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Barking Up the Pet Peeve Tree.

By Gloria Diaz

Check out Gloria's Blog — Edge of Gloria!

Fort Wayne Reader

2009-03-23

Someone at work (Hi Sarah!) asked me if I’d ever done a column on pet peeves. There’s plenty of stuff that makes me mad, but I guess I’ve never done a list of them. Until now.

These are in no particular order:

Bad spellers: With the resources available (online dictionaries, spell check, grammar check, old-fashioned paper dictionaries) why do I continue to see several misspelled signs promoting Fort Wayne businesses? I also ran into this problem with my students last semester. As tech savvy as young people are supposed to be, you’d think they wouldn’t have a problem finding out programs that would help them with their writing. Yet I saw mistakes that you’d see in seventh grade papers. Writing the word “meat” when you should have used “meet” and so forth.

Turn signals: Someone I know who recently moved to Fort Wayne pointed out we don’t use turn signals here. I said, “I know, I know.” I wanted to mention the plethora of unfriendly people, but thought better of it.

The Octomom: Obviously, she’s never heard of the term, “If you can’t feed them, don’t breed them.” For many reasons, I’ve decided not to have children. The economic aspect is one of the factors. With my history of crappy jobs, I wouldn’t want to subject my kids to my financial woes. But it seems logical to me if you are on assistance already and are having more kids, you obviously can’t support them. So why should I? And by the way, where’s my “Single woman who practices birth control so she’s not adding more people to the welfare rolls” stimulus check? If anything, single women who are supporting themselves without the help of a boyfriend/sugar daddy/Uncle Sam deserve a reward.

Hypocritical smokers: These are the people who have a hamburger and fries yesterday, then when you meet them for lunch, they say, “Oh I need to have a salad today.” As if eating healthy is going to make a difference when you smoke two packs a day. Or the people who refuse to use regular deodorant and toothpaste and who won’t get flu shots because of all the chemicals in them but claim they can’t give up smoking.

Guys who bathe infrequently, are obese and have other bad grooming habits, yet think they deserve girlfriends who look like supermodels. Add to the list guys with beer bellies who complain about women who’ve “let themselves go.” Oh yeah, mac? When’s YOUR baby due, ya big, fat glob of lard?

People who complain about government programs, such as welfare, unemployment and WIC, yet the second they are in trouble, they are asking where their share of the pie is. I had to chuckle when I heard a Libertarian talking about his government disability payments. Uh huh. What happened to taking care of yourself? Never mind that you’re blind! What the hell kind of excuse is that? You don’t hear Stevie Wonder bitching, do you?
People who think because they’ve bought a refrigerator the size of Texas, that you, the delivery person, can magically make it fit into a door that measures only 30 inches wide. We’ve delivery people, not Anne Sullivan. (Look it up!)

Paying $4.00 for a cup of ice and a spritz of soda at the movie theater.

Paying top dollar for pasta, which is why I refuse to eat at Olive Garden. What is pasta? Flour and water, right? I can understand paying $20 for a steak dinner, because the cattle have to be fed, and transported and slaughtered. But pasta? Give me a break!

Bluetooth headset wearers. You look like you’re talking to yourself. I know you’re probably crazy, but do you have to advertise it?

Stay tuned for more. I’m not good at a lot of things, but I take pride in complaining. And since I’m never satisfied, you’re in luck.