This is from the FeaturedGrownups site and the topic of the month is.......
annoyances
I am supposed to be writing about things that annoy me. Oh the list goes on and on….I have noticed quite a few have written about the stupid people of the world. But what’s to say that ‘you’ are not someone else’s stupid person? Hence I won’t follow suit. The stupid people in my life are pretty much related to me so I shall start there.
My sister in law: This is a seasonal thing with her. She is the worst procrastinator that I know of and the holidays are no exception. Every year I send out the kid’s wish lists to all the relatives. I follow up with what this person is getting so duplicates erin’t bought. My SIL does what she has done every year. Waits until almost on the eve of the holiday, gets made because everyone else shopped when they were supposed to and ends buying them ‘junk’ that isn’t even close to what they wanted from the Dollar Store or something. THEN she has the nerve to criticize my family because they actually started shopping in November! Now this woman, any other time, is the most organized person I know. She works from home for a big financial firm as one of the head IT people and also runs two separate businesses on her own; one a stationary in-home business and an embroidery business in town! So why is holiday shopping such a travesty when she usually does it online? Who knows, it just annoys me.
My 13 yo daughter: OK she’s a teenager that should be enough but its not. She’s a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome! Which is 10 X worse. What annoys me is her chores. I make a chore list every single day; sort of an itinerary really. The chores are listed daily, no big surprises.Yet you would think I was asking her to reroof the house. Not just whines but major screams, tirades and tantrums. And if I hear hurumphs, growls and statements like “It’s not fair,” “I’m not going to do it and you can’t make me” and “I already did,”(which is all too obvious that she hadn’t) I think I’ll scream. Of course, I never do and she continues this every…single…day. Another item of annoyance is when she wants to do something but knows she’s responsible for the dishes that night, she won’t do them! She’ll just put them in dishwater, pull them out and set them WET in the cupboards. After attempting to use Xanthan gum to thicken a fruit juice I filled the cup full of water so she could wash it out better. The next morning I found the cup in to cupboard with the glop inside the cup and large portions of it on the outside dried to a grey mass. Mama was not happy at 5 in the morning.
My 11 yo daughter: Whines. Whines annoy the hell out of me and my 11 yo is the Queen of the Land of Whinery! Her excuses are always, “I forgot”, “I didn’t know,” and “I can’t”. I try to give her a break due to her ADD but limits are tested on a daily basis dealing with homework(I forgot), keeping up her room(I can’t) and doing her own chores(I didn’t know).
Of course I won’t go into the husband who expects me to do everything except save the world for the betterment of humanity while he sits in front of the TV and the non-treated bipolar sister that no longer talks to me because I’ve become the ‘relative du jour’ to be mad at this year, or two or three(her record is not talking to my parents for five years over the fact they were upset that she was living with a guy without being married.(This was the 70’s and my parents are, or would have been, is their late 70’s now-can we say ‘generational gap’? I knew that you could). That would be the longest blog in the history of mankind!
Christians who look down on us Non-Christians because we’re not. Now there are plenty, thousands, of really nice Christians in the world but there are as many who are not and this is about them! Of course the public school is some of those in this category. When I have to tell yet another teacher that we don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter and therefore will not be buying cramp for their parties/concert/fundraisers and I got that disdainful ‘oh’ sound from them Almost if they pity me for not being a part of this great club! The almost snobbish-down-the-nose-looks when they ask what church we go to(this is Texas where the majority are Baptist and if you ain’t Baptist you ain’t “in”) and we reply that we don’t attend a “church”. Then the insistence to know what religion we are and the nasty looks when I reply, “That’s rather personal don’t you think?” or “I don’t really believe that is any of your business.” 9 times out of 10 these are complete strangers.
Then there is the minor list:
1.)Landlords who think they are doing you this great favor by ‘allowing’ you to live in the hovel at a 2 months salary and not fix a dang thing(I now have a year’s list). And find it offensive when you ask just ‘when’ are you going to fix this or that.
2.)Doctors who belittle senior citizens just because they’re old. Grr. Too many examples to tell here.
3.)People who demand things of me or ask the most idiotic questions and think that they are equivalent to Einstein. For example: I worked in the telecommunications dept of a hospital. The lower echelon of the dept were switchboard operators. We all came to the belief that as soon as a person called the hospital or walked through those doors, the brains were checked somewhere else(most likely their cars). During training an operator, I had an elderly woman call and ask about the number for our Dallas affiliate hospital. The girl gave it to her and she replied, “No but I want you to call it for me.” The girl replied, “I cant do that ma’am, it’s long distance.” The old woman’s reply to that was, “Well that’s why I wanted you to call it b*&^%.” This was followed by a lovely array of cursing before she hung up. Yep, checked out. Of course this was just a sample of the constant examples:
4.)A gentleman called from Fort Worth wanting to know if we, in Denton, could connect him to the Fort Worth City Hall because he didn’t have a phone book and the only phone number he could remember was ours.
5.)Mexican-Americans, speaking perfect English, asking if we couldn't’t speak Spanish. When we replied, no and ask what they needed and we could direct them, they would reply to perfect English, “No I want someone who speaks Spanish because I don’t want to speak English.” Now, it would be different if it were for a nonspeaking person or even for someone who had difficulty with the language, but for someone who speaks English as well as Spanish? I don’t think so.I lived in foreign countries the majority of the life and always had to learn the native tongue. I can’t recollect too many times that people in other countries stopped what they were doing and ran out and learned my language just so I wouldn't’t be troubled in learning theirs and their country.
6.)People on the news who blame truck drivers for everything. Never do you hear about that little idiot in the Honda who shoots out in front of a machine that is a couple thousand pounds empty and then add another 3-4000 lbs of cargo. Then the Honda owner slams on his brakes and expects the Goliath of a truck NOT to run over him. Did he miss that part in Driver’s Ed when they talked about the ratio that a car has to travel when hitting on his brakes? Apparently. But oh no…all truck drivers are drugged, drunk idiots who don’t know how to drive. And the fact they had to spend more time in being trained to drive that truck than most teenagers spend staying awake in their classes in no nevermind whatsoever. It’s all their fault. Sure. OK. Whatever.
7.) The public schools in general.
8.) Publishers who think I’m just a lowly so-and-so because I don’t live in NYC, apparently the mecca of writers, and that my agent lives in Austin. Again not the mecca for agents either or so it seems.
9.)SAH mothers who run fundraisers at my kid’s school who have nothing better to do than harass me because I won’t let my dd participate in such things that ‘demand’ that the parents do all the work for something that won’t benefit my own dd. This rant would include a school playground at the local intermediate school that refused to put in a playground in their $1.5 school and the newly built playground is only for the 3rd and 4th grades! Did I mention that our school district is over $90,000 in the hole and has filed bankrupt? Hmmm, wonder why.
Goodness, that's a lot isn't it? I'm really not an old curmunger, I swear. I think it's an aging thing, personally. The longer you've dealt with these things and these people who did these things, the less tolerant you become. Usually I don't say much..just move on and let them bask in their own annoying behaviors. I figure it'll come back on them one of these days. That three rule you know?
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