Post 104: Pet Peeves Series - Unspoken Changes of Plans

"Let's meet at noon instead of 11." "We'll be home closer to 8 than 7." "I can't give you a ride."

All good things to actually say, rather than assume someone knows. This might go a little past pet peeve level. But, it depends on the situation too.

Recently I made plans to meet a couple people for one of my classes to study. One of them canceled, which was fine. The other didn't. So, I showed up at the time we were set to meet. When I got there I waited. And waited. Ten minutes after the time we were supposed to meet, I sent her a message asking where she was. Ten minutes later I got a text that said she was at the mall, that she had to pick something up but would be at school soon. 

Basically, she decided to change her plans and not tell me. I would have been totally fine with meeting later. I could have blogged, I could have gotten coffee, etc. But instead, I rushed to get a table so we would have a place to work. And I waited there instead of getting food so we didn't lose the table. 

It was only half hour really that went to waste. But it still annoys me that she didn't just tell me. 

This came up again not that long ago. My step-sister and I each have a night where we are supposed to make dinner. 

So, I expect to make dinner and usually ask about a time to have it ready. 

Of course, plans change and suddenly no one will be home for dinner, only one person, dinner will be later, someone is running late, etc. But I don't get told. 

Which is frustrating. When you spend an hour cooking dinner even though you have other stuff to do, only to realize you will be the only person home. It is really frustrating. 

I kind of get that sometimes people don't want to say that plans have changed. Especially if they promised to do something for someone, but then can't, but it is better to tell them rather than to just not do it. 

I can adapt to change, I can't deal with making plans and then having people flake out.  

Post 86: Pet Peeves Series - Road Blocks

It has been awhile since I've contributed to my Pet Peeves Series, so I figured I should add a little something new. Today,  we were going to talk about one of the most hypocritical pet peeves. I say hypocritical because I know a lot of people who complain about this, who do it themselves. Even I cannot in with an entirely clear conscience claim I have never done this. What is "this"?


Being a road block.


There are multiple types of road blockers. The most common is the person who, while walking down the hallway, stops suddenly right in front of someone else. That person is forced to choose between a collision and stopping abruptly themselves. And, unless this leads to some sort of freak pedestrian pile-up, it doesn't lead to harm. However, it is extremely annoying.


The next type of road block is the group road block. They are the group of friends that walks side-by-side just close enough you can't cut through them easily, but just far enough to take up the entire hallway. Sometimes, if you say 'excuse me' they will let you through. Some groups, however, just ignore you.


The third type is going back towards the first more and is a stationary road block. This is group that stops suddenly or congregates in the hallway making it hard for anyone to get through. I have, on an occasion or two, been part of one of these groups.


 As you can probably imagine, all three can induce frustration when in encounter. But, as I also said, most people find themselves doing it at one time or another. Maybe not intentionally, but when they realize they left their phone somewhere and stop to look for it. Or they're trying to have a conversation with a few friends and don't want to walk behind them and not be heard. Or they start as a group of one or two (therefore, not a substantial block) and friends just happen to join them to create a block.


So, this should just be taken as a sort of PSA (public service announcement) that you should be aware of these things. Walk out of people's way before stopping to look for your phone or, at least, just try and stay aware as to who and what is around you.

Post 73: Pet Peeves Series - Hypocrites

So, what I think will be most interesting about this post for me is how it turns out. Last time, I was inspired by a strong feeling of frustration because I had just dealt with the consequences of someone finishing off the toilet paper and not restocking. So, I was kind of annoyed. Luckily, I caught it, but was still quite frustrated.

This time, however, I am talking about a pet peeve, but I haven't just had to deal with the pet peeve. So, it will be interesting to see if the language is any different or if talking about inspires the feeling of frustration that I was feeling last time. Because I will be writing from two different places and in two different moods. 

So, let us get started then. 

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about hypocrites or not. I considered doing public spitting, which I find annoying and gross. But also unsanitary. I mean, what if the spitter misses the ground and hits someone? 

But, then I decided that hypocrites bug me a lot more than spitters. 

There are a lot of different ways that people can be hypocritical. The most common appearance nowadays is online. If you don't know, there are a lot of people who dub themselves, "grammar nazis" or are dubbed as such. Which, I think is horribly inappropriate. But, what ever, this is also the generation with songs that have the singers comparing themselves to horrible serial killers like it is cool, so what do you expect? 

But my problem with these folks is that they will go on and on about how much it annoys them when people mix you're and your, its and it's, effect and affect, their or there or they're, and who or whom, but they do it themselves! They spend all this time being rude about someone's grammar or spelling, and yet they are making mistakes as they correct them. 

I am not perfect. Even as an English major who spends a lot of time writing, I still make these mistakes. Usually because I am going really fast. I know the difference, but am just not thinking about the words themselves as I am putting them down. 

As I read some of my older posts, I see these mistakes. I try and correct them, because I know they are incorrect, but I don't notice them until I go back. My main focus, whether good or bad, at the time of writing is to get my message down. I guess you could say it is substance over style. 

And it is the same for some of the people making these mistakes; they didn't mean to do them. They may not have realized they made them and may not have felt the need to go back and change them if their point still came across in the message or comment. 

