Pet Peeves

We all encounter inanities in life. Pet peeves, gripes, and complaints differ greatly among people. What drives me totally mad does not seem to bother others at all. Each one of us experiences minor life encounters and occurrences that annoy us as an individual immensely while others around us don’t seem to find the same happenings nearly as irritating as we do. Thank goodness tolerance levels differ from person to person.

I thought I would share some of the occurrences in my life that vex me. I’ve listed several, in no particular order of annoyance.

First on the list of irksome happenings involve ‘free gifts’ that arrive in the mail. My first thought when I receive one of these numerous free gifts is that ALL gifts are free, or they are supposed to be. So, when someone calls something a free gift I wonder who they think they are fooling. Webster defines ‘gift’ as ‘something given willingly’ which again means it is already free, so why call it a free gift? If it isn’t free, it isn’t a gift, in my books. Just go ahead and send me something I didn’t ask for and most likely don’t even want, and then if you want to hit me up for money, go ahead, but really, I do not feel obligated to reimburse you in any way when I receive an unsolicited ‘gift’ of any sort.

Second, new items that do not work. This seems to be a problem that grows worse each year. Examples of this include a new cell phone that I can’t register because there is a glitch in the SIM card, or a new weather station, bought for a Christmas gift, that took two hours on the phone talking to a technician and three days of live chat with a representative of the company who knew no more about the product than I do, and the end result? The brand-new weather station still does not work. Oh well, I really do like the old weather station that has served us well for the past decade, I just wanted to upgrade a little bit when I bought the non-functioning new one.

Another irritant of mine involves jeans. For some reason, it seems that jean sizing never runs true. I will try on two pairs of the same make, model, and size. One will fit, one will not. The manufacturers of jeans also advertise slim fit, low rise waist, and that often turns out incorrect as well. Low rise, slim fit jeans may be anything but, as some of the jeans I own that are supposedly ‘slim fit, low waist” have a higher waist and are a lot baggier than ‘normal’ jeans. I really hesitate to buy pants of any sort on line as if I cannot try them on for size first, they often do not fit properly. Am I just old and grumpy, or do other people have this same issue when buying jeans?

Another one of my pet peeves that truly does discourage me involves information on food packages. Manufacturers list calorie and nutrition facts on everything from recipes to prepackaged products. I think we worry too much about calorie content, as obviously it does not work. Just look around at heavy America and that tells me that the people who ought to heed calorie information don’t do so, while those of us who don’t have to worry quite so much get totally turned off by this information. Eat less, eat well, exercise, and calories take care of themselves.

I will notice a recipe that looks fabulous. I read the ingredients only to see at the end of the instructions that one little sliver of this delicious-looking dessert contains 570 calories per one half ounce serving. A half ounce really is not very much. It would not satisfy anyone that I know. This information really is not knowledge I want, and it serves as a terrific way to spoil the desire to actually create and then eat this particular food item.

Another happening that really upsets me is noticing a vehicle that the driver has left idling while he or she runs to the store or the post office. The environment has enough problems thanks to our thoughtlessness without people starting their vehicles and letting them run for twenty minutes to warm up the interior. We truly have become a nation of softies. Idling vehicles serve as an excellent way to add to our already polluted atmosphere and offer a great way to use up gasoline without moving two feet.

I am showing my age here, but another pet peeve involves our increasing dependence upon technology. Technology of course has served womankind well, but we have become overly dependent on it. Technology has a habit of breaking down when we need it most. I am thinking here of power outages, equipment that develops glitches that take a week to fix, and other little problems that arise when a person or business relies solely on technology and cannot function when technology fails. I also think of computer crashes, computer updates that I have no idea what gets updated or why it takes twenty minutes to complete, tablets that quit when I am trying to take an order at the Virginia City café, WIFI that won’t connect for any discernable reason, and the list goes on.

The very obvious lack of spelling and grammar on the Internet also drives me crazy. I would love to land a job as a proofreader for stories on the Internet. I have no idea how to find such a job, but the Internet badly needs someone who can still spell and who knows grammar so that person or persons can fix all the horrendous mistakes. The misspellings and outrageous grammar, or lack of grammar, set my teeth on edge. I often lose interest in the story because the atrocious errors outweigh the story itself. If whoever wrote the story has no proper grasp of grammar and spelling, then I distrust anything that writer has to say anyway, so why finish the story?

So, there you have it, the top pet peeves in my life. I remind myself if these annoyances are all I have to worry about, then I do have a really good life after all.