Saturday, January 23, 2010

What Bugs You Saturday/Sunday


Jason Starr reading.







People who still have their Christmas decorations up-outside. They can do what they like inside but get those reindeer and colored lights off of your lawn. Face up to the cold relentless winter ahead.
My husband says people who incessantly talk about this bugs him.

34 comments:

YA Sleuth said...

People who talk on their cell phones in the car and drive like idiots. Women who are still acting like they're in high school. People who drop the door in your face instead of holding it for you. Kids who talk to you like you're the maid.

Ran into all of those this past week :-)))

Love Jason Starr's books, btw.

R/T said...

Cell phones. When did we become so important that we (myself not included) had to talk nearly all the time to someone else?

pattinase (abbott) said...

Cellphones were bad enough when they were just about calling. Now with the texting, it's incessant use.
People who don't clean up after their dog. They should be shot at sunup.

R/T said...

Soon--wait for it--there will be an addiction (OCPD: Obsessive Cell Phone Disorder) that will be explained in the DSM and covered under health care plans as a condition requiring psychological treatment (involving in-patient and 12-step programs). "I'm Joe, and I'm an OCPD addict." Wait for it!

MP said...

Cellphones are in a close race with nuclear weapons for worst invention of the 20th century. Politicians, including some Democrats and nearly all Republicans. Teabaggers, all of them. Reality tv. That's enough for one day.

Iren said...

What Bugs you Saturday?

People that I have to deal with.
-- sleep in, stay out of my shop. I work until 9:30 Pm on Fridays and have to be back at 9am Saturday, so really behave-- at least until noon.

Richard Robinson said...

My list is WAY too long today. I just erased a rather long political diatribe because this isn't the forum for it. (You're welcome).

1. Getting old - it sucks
2. Jerks in giant, jacked-up pickup trucks who think they own the road.
3. News stations that take a rainstorm, or a snowflake, or a windy day, and make it into the next "disaster of the decade" to push ratings.
4. Drug commercials on television. It seems about a third of the ads are for some drug or other. If Ihear "ask your doctor" one more time I'm gonna scream.

I could go on, and on, and...

pattinase (abbott) said...

So far I'm onboard with all of these. Dyspeptic I guess you'd call it.

Randy Johnson said...

I grew to loathe cell phones(don't own one myself) years back when I was trying to enjoy dinner in a restaurant. I made the mistake of being seated next to someone talking on one. They were talking when I sat down and were still talking(never stopping) when I was finished and got up to leave.

And there was the day I was riding down the road behind a couple in a big SUV(another distasteful invention) with both of them talking on cell phones.

pattinase (abbott) said...

The oddest thing is when you see two people at a table, both of them talking on cellphone. Or one of them talking while the other one stares into space.

C. Margery Kempe said...

People who don't clean the ice off the sidewalk in front of their home or business. They should be levied enormous fines, particularly when a light snowfall hides the ice and pedestrians land on their asses with considerable surprise and a whole lot of swearing.

People who chew with their mouths open -- fire ants and honey the only solution.

Pontificating: of course it's become a national sport what with all the lazy journalists who just hold a mic up to any jerk who decides to declare himself an 'expert' so inescapable.

Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh and the people who put them on the air.

"I've got a little list, I've got a little list..."

pattinase (abbott) said...

People whose only comments about movies are about continuity issues.

George said...

I hate to pile on cellphone users, but does anyone else find a guy at a urinal doing his business and talking on a cellphone at the same time annoying? Especially when his aim isn't true? And don't get me started about students in my classes whose cellphones go off randomly. One of my colleagues has his students leave their silenced cellphones on a table at the front of the classroom before he starts lecturing.

Cullen Gallagher said...

People who show up late for a movie.

