Pet Peeves

Courtesy of the Enchanted Home

Oh, you so do not want me to write about my pet peeves (but I’m going to do it anyway). And besides, no one can do that better than Andy Rooney did. But I don’t think he thought of them that way. There haven’t been too many celebrity deaths that have affected me quite as much as did Andy Rooney’s. He had a way of saying things with wit and style and panache that, quite frankly, made me jealous.

These days we have Bill Maher. He’s out there saying it like it is. He is amusing much of the time. But he gets serious too. I’m sure people are divided about how they feel about what he says. Shoot me, but I agree with most of his pithier comments. I watched this one recently, it made me smile:  https://youtu.be/cx7VnKMZew4

Don’t ask me what’s got me onto writing about some of my pet peeves. There’s probably a million reasons. Well, okay, I read a couple of headlines on Google Stories this morning that made me growl. So here goes.

Pet Peeve #1: Car Bras

Courtesy of Wikipedia

First off, just because this is number one on the list doesn’t mean it’s the thing that gripes me the most. It’s just the one that always comes most easily to mind.

Why, I ask you, are the darn things called bras when they do not hold anything up? They don’t reshape the front of your car. They protect the front of the car from road debris kicked up by other cars. They are actually bibs. So why not call them that? Simple.

“Bibs” is no way as sexy or appealing as “bras.” Chaps my hide how sexist the car industry can be. It’s right up there with bath tissue as far as I am concerned. Toilet paper is toilet paper. We all know what it’s used for. Why do we have to make it seem nicer somehow by calling it “bath tissue?” Of course, I’m not suggesting we call it something closer to what it actually is. Maybe this should have been Pet Peeves #1 and #2.

Pet Peeve #2: BOGO

Courtesy of Marketing Dictionary

You go to the store to pick up your groceries for the week or you are looking for a pair of walking shoes to replace your very worn out, imminently about to fall apart pair. You have a list and know what you want and suddenly you are confronted with a BOGO. It’s just not fair.

Sometimes it is actually a case of Buy One Get One Free (which is, I think, how the phrase originated), but that is rare. Usually it’s more like Buy One Get One Half Off or even a Quarter Off (BOGOHO or BOGOQO). Then you have to decide, can I spend more than I planned, do I want to spend more than I planned? Why can’t they just leave me alone?

Pet Peeve #3: Charge Card Offers

Courtesy of FunnelDash

Really now! My bank is constantly sending me offers for a business charge card. I get them regularly in the snail mail. Recently, I got a call from a nice sounding young woman from my bank wanting to know whether or not I had received the most recent offer. Not the first time that had happened either.

I was very nice to her. After all, she was just doing what she was told to do. But I said something like this to her: “Yes, I did get the most recent offer in the mail. Were you aware that I get these at least once a month and perhaps more often? Furthermore, I have been receiving them since we first switched our accounts to your bank. I couldn’t tell you how many of these I have received. And by the way, I consider it to be a huge waste of resources because I told the nice young man who opened our accounts for us that we already possessed a business charge card and did not need another one. Also, and this is the main point, I am perfectly able to decide on my own what I need and do not need. The fact that I have not followed up on one of those offers should be a good indication that I do not think that I need one of your business charge cards. So thank you for your time and I am going to hang up now. Good bye.”

I have no idea what she thought about that, but I do hope that it did not make her cry. As young as she sounded, it might have. I probably would have when I was that young. But enough is enough.

Pet Peeve #4: Paper or Plastic

Courtesy of Paint The Grain Studio

This is the scenario:  I’ve just spent more time than I care to think about rounding up all my grocery purchases. I’ve made a million decisions about which brand to buy, what is the best value for my dollar and if we really, really, really need it or not. I think that I am finished with the tough choices and wham, there it is, another choice to be made: paper or plastic?

Honestly, how am I qualified to make that decision? I haven’t spent days or weeks researching it. Sure, I have an opinion. But it is a basically uninformed opinion.

Okay, here’s how I break it down. Plastic bags use up a non-renewable resource and take an eternity to break down in the landfills. But they are re-usable and come in handy for all sorts of things. I’ve stuffed them into spaces in the basement of our previous house that were letting rodents in. They were still there years later (the plastic bags, not the rodents), doing their job. I’ve put them into pillows I’ve crocheted for pets. They make pretty good cushioning for packages if you have enough of them. However, the production of them is highly polluting.

Paper bags are made from a renewable resource, albeit a slowly renewing one. They readily break down in landfills and are also re-usable. The production of them, however, to the best that I have been able to determine isn’t really less polluting than the plastic bags. Okay, so I’ve done a little research. But in reality, a lot of what I’ve read on the Internet is just someone else’s opinion. I need cold hard facts.

And to add insult to injury, the research I’ve done into reusable cotton totes isn’t all that encouraging.

Maybe we should just all get used to putting our purchases into our carts, taking them out of our carts and placing them on the conveyor belt, putting them (loose and unbagged) back into our carts, taking them back out of our carts and putting them into our cars, and finally taking them only several at a time in our arms out of our cars and into our houses. Alternately, that very last step could be better accomplished by keeping a couple of cardboard boxes on hand and loading your purchases into those for taking into the house. Of course, to make that be ecologically responsible, you’d have to keep those cardboard boxes for quite a while. Don’t ask me how long. I’ve no idea.

Pet Peeve #5: Just Drive

Courtesy of MEMIC

Really. Just drive. I could probably do a thousand words on this one alone. So that’s all I’m going to say. JUST DRIVE.

Pet Peeve #6: Waiter! Check, please.

Courtesy of the New Yorker, Yelp for Noise

This happens to all of us now and then, but seems to happen to Bernd (my husband) and me every time we go out to eat. We don’t eat out very often due to all of my food allergies, so the fact that it happens every time is significant. Think about it. I don’t have the stamina to explain the whole thing in detail (think about insurance actuarials and why they charge you more the more you drive). The upshot is that invariably there is someone in the restaurant talking loudly enough that the entire crowd can hear them.

Why do people think that we all want to know just exactly what they have been up to for the past two weeks, or how their significant other is spending too much money, or what sweet deal they just closed, or that they prefer bagels with jam to bagels with cream cheese? Come on! 

I have more, but I figure this is enough. You might get the idea that I am an old sourpuss that hates people in general. Couldn’t be further from the truth, however. I genuinely like people … so long as they are well behaved and abide by my rules. And according to my husband, I have a lot of rules. After all, it wouldn’t do to run out of pet peeves, now would it?

Courtesy of QuoteMaster