So, the rudeness alone annoys me. But these people have the audacity to lecture and insult people for these things, but don't bother to check their own comments? Honestly, if you go to any video on YouTube, you are almost guaranteed to find comments that look like this, "this band is awesome. their the best." - "their the best? you are such an idiot. it is THERE. loser." or some thing like "THEY'RE, the best. How do you not know that? you are so dum." 

Those were pretty tame examples, but it happens way too often.

Hypocrites of all kinds annoy me. Something you might notice when you hear me rant about Bewitched. He always says 'don't use magic, don't use magic' then suddenly he is out of gas or running late for work and his tune suddenly changes to 'use magic for me'. 

I think these people just hold a special place in my heart as especially annoying because they are being rude as they do it.  

Post 64: Pet Peeves Series - Unfinished Business

So, after giving a lot of thought about what I want to blog about this time, I came to the idea of pet peeves. But then I realized, if I am going to talk about pet peeves, I am going to start talking about my pet peeves, and if I start talking about my pet peeves I am going to rant. Since ranting tends to take up space and time and often brings up unpleasant feelings, like anger, I decided to break it up into a series. And thus, a series of posts on this blog will be born.

As this is the first post, I figured I should start off by talking a little bit about what pet peeves are before I talk about the pet peeve I have set aside as the topic for this post, "Unfinished Business".

A pet peeve is defined as, "a particular and often continual annoyance" or "an opportunity of complaint that is seldom missed". The second one is not so much accurate as amusing. Our focus should be on the first. A pet peeve is something annoys you. It is usually a small thing, like a little incident that acts like straw on a horses back. In itself, it isn't going to make you snap. However, repeatedly having to deal with it could lead to an outburst. 

The thing I choose as my pet peeve is like that for me. By "unfinished business" what I actually mean is when people intentionally leave things unfinished out of laziness. More specifically, when people leave one little sheet of toilet paper on the roll so they don't have to change it or when people leave two crackers in a box so they don't have to throw it away. 

It annoys me for so many reasons. For starters, it is actually quite rude. It is. If you need to use the restroom and find one sheet, well, you are in trouble. If you want crackers and they are gone, too bad for you. And as someone who has had to make grocery lists, seeing a box of crackers leads you to believe there are actually crackers. This doesn't just apply to crackers, it applies to everything. 

I have gone to get ketchup and it is empty, there isn't enough ketchup for a doll-sized burger, but people still put it back. 

The worst problem that came from this (aside from the bathroom situation) was when I cut myself and was bleeding relatively badly (looking back I probably should have gotten stitches) and I went to the cupboard and there were no band-aids. There were boxes with band-aid wrappers, but no band-aids. I spent ten minutes running around the house with blood going down my hand and arm, just trying to find a band-aid or something to put on it.

It was messy and bloody. In the moment, I was focused on finding a band-aid, but once I found one I was really annoyed that someone had put back empty containers. 

This is something that has become a pet peeve, I actually don't know if it was before then. It is possible that in that moment, it became a pet peeve and whenever a similar situation comes up it annoys me. 

I don't know. However, it is a pet peeve now. One that can cause me to feel like tearing out my hair. 

Maybe next time I will talk about some of the most and least common pet peeves, as well. 

Post 53: Get off your laptop!

Guess what! This is going to be a rant post. A rant post specifically and whole-heartedly for those people who sit in class and play games or go on Faecbook. Yes, I see you. I see that you are playing a video game, not taking notes. I know you are commenting on that person's status, not paying attention to the lecture, and you know what? That isn't cool. It is a distraction to the people around you and it is rude to the professor.

You might think, oh, they don't know! But, you know what, I'm pretty sure they can guess. It isn't hard to tell when someone isn't paying attention if your eyes are locked on your screen or you are writing when he is going between slides.

Now, I wouldn't have found this so annoying if I hadn't been in class when someone sitting infront of me opened up their laptop and started watching porn. Yes, in class and in front of me (as well as several people around me). I was shocked. One of the people next to me, recovered quicker and said something to them, but really?! There is a time and place for that. There is a time and place for playing video games and there is a time and place for checking Facebook. The classroom is not this place, class time is not this time.

Even before this...event happened, I've always found it kind of distracting. I have always had some issues with my mind wandering, when I should be focusing and when people are around me are not paying attention either I find I am more likely to lose the classroom mindset.

But, mostly, I just don't understand. Why even go to class if you are not going to pay attention? Why not just stay in your dorm room? Most University lectures don't take attendance, it is just assumed you are responsible enough to make your own decisions about your education. However, if they are in class playing games, maybe they aren't.

It is like they don't realize that people can see their screens. It is like when people talk, they don't realize people around them can hear them. It doesn't matter that they aren't actually involved in the conversation, they are in a close proximity so they can hear them.

This came up when I was on the bus the other day, I was sitting in the back and two girls got on and even though they were sitting like four rows ahead of me they were talking so loud I could hear them. They were really rude. They were on their way to school (at 3pm) and they were complaining about how annoying one of their mom's was because she insisted on picking them up. They were saying things like "it is a violation of my privacy", "she doesn't trust me", "she is such a control freak", and "she is just so nosey". I wasn't either of their mothers, but I felt pretty offended having to hear. And it was funny talking about trust when they were on their way back to the school, desperately trying to get back by the time school ends so it wouldn't seem like they had ditched.

Anyway, it comes up other times as well, but this annoyed me the most.

So, that is the end of the rant. At least, for now.

Anyone been in a class or a meeting when someone was on their computer slacking off?