In which I Partake in Some Hypocritical Denigration

I’m bored. It’s cloudy outside. People are in a bad mood. Hell, even my Pandora station is in a bad mood. It keeps playing this depressing emo crap and then when I keep clicking fast-forward on the station, it finally gives up and says, “FINE. You don’t want to listen to Anberlin? How about the Beatles? I know how much you hate the freaking Beatles, Sarah! What do you want from me, woman?”

Well, you could start with playing some Arcade Fire or The Black Keys, Pandora. How many times do you want me to give my input via “add variety” before you get the clue? Music Genome project my ass.

You see? It's not that hard, Pandora.

Normally I love my Pandora, by the way. It’s just behaving badly today.

How do we overcome this melodrama? What do we do to pull ourselves out of the-weather-is-weirdly-warm-and-it’s-still-not-spring funk? We make fun of things, that’s what!

I often get in to a state where I start rattling off the list of things that people do to piss me off, in my head. And then I had an epiphany yesterday evening, driving home from the crowded grocery store on the crowded street with a slew of people who had to go to the grocery store after work and weren’t happy about it – just like me. All those things people do that piss me off? My biggest pet peeves? Um, well, I tend to do them too. Some of them. Ahem.

So, in order to make you laugh, or perhaps piss you off further on this fine, ‘pissiness’ day, I provide to you my list of top three pet peeves (that I also happen to do)-- in no particular order-- of human behavior:

Driving like an asshole.

Do you pass people in non-passing lanes? Or on the shoulder? Do you use the turn lane as a merging lane? Not use your blinkers when making a turn? Have you ever gone through an intersection and cannot remember for the life of you if the light was actually green? Do you roll through stop signs? Do you stop in the middle of an intersection while the light is green to let someone into traffic? Well, I’m happy to tell you that these behaviors, amongst others, mean you drive like an asshole, and you inspire road rage in millions. That being said, I can admit to doing three of the above mentioned. Can you guess which ones?

Posting stupid crap on the interwebs.

Do we REALLY know anyone who likes the Cheezburger Cats? I mean it. No one likes this crap, not even cat lovers. And don’t get me started on the political crap. I watch the news. I know that Santorum is a jerk to women and has an interesting Urban Dictionary entry. I know that Gingrich wants to be the mayor of Moonlandia. I know that you hate Obama and blame him for gun control and abortions and the economic apocalypse and religious indoctrination and everything else. And yet? I post random crap on social media all the time! In fact, I post links to this blog all the time! I’m sure that makes me worse than you. I even think to myself (as I am posting), “Why? Why am I doing this?” And—I’m going to include my favorite dog video ever that my co-workers shared with me:

 

Not checking the email/voicemail/text message.

UGH! I called you or emailed you or texted you for a reason. It was, in my opinion, an important reason. Now, granted, meetings and naps and being in the middle of dinner are valid reasons to not respond to me immediately.  Life happens. I get that. But when you desperately needed me to email you back within the hour and then you respond to my email TWO WEEKS LATER—well, that bothers me. A bit. Or when I text you (cough-J-cough) with an important item, and I find out that you haven’t checked your texts for two days… and aren’t even certain where your phone is…I become enraged. We live in a world today with a multitude of options for instantaneous communication. Pick one! But… have you ever tried to call me? Did you leave a voicemail? If you did, did you feel the cold breeze that came out of nowhere and blew your hair back? That was the opening of the deep black void into which your voicemail fell. It will remain there indefinitely.  I can’t tell you that last time I actually checked my voicemail.

I can’t be the only hypocritical pet-peever out there, right? Surely some of you have the same thing going on. What are your pet peeves? Better yet, what are some of those pet peeves that you’ve caught yourself doing?