I think everyone has at least a few pet peeves. Alas and alack, I must be extra sensitive because there are a great many things that frustrate or irritate me.
San and I are guest-swapping tomorrow (Woot, Woot!) and, tiny spoiler alert, one of the questions she asked related to pet peeves. I think I sent back two answers but it failed to plumb the depths of my outrage.
In no particular order, a short list of some current pet peeves:
- Labels that don’t peel off merchandise easily. This runs the gamut – I hate, hate, hate when price stickers leave a gummy residue or you have to rip them off in a thousand tiny pieces to remove them. Not all labels fall so woefully short. WONDERFUL LABEL TECHNOLOGY EXISTS. There are few things in life more satisfying than peeling off a label in a single pull – fully intact – and leaving nary a trace.
- Museum maps. They’re always ludicrous and impossible to translate into reality. It would take a PhD in cartography, a compass, and a magnifying glass to get out of the lobby. I have to give a plug for the Rick Steeves audio guides; when we visited the Vatican Museums, his (free!) audio guides would actually direct us when to take a right or left or walk straight ahead. I didn’t have to refer to the museum map which, no doubt, would have been useless.
- Cold air conditioning in the summer. I don’t mean cool. I mean frigid, wear-a-winter-parka cold. I’m dressed in short sleeves for the outside temperature (it’s summer – my clothing choices make sense) but need thermal underwear to go inside. This defies logic and is downright depressing because I live in a part of the world where I legitimately must wear warm gear for much of the year or risk freezing. Also, it’s a huge waste of energy. (I know Sarah is going to disagree with me on this one.)
- People who forget to turn their signal light OFF after they have made a turn/switched lanes.
- People who forget to turn their signal light ON before making a move.
- Pants without pockets. I think fashion designers everywhere should be held to account for this – the lack of pockets in any pair of pants is unforgivable.
- Itchy tags. This is a bit like my label quibble (diatribe? you decide) above. Tags do not have to be itchy. I have many items of clothing where the inside tags – usually silky and “droopy” – do not make my neck or lower back feel like I’m a scratching post for an army of angry cats. I don’t think I’m overly sensitive, I just believe – for some inexplicable reason – clothing manufacturers choose to use hard/scratchy tags. Maybe they assume people will cycle through clothing faster when it’s TORTUROUS TO ACTUALLY WEAR IT? Are they trying to drive more purchasing as shoppers attempt, in vain, to find items with non-itchy tags? And yes I have a seam ripper and have been removing tags from the “worst offenders”, but I do not make my own clothes and don’t think I should have to partially dismantle clothes I buy at the store. Harumph.
- Off-leash dogs that jump. I know dogs are friendly and in that excitement can be prone to jump. But when a dog runs at me and is off leash and jumps, I get peeved. A few months ago the same dog did it twice while I was walking on a local nature trail. (Admittedly it is an off-leash spot, but signs clearly state dogs must be within sight of their owners and under voice control at all times). This LARGE dog was filthy and jumped on me twice while the owner yelled for him to stop. I was wearing a white coat, and his owner apologized but also laughed. I FAILED TO SEE ANY HUMOUR IN THE SITUATION.
- Books that finish ambiguously or with unanswered questions. Ditto movies. I need a resolution. Preferably happy. Or shocking (but good shocking; not leave-me-angry shocking).
- When someone living in my home (either spouse or child) leaves the teeniest amount of peanut butter/jam/milk/cereal ___________ (insert any other food item) and then puts it back in the fridge/cupboard leaving it for me to a) clean out (often requiring me to get my hands dirty – as a bonus pet peeve, there has to be a better way to sell things like peanut butter and honey than in tall jars, where getting the remainder out leaves your hands sticky and gross), b) dispose of/recycle the empty container, and c) replenish. This makes my blood boil and smoke comes out of both my ears.
Your turn. Do you agree with any of my pet peeves listed above? Does anyone else have easily identifiable pet peeves?
Header photo by Cyrus Chew on Unsplash
Ally Bean
Itchy tags bother me, too. Especially on pajamas. I mean, shouldn’t pjs be the softest comfiest things ever?
