Peevy
I have been thinking about pet peeves. Isn’t that a strange phrase when you think about it? If it’s something that peeves you, why would it be a pet. A pet is something you love, a peeve is something you don’t. So why would you cutesyfy it by calling it a “pet peeve.” As if its something that is sort of cute rather than something that is really so annoying that it actually pisses you off?
What got me started on all this is that I experiences one of my “pet” peeves last night at Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart. So sue me. I’m a country boy. We don’t have Sak’s Fifth Avenue. We don’t have Sak’s ANY Avenue.
So, anyway… (by the way, you will notice as you read these “blogs”, I write them as if I am talking to you and I tend to digress a lot when I talk. SO get used to it!) So, anyway, I was in Wal-Mart last night to buy tea, Echinacea, band-aids, TV Guide, Ricola Cough Drops, toilet paper, and deoderant. In case you are trying to figure all that out, I have a sore throat and sinus infection, two cuts on my right hand, and I like my butt clean and my pits not to stink. The TV Guide is becuase former Tennessee football god Peyton Manning and his brother, potential demi-god Eli, are on the cover.
So, back to Wal-Mart (I told you I digress). I’m walking along and I hear this repetitive sound like shish-clack, shish-clack, shish-clack. Now, I have heard this sound before and so I know exactly what it is. It;s the sound of some lazy, slightly overweight woman in too tight pants and a belly shirt shuffling her feet in her slip on shoes on the cold tile floor. That’s the “shish” half of the sound. The other half, the “clack” happens when the back of the shoe flips up to smack her bare heel. I HATE that! I HATE THAT SOUND. I want to turn around and scream “LADY PICK UP YOUR G-D FEET WHEN YOU WALK!” Why do women do this? And it’s mostly women who do. And it’s mostly the women at Wal-Mart and fast food places. The scuffle along never thinking about the noise polution they produce. Here I am 6′3″ almost 200 lbs with big size 14’s and I’m a silent as falling snow when I walk. Do they do this so that we will know they are coming? Is it some safety measure so that you know they are around the corner on the next aisle and want to warn you so that you don’t bang your shopping carts together? No. Just pure laziness. And it pisses me OFF!
I’m real big on self exploration (cause I think if you know who you are, you are a better person for it) so I decided to ask myself why this bothers me so much. Is it a foot thing? Cause I really don’t like feet. I don;t like looking at them. ( I would never be able to sit through any of those Lord of the Rings movies and look at those hobbit feet). But I wasn’t seeing this woman’s feet (That would only make matters worse) I was hearing them. Then I started to realize that a lot of my pet peeves have to do with the sounds that people make.
Besides the scuffling feet, I hate to hear people chew gum; I hate to hear people chew their food (you know, those smacking sound that make when their lips separate in mid chew. My god KEEP YOUR LIPS TOGETHER! I don’t want to hear or see you pre-swallowed meal.); I hate to hear people ENJOYING their food (now I don’t mean an occasional “Mmm. This is good!” I mean those joyous grunts they make, usually coupled with short heavy breaths, as if they were malnourished. When, in fact, those sounds are often made by people who could stand to push the plate away early. If you’re a homeless guy, that’s one thing…but if you’re the fat German kid from “Willy Wonka,” that’s another.); I hate to hear people snap, crackle, and pop their joints; I hate to hear people suck on cough drops or candy. (now, if it’s during a blow job, sucking sounds and the previously mentioned joyous malnourished grunts are welcomed and highly encouraged. Hell, they’re EXPECTED.)
So I have these pet peeves about noises people make with various parts of their bodies. All those things truly drive me crazy. But as I think even more, I realize it extends further. I truly don’t like noise of any kind (the moans, screams and hollers of sexual pleasure excluded). I really like the quiet. I don’t like loud music. People who watch TV with me are always asking me to turn it up. I can’t stand to hear that tiny almost white noise that bleeds from people’s headphones. Maybe I have super hearing. My ears are big enough.
All I know is, if you’re making a lot of noise it had better be for some good reason.
September 16th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
Hey Tony, I know exactly what you are saying, the very same things bother me also, I’m always aware of what I do, and how it effects others, but seems others don’t care.
November 29th, 2004 at 2:27 pm
I share that Pet Peeve with you Tony. But I also get peeved by the way people talk. Talking loudly, mispronouncing words, speaking like they never had any kind of education whatsoever.
I don’t claim to speak (or write) perfect English. Look at my blog and you’ll see bad grammar and run-on scentences galore –but that’s the exception, not the rule.
Hearing people say things like “I ain’t got none”, “She don’t do that, do she?” or “You is not gonna do that, is you?” is enough to make me want to pull my hair out.