Petty Peeves

We all have little things we do or don’t do which annoy others and conversely, there are things those around us do which or don’t do which drive us batty. Whether we like or admit it or not, each of us has some level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ruling our daily lives. When you live or work with someone long enough, you’re bound to start noticing habits which annoy you. Sometimes they’re called pet peeves, but they’re almost always petty when, and if, you stop to think about them. Problem is, depending on our underlying mood, we often don’t stop to think and instead react in a disproportionately irritated manner. So kindly consider this my feeble attempt to stop and think about the silly little things which annoy me.

1. I’ll start with one I believe everyone will appreciate. The toilet paper should be dispensed over the top, not from underneath. Full stop. Argument over. The latter is just plain awkward and against God’s plan 😶.

2. A corollary to #1. If the roll is done, replace it. I mean, come on people. How difficult can this be?

3. Loud chewing. I used to work with a guy who chewed his food so loudly at lunch it made me almost not want to eat my own. When I finally did, I was ultra cognizant of my chewing volume.

And please close your mouth when you chew. No one wants to see how effectively you’ve destroyed a chunk of steak.

4. Putting stuff in the wrong recycling bin. The blue one is for plastic and glass. The grey one is for paper and cardboard. Yes, this is my problem and I recognize it.

5. Turn off the light if you’re leaving the room for an extended period of time. Yup, it’s like I’m hearing my father shout it in my ear from beyond the urn.

6. Put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Not around or near it. Actually in it.

7. Those things in the car door are cup holders, not trash receptacles.

8. Why would anyone leave a stinky onion, of all things, lying unwrapped on the kitchen counter. No worries, I’ll wrap it up and put it away.

9. On a related note, kindly scrub the cutting board after it’s been used. Particularly if said use involved any kinda meat. I’m no germophobe (I don’t think), but that right there is disgusting.

10. Thank you for doing the laundry, but please check all pockets for foreign objects like used tissues, spare change or those god forsaken hair pins. Furthermore, if I’m doing your laundry, I have neither the time, nor the inclination to turn what’s inside out back to outside in. I firmly believe this small life decision has added several hours of quality time to my limited temporal existence.

11. If you’ve written a sentence, any sentence, take the time to review it and remove the generally useless and lazy word “that” wherever possible. You’ll quickly notice it’s omission has no effect on the meaning or intent of the sentence. Many who know we well, actually hate me for this revelation as they now find themselves reviewing everything they scribe. In fact, one group even turned it into “THAT” custom t-shirt for me, which includes a word cloud of similarly questionable words. However, if you can make a mental note to purposefully strike this word from your written vocabulary, I may have just added several hours of quality time to your limited temporal existence and…you’re welcome.

A fair-sized list of nitpicky stuff huh? I’m sure you’ve one of your own. Maybe my next list should be all the annoying stuff I do, though I’ll likely need to set aside a bit more time…

p.s. This is in no way meant to infer I won’t continue to occasionally be irrationally annoyed by these things. Rather, this is simply acknowledgment of my nearsighted shortcomings, such as they are.