Worse: friends who make you late for a movie. I'm considering instituting a policy in which I won't hold tickets for people, nor will I wait in the lobby for them. Going to movies is one of my favorite things, so walking in late and not getting a good seat is unthinkable for me. I often arrive 30-45 minutes ahead of time. And, for certain movies, I've arrived an hour earlier.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Bathrooms and cellphone are more than annoying-they're disgusting.
Cullen-I am so with you. I go right in and save seats for people. It can get rough piling coats on 4-6 seats and I've been drawn into fistfights and shouting matches, esp. at Avatar,, but I hate missing even that first Verizon commercial. It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm not.

Richard S. Wheeler said...

The intrusion of reality into my vain dreams, in the form of a bad PW review.

R/T said...

George, I like the idea of silenced cell phones on the table at the front of the classroom. That may become my classroom strategy for dealing with something that annoys me unto death: students' cell phones going off (or being used for texting) during classes. I've tried every other solution. This might work.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yes, that would sink a Saturday. But it can't be a credible critic.

r said...

People involved in publishing who do not answer a courteous letter or e-mail proposing business arrangements or reviews. In short, people who should not be in any sort of business (which includes most low-level people in publishing). Even worse are those people who delight in ignoring legitimate correspondents; people who love to think they are too busy, too important, to respond.

Richard S. Wheeler said...

That "r' above is an accident.

Jerry House said...

Back in the 70s (I think, but maybe the late 60s) there was a small tabloid magazine called Grump. It was a local Boston publication and lasted maybe three issues. People wrote short articles about what bugged them. I remember Isaac Asimov had a piece on trash collection in Newton, MA. The most memorable grump was from a young man complaining about urinals that splashed back.

My personal grumps are so many that most days the only thing that doesn't bug me is my bride.

pattinase (abbott) said...

A final note: everything to do with flying is now agony.

Todd Mason said...

Perhaps it's best that I fly so infrequently, having taken one (1) vacation (and a helicopter/in and out vacation at that) in seven years (for my brother and sister-in-law's wedding in October)...and man, the time spent in Coach (the longest return leg, Vegas to Chicago, was in 1st Class) was pretty insane, even worse than the shoe removal.

So, that I'm at work is my grump. On a Saturday, and that I still didn't get done what I need to, so it'll be a Sunday grump, as well.

But I'll throw in with the urine crowd...our unisex restrooms are regularly trashed by individuals who are clearly waiting for the 'rents or the maid service to follow behind them...and our janitors are only through twice a day.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Oh, yes. Lots of restroom complaints. People who don't flush. People who get the sink wet and leave it wet so pressed against it you get wet. People who can't quite push their paper towel through the lid of the can. And so many I won't even mention.

Deb said...

This week: Discovering (through a chance-met acquaintance at Church) that my job was being eliminated and my principal should have told me on January 4. Ah yes, a great week.

Re cell phones and restrooms: I was in the restroom at Sam's Club and a cell phone started ringing. The woman in the next stall answered the phone and started talking, all the while...well, I won't go any further, but eeeuuuuwww! I don't think I would even want to talk to someone on the phone if I thought they were in a restroom.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Deb-now that's more than something that bugs you.
And to think we've never seen what annoying issues take place in the men's rooms.

the walking man said...

If I stood on my sidewalk on Christmas eve the only lights i would have seen would have been the street lights. I think they were working that night.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Damn, that's depressing, Mark.

David Terrenoire said...

The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom of Dorothy Parker's "Hell is other people."

pattinase (abbott) said...

Unfortunately, they're probably saying that too.

Dorte H said...

So what do I talk about to please both of you bugs me ;D

And I just checked my dictionary to see exactly what ´dyspeptic´ means. Guess what? - dyspeptisk.

Well, I will sip at my nice, cool beer which may bug someone else - but not me.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I'll take a glass of wine.
Dyspeptic-grumpy, suffering from indigestion, blue. A word that comes running home in January.

Dorte H said...

Oh yes.

Actually I should know. I am absolutely sure I used it in a flash story a few months ago.

Todd Mason said...

Unisex bathrooms have confirmed what my female colleagues have reported. While the men are more likely to spray on the floor, the women are more likely to leave blood on the seats. That was Sartre earlier, with "Hell is other people's behavior in restrooms." (Loose translation.)