One of my pet peeves is sliced bread that comes in plastic bags that are closed with little sticky tapes instead of wire twisty ties. The sticky tapes never stick together again after opening, IF you can even get the darned things to open without ripping the bag apart to get to the bread. It’s all big mess and makes me growl.
Elisabeth
I HATE those sticky tapes. I also get apples sealed this way. And iceberg lettuce.
Nicole MacPherson
I hate cold air conditioning! We took the kids to Disney World years ago and my goodness, do they love the air conditioning down there. Our room was set to 65 degrees! That is insane. We have a climate crisis, people, plus, it’s so annoying to be in a cute summery outfit and then freeze inside.
Elisabeth
I do find it even colder in warm places. My sister in SC is clearly Canadian because she keeps her home on the warm side. But I’m shocked with how frigid most of the stores and public places are – in a place that is warm year-round!
Ernie
I took an EMPTY milk container out of the fridge this morning. The AC blasting in summer really burns me up, well – you know what I mean. I have pair of shoes and the sale tag was put on the fabric part of the shoe. Now that I’ve had the shoes for a few years, that sticky spot stands out because it collects dirt.
Looking forward to the post swap. Sounds fun.
Elisabeth
I have shoes with that exact same issue (the sticky spot, the dirt). ARGH.
NGS
AC in the summer is the worst. How am I supposed to dress, I ask you? HOW?
I think an ambiguous ending can be good, depending on the book. Sometimes I like being able to imagine my own ending, but sometimes I feel like the author took an easy way out. I think a lot of the time the book just ends at the wrong time. We read a book called I, Eliza in our book club. It was a fictionalized story of American president Alexander Hamilton’s wife. Well, the book ends just as Alexander Hamilton dies and that’s when Eliza’s real life story got interesting. We were all so upset. There was ONE PAGE of her life after his death and it was much more interesting than her married life. Grr.
Elisabeth
I am Grring with you, and I haven’t even read the book.
Jenny
Hahahaha, I’m laughing at the picture at the top of this post. I have something to add to your last one- people in my family will actually take the last item out of the package AND PUT THE PACKAGE BACK in the fridge or pantry. Then, I don’t realize we’re actually out of crackers, or whatever, because the package is still sitting there… empty. Grr.
I agree with the AC one- it’s a real problem here in Florida. One weird thing that happens is that when we have one of our rare actually cold days, you’ll go into a place and the AC is still blasting! It’s actually colder inside than outside! It makes no sense- are we so unused to cold weather that people don’t know how to turn off the AC???
Elisabeth
Okay. You win. At least my family leave a LITTLE bit of the item in the container. (Though then I have to clean it out – le sigh).
J
I am SO WITH YOU ON THE DOG ONE! Years ago, we lived in an apartment building in Philadelphia, and our apartment was at the end of a very long hallway, like a hotel. My husband’s ethnicity is Indian, and one day when he was home studying (he was a graduate student at the time), I was coming home from work, and an Indian man of about our same age was coming towards me from the far end of the hall. I thought for a second it was my husband, but this man was IN A WHEELCHAIR! I was confused enough that I didn’t yell and run to him, I just remember thinking, ‘How could this have happened and no one called me?” It turned out to be our neighbor from across the hall, who had just moved in and we had never met him before. He had been standing on a low wall on vacation, taking a picture, when an off leash dog jumped up on him (in a very friendly manner, like Mulder would have) AND BROKE HIS BACK. Life changing in all of the wrong ways. I ALWAYS keep my dogs on a leash when outside. Off leash dogs make me nervous. Oh, and a year or so ago, an off leash dog attacked a friend’s dog and killed it. Oh, and when I was a kid, my VERY friendly dog, who I was playing with in front of our house, off leash, ran across the street and attacked a dog that she had ALWAYS been friendly with before. I can’t get in their heads. I love them, but I don’t trust them in situations like this. I would also never leave a dog and a baby unsupervised. NEVER.
A pet peeve for me in my household (that happened today) is when it is cold(ish) out, and my husband comes downstairs in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt and turns on the heater, like we’re rich or something. PUT ON SOME CLOTHES. Then if you still need the heater, I’m not a monster, go for it. But slippers and a cozy robe can really help. (I just commented this on another blog too. Clearly it’s on my mind!)
Elisabeth
Oh my goodness. What a crazy, horrible story!
