Things I Can't Stand

Maybe on a different day, I might be posting a nice fluffy blog about things I adore. That list is also very, very long, and probably quite boring. But I'm feeling a bit critical today, and thought maybe I could purge myself of all this critical snarkyness by just creating a list of stuff that either bugs the crap out of me or is extremely distasteful to me, and I'd be done with it. So here's to mental health. CHING CHING!

1. Eggs in their wiggly, fluffy form. I am fine if one is concealed in a cake, in creme brulee, and so on. But fried, scrambled, boiled, deviled, poached, migas, chile relleno casserole, quiche... no thank you. It's so bad that whereas normally when visiting someone's house and they serve something I might not care for, I'll eat it, I cannot do it with eggs. I feel it is probably more polite in the grand scheme of things to just not eat it than vomit on their new tablecloth they just got at Dillards.

2. Stickers on the bottom of things that I buy which do not easily come off by peeling or lightly picking with the fingernail. You know the ones, which come off in TINY, ITTY BITTY PIECES, leaving this nasty goo and white paper backing garbage on the bottom of the item, having already shredded both of my thumbnails.

3. Michaels, how they don't really show you the price of ANYTHING IN THEIR STORE. You go there, because they lure you with a sale of some sort. You try to determine in the aisle what the price is of said item, and you cannot. You have to go through the line at the register, which is obnoxiously long, in order to deal with inept people at the register. They quote you a price which doesn't match the sale you know you read this morning in their flyer. You inquire. They give you the "they don't pay me enough to care, lady" look.

4. The little shelves in my bathroom to the left of my sink. They are narrow, they are deep, and invariably, when I try to get anything but the one item which is sitting in the very front, everything falls off the shelf and into the trash. I need a better system.

5. My next door neighbor, who has a late 70's (?) model brown diesel truck, which is parked in his driveway, which is right next to both my bedroom window and that of my guestroom. He gets up early (pre-7am) and gets into this vehicle. RRRRRUNNNNNN-run-run-run-pftht. RRRUUUUUNNNNN-run-run-run-KAPOW-chuga-chuga-chuga... and finally gets it started after a few failed attempts. This ALWAYS WAKES ME UP, if I am actually sleeping. And of course wakes up anyone who comes to stay with me. DRIVES ME NUTS.

6. People who litter.

7. People who zip in and out of traffic, no signals, speeding, weaving in and out, on the shoulder sometimes. Not only does it piss me off that this is so dangerous to everyone around whom they drive, but it makes me angry that the person has such a holier-than-thou attitude about driving, that they shouldn't have to wait in traffic like everyone else. I also do not care for people who will not let you in when you are driving and need to merge. OH, and speaking of merging, this is another pet peeve. When you're going to have to merge from two lanes down to one, it drives me nuts that people do not take up the entire second lane from which you are having to leave. It's as though as soon as you see a sign that says you need to merge, everyone immediately gets into the new lane. AND, get p.o.'ed at people who continue to stay in the other lane until it's actually TIME to merge, and refuse to let them in to "punish" them for "trying to get ahead" or "not wait their turn". As though they should have gotten in line way beforehand. As I see it, you should use as much of that other lane as is available, and be in single file as short a distance as is necessary, and that will make traffic go a bit faster.

8. Underwear that crawls up my butt. Enough said there.

9. People who let their dog defecate in my yard and walk on without picking it up as if that is actually okay. Ew.

10. Itchy sweaters. Actually, any sort of itchiness in clothing at all. Just wrap me in a big cotton ball and be done, already.

11. Other foods that gross me out: lima beans. GAG me. beets. Not a fan. brussel sprouts - they taste to me like what I imagine raw petroleum to taste like. Bitter. Papaya and guava. I can do all other tropical fruits, including the lychee. Not those two. Bleah. Okra. That's pretty much slimy and gross too. Although I did once eat okra that my Aunt Ginny prepared in Lubbock, TX when I was a child, and I liked it. I was SO DISAPPOINTED the next 3 times I ate it, and how nasty it was, and how I didn't remember it being nasty. Ew. SUSHI - that is just VILE. It's a texture issue also. I cannot stand it, it makes my mouth salivate, and not in a good way.

12. The fact that I cannot look good in jeans. Any waistline which is at my waist (or God forbid above) looks like crap, and is horribly out of style. Any low-rise pants allow my baby pooch belly to flop over the top. That is just not attractive either. I see teen girls with that look all the time - the fat roll in the hips and belly, hanging over the band of their pants. But it looks STUPID. And I look stupid wearing it.

13. The reception I get on our PBS station. Something got jacked up with the rabbit ears we have perched in the attic to get reception. Yes, we're the only household in America which does not have cable. We have rabbit ears. In our attic. And PBS doesn't come in great.

14. CHEEZY songs. That Christmas song, about the little kid who wants to buy his Mama a pair of pretty shoes, because she loves shoes and she's dying of cancer, and those would make her feel better. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! And I thought it couldn't get worse, but today on our local MIX radio station, they were laughing so hard about that song and people called in to remind them of some OTHER cheezy sappy songs. You know which ones I mean. There was one called Roses for Mama, in which a guy is breezing through some town on his mother's birthday and stops to have roses wired to her house, and a little boy wants to buy roses for his Mama, but cannot afford it. The dude helps the little fella out, only to see him kneeling at a gravesite on his way out of town, giving his roses to his dead Mama. WHAT?!? Oh, and the same dude has another song called Teddy Bear, in which this little "crippled" (his term) boy gets on the CB radio, wanting to talk to the truckers because he's crippled and cannot do anything else, and is lonely. AND HIS DADDY GOT IN A WRECK JUST LAST WEEK AND DIED, as if the crippled part wasn't bad enough! LORD. Then someone else called in about that song, "Where've You Been?" about the couple who had never spent a single night apart, love at first sight, inseparable yadda yadda, but got separated in the nursing home, different floors, one has Alzheimers or some crap, the other one comes to see him/her, and that one REMEMBERS THE SPOUSE after having remembered nothing else, and asks the same line of the chorus, "Where've You Been? I've looked for you forever and a day...." blah blah. CAN YOU PLUCK ANY HARDER AT THE HEARTSTRINGS, PEOPLE? And this stuff SELLS LIKE HOTCAKES.

15. Going to look for the last cookie that you saved, only to find it has been eaten by someone else in your house.

16. Taking your car in for preventative maintenance and coming back with a 4 figure bill.

17. Getting on the scale after Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's just not good.

18. Being woken up by a panting or yelping dog who wants out for 2.2 seconds, RIGHT AFTER I JUST FELL ASLEEP! It takes me forever to get to sleep as it is, and once I'm woken back up, I have to START ALL OVER AGAIN.

19. The way that IKEA sets up their "flow" through their store. And that there aren't quick and easy paths straight to the "Market Hall" area. AND their rigid customer service policies. Those kinda suck too.

20. The fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to talk to anyone at eBay or PayPal when you have an issue. Grrrrrrr!

Okay. I feel better. I need to go do a few yoga meditations and drink some green tea or something.