Category Archives: Rant

Things That Bug Me

21 Replies

J’ever wonder why certain things bother some people, but not others? Is it that we’re all just charming little flavors of OCD, simply varying in subject and severity?

This morning, while doing the obligatory phrase search (to avoid title clash; 518 posts in only 17 categories can stretch the originality a bit), I found a rant I posted three months ago. I laughed — did I really write all that craziness? A friend told me several weeks ago that he’d gone through RtB in its entirety over an extended period, and read every post. I’m not sure I’d want to do that myself, for fear of editing every post. Anyway.

It made me think about how different we all are, and in the funniest ways. For instance, waiting at a railroad crossing — even when I’m in a hurry — doesn’t bug me. Yet, I know people who will rant at the train as if the conductor planned to intersect their path at that particular moment. The Thriller doesn’t mind cruising in the left lane on the interstate, but it makes me want to squirm right out the window (he knows this, and, I’m convinced, derives some small-but-evil pleasure out of doing it on purpose).

So, what niggling issues (I love the word niggling) make you squirm? You know a lot of mine; let’s hear some-a yurrin. Still, I am beholden to my fiends to insert my list forthwith, though few will surprise:

Things That Bug Me

  1. Posters or TV commercial graphics that say there are “1000’s of items” available. “One thousands” of items? And worse, “One thousand–apostrophe–s” of items? Yark.
  2. Inserting the infuriating “and” when talking of numbers and dates. What year is it? Why, it’s two thousand and nine. NO, it isn’t. It’s two thousand nine. Say it. 2009. Two. Thousand. Nine. What, Americans can’t comprehend a complex number so we need to break it up into smaller chunks by saying and? Then there’s money. The dress was two hundred and fifty dollars. NO….it was two hundred fifty dollars. I swear we are the only culture on the planet that does this annoying thing. Some folks don’t care about it at all, but to me, it’s like chewin’ foil.
  3. Unrinsed dishes in the sink. Arrrrrg! OCD! OCD! (Fortunately, that doesn’t happen at my house.)
  4. People crying, “OCD! OCD!” at every little stupid thing, like putting dishes in the sink.
  5. “All the sudden.” I mean it. Next puppy that crosses my path gets it.
  6. Touching wood that is wet, like washing a wood-handled knife. Sets my choppers right on edge.
  7. Always, always, always, always reaching into the wrong pocket.
  8. Tripping over shoes left on the floor. (And they’re always mine.)
  9. Calling the tech support line for a huge corporation and hearing, “our office is now closed…”

So share. Maybe I’ll discover other things that, if they don’t bug me now, will potentially bug me in the future because you implanted the suggestion.

Snark Fink

EDIT 10:04 a.m….

This is the coolest and most creative thing I have ever seen on YouTube.

Feels like Monday

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…and I am full of hates. Yes, hates — not “hate” or “hatred.” Right, you get the point. Moving on.

arat2

  1. I hate having a headache in the morning; don’t you? What a lousy thing.
  2. I hate motorcycles with big fat ol’ loud crackly engines, whose drivers wait until they’re right in front of your house to open up the throttle and take off, bat-outta-Hades. It makes me mad. I want to chase them down and give them a piece of my mind. I just can’t spare one at the moment. *SigH*
  3. What is the opposite of empathy? Initially, I’d say apathy. Antipathy, even. But bottom line, what we’ve got here is a failure to walk in another’s shoes or imagine what it would be like to be in somebody else’s situation:  egocentrism. I hate that. If I ever come across [because acrost is NOT A WORD] that way to you, flog me for it.
  4. I hate it that, while watching the news during dinner last night, I saw two glaring spelling/usage errors; one in a commercial and the other in a weather forecast. Does no one care to proofread anymore? Are editors extinct? Don’t nobody give a rat nowaday? But just to prove I ain’t no grammar diva who thinks she’s perfect…
  5. I hate it that I’ve gone along all these decades thinking that the word “err” is pronounced “air.” (It actually rhymes with the word “fur.” To err is human, I suppose, but it brings up interesting prospects for the word “error.” Ur-ur?)
  6. I hate hospitals and stupid expensive tests.
  7. I hate it that my key/phone/receipt/shopping list/money/Chapstick/whatever is always, always, always in the other pocket.
  8. I hate that the summer has gone so fast (apologies to my nine-to-five fiends — I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me!).

But hey, why all the negative energy today? Let’s have us some good news as well.

Check out the dessert I had at the International Buffet inside Greektown Casino. A luscious, sugar-encrusted devil’s food mini-cupcake, filled with sweetened cream cheese and a cherry, and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings:

Black Forest decadence. They were small, so I had to have two.

~

Then, when we got home, we couldn’t believe our eyes. My brother-in-law Ray had culled every single weed from every garden in my yard, front and back. Im ready for my fall bulb planting now. Is he great or what!?

So yeah. In spite of items 1-8, life is dandy indeed — even if it does feel like Monday.

FO

Welp, that was stinky.

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Nope, I don’t mean Mary Poppins. Something came up yesterday afternoon and I ended up giving away my ticket, so no review from me. We will have to wait until Wendell or Stoney tells us about the show. Was it too long? Was Mary really uninteresting? How much did they change the melodies of the songs? I covet a reaction.

Instead, I shall pass judgment on something else entirely.