You sound like my father. He was militant about keeping the heating bill down and his answer to everything when we were a kid was: Go put a sweater on. We joke about it now, but I swear I could almost see my breath some mornings.
Heating bills are no joke, though. Ooof. Now that I’m an adult and paying one of my own.
J
I have no problem with the heater IF YOU HAVE CLOTHES ON. No need to see one’s breath. But if you’re acting like it’s July when it’s November, that’s a problem for me. I’ve given up on griping about it here though, since it’s useless, and now I just gripe on other people’s blogs. Sorry! 🙂
Elisabeth
No apologies needed! Gripe away 🙂
San
Haha, the grumpy cat. Perfect picture for this post. And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with all your pet peeves, esp. the one about ambiguous book endings (or loose tangents that were not tied up) and labels that don’t come off easily. There are obviously glues that will come off, so why are they not used for all the labels?
Elisabeth
Yes! Tangents. I really hate when they leave all these breadcrumbs that you’re sure will lead to a satisfying conclusion and really those breadcrumbs were just randomly scattered FOR NO PURPOSE.
If you and I ruled the world, we would make sure only the “good label glues” got used!
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
All of the above! If I ruled the world all clothing would be label free. Just print the size and care instructions inside. I’ve been to a lot of museums this year and I have yet to see a map that’s of any use.
Elisabeth
Even better than soft labels, are no labels. Yes, yes, yes. Ha – and I just used the wording “ruled the world” about good labels. I think these pet peeves could form the basis of a solid political platform?
What is up with museum maps? They’re not worth the paper they’re printed on.
Daria
ALL of these. I can relate to them all! But especially, the unleashed dogs and the empties. Makes my blood boil, too.
Gigi
I too have many pet peeves. Including the peanut butter jar – honestly there has to be a better way. No wonder so many don’t recycle, that jar is a pain to clean.
The peeve that is currently been simmering around here is dirty dishes IN the sink or ON the counter and not in the empty dishwasher. And, adjacent to that, leaving the sink looking like a murder was committed in there; rinse the darn sink!
Elisabeth
I now put the PB jar on the top shelf of my dishwasher to get it cleaned for the recycling.
Speaking of murder scenes; we have a shower that is nonfunctional right now (it wouldn’t stop leaking, so we turned off the water to just the tub). Anyhoo, someone in my family now uses a Waterpik. Since we’re not showering in the shower, of course I haven’t been cleaning it. I opened up the shower curtain and it looked like something out of CSI. Said person has been Waterpiking in the shower (less mess than doing it over the sink), but can’t rinse out the tub/shower since there is no water in there. It really does look like a crime scene and I will HAVE to bring in a giant pail of hot soapy water to clean it before we get a plumber in!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Very much agree on the dog situation. And I would need to add I am scared of dogs so this is downright a panic moment for me.
Also the labels. Drives me nuts if the y don’t peel. Luckily I found a chemical that removes that gummy. stuff with one swish – in only stinks like a sewage leakage. But at times I use it if I really need that item. Best 2,99€ I ever spend on a whim when I added that to my cart.
Elisabeth
I have a label remover too, but it leaves things greasy and you have to wait for it to be absorbed. I hate having to go to extra fuss WHEN THE GOOD GLUES exist. Maybe there’s a good reason…though I doubt it – haha.
coco
cold AC is constant in my office and I hate it!!! sometimes I wear almost winter jacket! with all the climate change discussion, I really don’t understand the rational of cold AC.
Elisabeth
One of my office mates in grad school used to keep a giant duvet under her desk and type with fingerless gloves. It was SOOOO cold in our office. All the men didn’t seem to mind, but the women were like human iceblocks.
sarah
OFF LEASH DOGS THAT JUMP!! Amen, sister
Kyria @ Travel Spot
This one [People who forget to turn their signal light ON before making a move.] really gets my goat. Today I was running and I got to a four way stop and there was a car coming and of course we both kind of stared at each other and I was not sure if they were going to go so I waited and they didn’t move so I started and then they started and so I backed off…and then they turned left, so I hadn’t even needed to get out of the way! WTH. It is also very hard when biking. When I am the slow one (and fragile one!) I will just let the car go, but I need to know which way they are going so I can decide how to play it!
