This is a post about things that annoy me, of varying levels of silliness and seriousness, in no particular order.

1. Peanut Butter  I don’t like peanut butter, except occasionally on peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  Yet most of the world strangely seems to be in love with it.  It sneaks into everything.  There’s always those moments when something looks delectable, then I sniff it or look at the ingredients and realize that, tragically, it has been tainted.  That annoys me.

2. Customers Who Leave A Ton of Stuff at the Register That They Won’t Buy Sometimes people have loaded shopping carts, then they go to check out and decide they really only want these one or two items.  It clutters up the front, makes it messy, and is just plain obnoxious.  No judgment if you’ve done this before; just saying it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine at work.

3. Parking Tickets In front of my house, you need a permit to park and not receive a ticket.  For a while, I had to use a temporary one that I had to put in the windshield every time I parked.  Sometimes, I would forget to put it up.  The next day, sure as the ocean’s wet, there would be a little white slip of day-ruining paper on the windshield.  To make matters worse, on Thursday mornings it’s illegal to be parked on the street at all, because of street sweeping.  Most of the time, this doesn’t matter because I have school, but when class is canceled, frequently the last thing on my mind is having to move my car into the driveway.  *Sigh* If it’s my house, as my parking permit indicates, shouldn’t I be allowed to decide if I wanted it swept in front of or not? And even worse are parking tickets at school.  It already costs a fortune to get a higher education; in addition, do they really have to laden us with the exorbitant costs of parking permits and tickets?

4. Skirts That Are Short in Front, Long in Back  These are all the rage right now, and several of my friends wear them.  Luckily, my friends are beautiful enough and have enough personality that they are gorgeous even wearing them.  Every time I see them, I just think it looks like they ran out of fabric or spliced two different skirts, one long, one short, together.  These just kind of bug me  and are one of those elements of fashion that make me wonder, “Why?”

5. Customers Who Get Angry When I Ask For ID  It’s company policy, and I’m pretty sure a state law, that when ever you pay with credit, your id is supposed to be checked.  Especially in this economy, with identity theft running rampant.  Most customers just comply without a word.  Some are grateful that we check ids.  Then there’s the occasional customer who grows incredibly angry.  Some have even cursed at me for obeying the rules and doing what I’m supposed to do.  What’s the point of this?  It really annoys me that they don’t look at me as a fellow human being, just as an inconvenience in their lives, and see something intended to protect their identity as something to grow belligerent over.

6. Me/Myself/I  “Sally went to the store with Ted and I.”  “Benny and me want popsicles.” “Joan and myself don’t like corn.”  Gah, people, didn’t you learn anything in elementary school?  The easy trick is to say the sentence using only the personal pronoun (me, myself, I) and see if it works.  No one would say “Sally went to the store with I,” “Me want popsicles,” or “Myself don’t like corn.”  It grates on my nerves probably a whole lot more than it should, and I have to restrain myself from correcting people.  This annoys me.

7. Men Who Complain About Their Wives (and Vise Versa) We all know—maybe you are one—those men who just complain and complain about their wives, who are such drags and make life miserable.  Wives do the same thing, complaining nonstop about what losers their husbands are.  Um….hello?  Dudes, chances are that you asked her to marry you.  It’s your own stinking fault.  You can’t blame anyone else if she’s annoying.  You chose her.  You chose this terrible person as your life mate, as the other half of you, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, etc., as long as you both shall live.  Ladies, you had an option.  You didn’t have to say yes.  You’re to blame, too.  This one perhaps is almost too extreme to be on this list.  It really makes me angry to hear this (Speaking as a single person who’s never had the opportunity to love someone who’s loved me, and as the daughter of two parents who love each other very much, be thankful for each other).

8. Text Speak As a writer, the crumbling state of the English language grieves me.  Lol. JK. ‘Nuff said. TTYL. BRB. BTW, lk so nt cool.

9. People Mistaking Crocheting for Knitting  I am a die-hard crochet lover.  In my opinion, it’s easier, faster, more versatile, and more creative than knitting.  Most people say that you either like knitting or crocheting, though, so (obviously) I’m on the far-crocheting side of the spectrum.  Yet, despite its innumerable glorious qualities, society is grossly ignorant of crocheting.  If I had a dime for the times someone said, “Bethany knits,” I would be able to buy my own house—okay, that’s a bit of a hyperbole, but it gets the point across.  Thankfully, by now my friends have been educated ;)

And, to wrap it up evenly:

10. When Teachers Assume Their Class is the Most Important Thing in Your Life There’s always that teacher—or, nowadays in upper division history courses, those teachers (i.e. all of them) who seem to think you have nothing else to do in life but study for their class.  What’s the homework?  Read a book a week.  Write a twenty-page research paper.  Do this group project.  What do you mean, you have three or four other classes who expect you to do just as much work?  What do you mean—you really go to school AND work, at the same time?  Preposterous!  Eastern Mediterranean History from 500-900 AD is the whole world.  American Social History from 1875-1920 is the whole world.  Jewish History is the whole world.  The History of the American West is the whole world….I think you get the point.  Yeah, it’s annoying.  One of my professors seriously told the class, “You can sleep when you’re dead,” meaning that losing sleep to do the class’s homework was a noble, worthy cause.  It’s no wonder we’re all sick all the time. If we don’t take care of our bodies, how can we actually learn anything?  Healthy people think more clearly, remember easier, have more energy for learning.  It’s an annoying illogic in a place that’s purported to be one of the most logic-filled places in the world.

So those are the things that annoy me.  Looking at this list, knowing there’s a lot of things I just couldn’t think of right now, I’m struck by what a disagreeable person I seem to be.  Most of these things are really stupid, yet I’ve let them take such importance in my life that they can ruin a day.  It makes me think about how much more annoying I must be to God most of the time.  How humbling it is that He loves me still, in spite of myself.  His love astounds me.  Praise the Lord!

What things annoy you?

POST SCRIPT:

In response to what someone who read this said, let me make something clear. I did not intend to be judgmental of people in this post. I meant it as humorous, letting you see me make fun of myself for taking stupid things way too seriously. I also meant to facilitate understanding of different perspectives: By explaining my point of view, I opened the forum for people to think about things from another perspective, and to respond, if they wanted, to enable me to think about things from other perspectives, too. I did not intend to judge or mock people who do the things I find annoying. Perhaps I did not make it clear enough at the end: I do things that are incredibly annoying, just as everyone does. This wasn’t a post in which I focused on the ways in which I am annoying; perhaps soon I’ll write one of those, too.

If I have offended anyone, I am truly sorry, from the bottom of my heart. Still, I feel justified in the purpose of this post, so it shall remain posted. May the Lord bless you all.