Last night, the Thriller and I were coming home from the pharmacy and we passed a Chinese restaurant. Its vile reek followed us for a quarter of a mile. I was completely offended.

To me, Chinese food smells like old, rancid cooking oil, used 50 times over, then used some more (which is probably closer to the truth than any of us would like to admit, and not just for Chinese cuisine). It’s cloying, but in a bitter way. Bottom line: it just smells filthy to me. And that red, slimy substance they schlep all over everything is just downright wretched.

When our daughters were going to college and living with us, they would sometimes bring the offensive victuals into the house. And while they took a huge running start from the sidewalk up to their bedrooms, no effort, no matter how valiant, could kill the despicable stench of the Red Muck Squeezed From the Leaking Bowels of a Dead Yak. I ended up slapping a moratorium on the foul stuff; they weren’t allowed to eat Chinese in the house anymore. (And I am certain the Chinese appreciated it.)

Oh well. That’s just me.

Other food smells that make me gag, scowl, or just mad:

  • Cabbage (cooked)
  • Brussels sprouts (in any form)
  • Fish
  • Broccoli (cooked)
  • Every flavor of salad dressing except Caesar
  • Olive oil

Through the years, there have been people who, when I shared with them my disdain for many foods, would stand with arms akimbo and scold, You don’t know what you’re missing, and How can you not like _____?

They’re not with us anymore.

So what food smells make you want to yark? Or does *everyone* in the known universe except me love every kind of food imaginable?

I used to hate pizza. Wish I still did.

Fink out.

Dies irae

11 Replies

Yep, I’m mad today. Stupid insomnia anyhow.

For some reason, I awoke at 1 a.m. It’s been me against the world ever since. Howdya like that? Mood: completely annoyed.

At least I will be studentless today. That will help my mood, although filing the Mt. Everest of music stacked on my file cabinets won’t.

I must also check on the status of my new computers. I hope to hear good news. That will help my mood, although finding out they haven’t been ordered won’t.

I will finally have time for studying this weekend. That will help my mood, although the subject matter — and the fact that I am sick of all this and I don’t even want it anymore — won’t.

I hope there is cake left over from yesterday. That will help my mood, although going in and finding only the plastic snake decorations won’t.

I am crabby today. For many reasons. Why do I hate so many things? For instance, this morning I especially hate:

  1. That life is often cruel.
  2. This headache.
  3. The fact that I always, always choose to look in the wrong pocket first.
  4. That I am often unable to remember what was said to me five minutes ago.
  5. Mean people.
  6. That I am weeks behind in studying already, and …
  7. …that it doesn’t really matter. (PK – you called it quits close to the end…you’re OK with it, aren’t you?)
  8. My inability to figure it all out.
  9. Rehashing everything I did wrong this year.
  10. Missing Lars and Helen.

But hey…one thing I don’t hate is cooking Italian tonight with paisan Pruke Liddy. Bellissima.

Ciao, diavoli.

Rant-urday

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Well now, fiends, I am in a mood. I seethe, therefore I rant.

I positively refuse to believe this. But then again, not really. Because, sadly and embarrassingly, that’s what America represents. We are above nothing. This, to my horror, is a truly illustrative slice of our popular culture. This is what we think is quality entertainment; representative of our national identity — the stuff of time capsules buried beneath the Capitol building. We have to be ridiculously careful to never, ever misspeak in public for fear of legal retribution, but we can celebrate the insipid, cruel and ignorant things Matt Groenig writes, and cover it up by saying, “Hey, free country. Change the channel if you don’t like it.” Well, to that person I say, I DID change the channel and I STILL think you’re a stupid hick. HA! So there. Sue me for hurting your feelings. Next thing you know, Stewie from Family Guy will be on a postage stamp. Hahaha!! Aw MAN that would be awesome! Heh heh OMG that is hilarrrrious. Hey let’s go git us a bat and destroy us some mailboxes, k? We’re Amurricans and we got the Confederate flag and *bANg*

Unbe-friggin-lievable. But let’s see, what else…

Oh, this. (Of course it happened in Ohio, as so many national-news-making stupid things do.) Reminds me 100% of my childhood and young teenage years, enduring the Religion of No. No dancing, no card-playing, no rock and roll, no watching Ed Sullivan (Dad thought he was a Commie sympathizer), no reading Time (Dad: “It’s a Communist rag”), no walking into a place where they served alcohol (“What if Jesus came back and caught you in there?”), no smoking because God can’t look on it… no, no, no, no. If my dear father were here, I would tell him that I would have made him crazy with my rebellious behavior even if I was never allowed to attend that first junior high school dance. Furthermore, I don’t care where Ben Roethlisberger went to high school. Moreover, I like to use the word moreover. Get moreover it.

I resent my music ed exam. See, there are two parts to it, selected from a pool of four possible subject areas (philosophy; then quantitative, qualitative and historical research methodologies). Well, I failed the quantitative part, but my marks on the philosophy essay were listed as “high pass.” Yet, I have to take both parts of the exam over again. Not fair. They have earned my enmity. Right, I know…life ain’t fair so get over it. I’m trying, so GET OFF ME! Why do you have to be so CRITICAL???

*straightening skirt, smoothing hair*

Well now, that was nice. I feel better. I must say I’d better hurry or I’ll be late for my breakfast meeting with Jerry.

Hating everything and everyone (except you),

RF