if it's the weather, or the price of gas, or that I gave up ice cream, but I've been having one of those weeks. Here are my most recent (and some long-standing) pet peeves.

Bad drivers are among the worst offenders. I happen to believe that I am the greatest driver in history. Everyone thinks that about themselves, but unfortunately only a small few even come close. How is it that I am always stuck behind the bad ones? The ones who put their signal light on near the Ultramar to pull in to the Civic Center. The ones who view the speed limit as an outrageous suggestion. The ones who have enough room to navigate a tractor trailer with ease, yet take 25 minutes to back their SmartCar out of their parking spot, for fear of hitting something. The obligatory "sorry for the wait, thanks for your patience" wave does little to quell my fury. Move it along, people. And watch where you're going. Jeez.

People who don't pronounce words properly, and other language-related blunders. I'm no Rhodes scholar, but I can usually construct a coherent sentence. Unfortunately, I encounter this problem so often that I almost wrote an entire article about it, and that's pretty bad. A few tips: there is no excuse for using the words "irregardless" or "unthawed". There is no point in using fancy words, like "superfluous" and others like it, unless you know their meaning. And "there", "their", and "they're" are NOT interchangeable. These are simple truths, like it or not. So many intelligent people dumb themselves down by being careless, and it's really irritating.

Lack of customer service. There aren't many people put in charge of accounting departments who can't add 2 plus 2. So, it would stand to reason that someone who knows nothing about bed sheets would not be put in charge of a linens department, wouldn't it? You would think so. Unfortunately, there are human resources people in our area who do not subscribe to this logic. Hence, I often find myself faced with a blank stare after asking Bambi Jo Useless about sizing curtains, considering her specialties are in areas of "Facebook" and "Hanging Out". There is a phone right beside you, dear; please get someone knowledgeable over here to help me. My kids are throwing groceries at each other and I don't have time to explain the difference between a valance and a mini-blind.

This is the big one. The worst of the worst, the thing that makes me want to run screaming through the streets. How many of you have been in a rush running into the gas station to grab a carton of milk and some lady with a 4-inch thick portfolio of lottery tickets is at the counter to check them all and get new ones? Picture it: nine people in line, all of whom are paying for nothing more than a snack or a newspaper or a tank of gas, and some woman at the front is (slowly) saying, "I'll take 2 with the Tag, and 2 without, and I'll have 1 of the Bingo...oh no, wait...1 of the Crossword, and 2 of the Bingo, and I'll have $5 worth of Bucko...how much is that? Ok, then I'll take 4 of the pull-tabs, and...". Go ahead, name me something more annoying. Sure, I guess there's that noise the machine makes. There isn't a way to type it out, but if you can imagine the sound of crying babies, mixed with chain saws, mixed with cats fighting, that still wouldn't be as annoying as the "no win" sound of the lottery ticket machine. At least not as far as I'm concerned. It's not even so much the noise itself, it's the fact that people would rather be lazy and hold up the line, than check their tickets on the machine in the corner designed solely for that purpose.

Last but not least, there's the girls who pretend to be hockey fans. Do they do it to impress guys? To feel like part of something? Those are the only reasons I can figure out, but it doesn't make things any less annoying. I can't count how many times I read "Sally can't wait to watch the Habs game tonight!" on someone's Facebook page, when they clearly and by admission have not watched a single regular season game, know nothing about hockey in general, and don't even enjoy it. Unless you can name at least two players from each team in the NHL, a handful of coaches, and explain what off-side is, keep your phoney play-off proclamations to yourself. You're not fooling (or impressing) anyone.

Whew, that was a lot of complaining for 800 words. Hopefully I'll be in a better mood next week.