Lisa's Yarns
I also don’t like intense air conditioning. We set ours to 76 or 78 in the summer. That is appalling to many but works for us.
I think my biggest pet peeve is people are are late. It is SO RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL. Yes, ALL CAPS. If it happens very infrequently, it’s fine. But if you are late all the time I was be very huffy and have to bite my tongue to not say something!
Elisabeth
76 or 78 sounds perfect to me!
I’m rarely late, but also not usually early anymore. I used to always be early, but now I tend to arrive EXACTLY on time, which I recognize can, depending on the event, be a bit like arriving late. Eeks.
Michelle G.
I love the picture of the cat! That made my day! And I agree with so many of your pet peeves – sticky labels, itchy tags, and pants with no pockets are all on my list.
I would have agreed with you on air conditioning a few years ago, but now in my 50s, there’s no air conditioning powerful enough.
Elisabeth
That cat picture is a pretty good representation of me being grumpy about certain pet peeves. Plus, a disgruntled cat looks a whole lot cuter than a disgruntled Elisabeth!
Suzanne
Love these! I have a pet peeves post drafted, but haven’t posted it yet because I feel like I have too many! I am with you on the labels, the pants with no pockets, and people who don’t put their turn signal on. The museum maps peeve made me laugh — you are so right!
Elisabeth
Can’t WAIT to see your list, Suzanne!
Meike
Yes, on the labels that won’t come of! I would extend it to poorly designed packaging that is impossible to open.
Elisabeth
Yes! Poorly designed packaging is another pet peeve of mine!
Kate
The HVAC system in my office is ludicrously bad – which is embarrassing as it’s a healthcare facility! Our practice has no control over the thermostat (it’s a 4 story building) and the exam rooms are either stifling hot or icy cold. It’s particularly bad whenever the weather outside has changed markedly from baseline for the time of year, and it’s like the system overcorrects. I always apologize to patients both for the discomfort as it stands, and also for my cold hands as I examine their necks. Bah!
Another pet peeve: my husband is wonderful but he leaves his shoes in front of the door when he slips them off. Convenient for him when he goes to leave again, but not for anybody else who needs to come in or out!
And finally, I cannot *stand* when businesses misspell a word in their names in order to force alliteration. It’s even worse when multiple words are misspelled, such as the unfortunately-named Kute Kuts hair salon in my husband’s rural hometown. I guess Cute Cuts wasn’t yoonique enough *grumble grumble*
Elisabeth
Oh my – I can’t imagine anything worse than being frozen and HALF NAKED at a healthcare facility. Ugh.
Kute Kuts. I have no words, just laughter with some tears 🙂
Stephany
I don’t know if this works for OTHER things with labels, but for books that come with those annoying stickers on the cover, you can use a hair dryer to loosen it (just point the hair dryer at the sticker and let it get hot) and then it will unstick with no problem! I’ve done it before and I’m always amazed at how well the process worked.
My AC is currently set to 68 degrees, hahahahaha. I love a freezing cold home at night (I can’t sleep if I’m too warm), but I do agree that I hate how cold other places can be, especially in FL. Starbucks is SO BAD about this. There was one Starbucks my friend and I were going to for our writing dates, and we eventually had to find a new one because it was FREEZING. My hands were icicles trying to type! I couldn’t understand it.
Elisabeth
Ohhh. Smart. A hairdryer. I never tried that.
68. I’m dying inside.
Allison McCaskill
I agree with may of these, but NONE SO MUCH as the label one. Have you ever done inventory in a giant bookstore and had to PEEL ALL THOSE HORRIBLE LABELS OFF? I have. It sucks. I also have terrible carpal tunnel, so in addition to being sticky and gross, it is painful.
And the tags. It must be a cost-saving thing, but I DO have sensory issues, and it can make a clothing item unwearable for me.
I love air conditioning, but it does not need to be frigid. Such a waste of energy, and makes zero sense.
Elisabeth
I have never done an inventory like that and it sounds HORRIBLE. Nightmarish, quite frankly. I’m sorry you had to endure something like that.
I feel like all three of these issues would be non-issues if women ruled the world? The labels, the tags, and the AC seem to predominantly impact women. Sigh.