Thursday, September 06, 2007

pet peeves

(written in the order that I think of them and not necessarily in the order of most annoying, although number 1 is one of my peeviest pet peeves.)

1) People walking on the sidewalk and smoking (or sitting in a crowded area and smoking as the case may be). Pisses me off. Especially in the winter when you are in a hurry to go somewhere and you have a cold and have to breathe through your mouth and these people walking in front of you are earnestly smoking their lungs to a crisp and you can't get away from the smoke. So, today i'm standing on a street corner with about 7 other people waiting for the light to turn, and this one guy is smoking. I see everyone's nose crinkle. One girl puts her notebook in front of her face. I begin to feel sorry for the smoker in his outcast aloneness. Even hours later, the smoke still lingers in my hair.

2) Little petite girls who self-referentially dwell on their daintyness and how they can't lift things and how small they are and how they need help with this or that and subtly make tall independent-minded women who lift large unwieldy things, whether they should or not, feel like giant uncouth amazons.

3) People who walk in the bike lane rather than in the walking lane of the bike path.

4) Young women are too tan and too blonde (and too made up) in the winter (you know what I mean...?). The same sort who wear pajamas with university logos across the butt to class... I think this is an American thing?

5) Drunken people who shout what they think are clever witticisms on my street at 2am.

6) AT&T.... Internet was supposed to be transferred three weeks ago, and I'm STILL have no wireless. I have been on the phone with them for at least 6 times, and was placed on hold for two and a half hours one night before the system hung up on me and an hour and a half another night. Tonight I JUST found a very weak wireless signal wafting in from somewhere (most networks in my building are secured), and I pray it sticks around for a few more days.

7) Overly flirty people....

8) Condescending/patronizing/smug people...

9) People who are just generally unhelpful...

10) People who start dating someone after a lapse of about five months of being out of a relationship and two days later are sighing about and saying things like "it's so wonderful to be in a relationship. i don't know how (you) single people do it. you really should try having a boyfriend sometime".... erm....

11) Married men or men in serious relationships who continue to hit on women

12) HUMMERS!!!! (the vehicle, not the people who hum. I like a little hum here and there, myself.)

----
And what am I doing these days of no internet and no time? Teaching, preparing for teaching, and here and there trying to get a bit of reading done. Will try to be back when I have some more interesting things to say, when my computer that is in the shop is fixed, or when I think of some more of my pet peeves

Photo credit: http://blog.gruby.com/2006/08/

4 comments:

Christian Writer said...

My dear Talatu. I was getting seriously worried. To think that I was going to send you an email asking if you were still alive. Thank God you are. I love this post! It's right that the smoking rant should be number one. As for married men hitting on single women and the people who sigh in delirious foolishness after jumping from relationship to relationship, what can I say except, 'preach it sister!'

My dear, some more of this ranting posts please and I do hope your computer, internet and other irritating stuff is fixed. I suppose I could speak in tongues and command every barrier to your internet connection be removed. Right now. In Chees-us name. Amen.

Unknown said...

Ha!
Essentially, numbers 2, 4, 7, 8, and 10 are the same type of person: petite girls and their attendant “pretty” attitudes.

Number one tells me you're simultaneously empathetic and judgmental, one rapidly outstripping the other, matched horses in a race. That's the kind of cognitive dissonance we've all come to know and love in T-C! ;-)

Talatu-Carmen said...

yes, fred, i knew you would respond to this one and i knew when i was writing that they were self-contradictory/judgemental. are not pet peeves by their very nature judgemental? without internal inconsistencys would there be any personality at all? i assure you there are stories behind them all... {-;

Unknown said...

Some (psychiatrists among them) would say the entire goal of human life is a life devoid of internal inconsistencies.
But that's okay; like I said, it's what we love about you! ;-)