By Piper Bayard
Do you ever get ticked off at the strangers around you for doing things you think are thoughtless, rude, or stupid? Yep, I do it, too.
So today I’m going to fess up.
- I’m the one who spends three minutes balancing the grocery cart in just the right crack so that it won’t roll into a parking space or hit another car, when I could actually take 30 seconds and return it to the cart corral. In my own defense, I do that on purpose. People with infants in car seats or old people who need to lean on those carts and can’t get into stores if they don’t find one in the parking lot that’s closer to the door than the cart corral.
image by Stilfehler, wikimedia commons
- I’m the one who does not keep an answering machine, but leaves a five minute message on yours. I have no defense for that.
- I’m the one who orders the California bacon avocado burger, “But could you please leave off the lettuce and tomato, and sauté that onion? Oh, yes, and could you please make it with chicken instead of beef? And can you put it on a gluten free bun? . . . No, wait. I’ll have the crispy chicken salad, instead. Ranch on the side.” I tip very well if the waitress is polite about it.
- I’m the one who slows down when you tailgate me. Hey, if you’re going to crash into me, I would prefer it be at a lower speed, thank you.
- I’m the one who will be late to her own funeral.
So now it’s your turn. Which one are you?
Please tell me so that the next time I see someone doing what you confess to, I will remember you, and I will be patient. Thank you for making me a better person.
All the best to all of you for surviving your own pet peeves.
Piper Bayard 
very funny post about pet peeves 🙂 I admit I can be the one tailgating (my wife yells at me for that one) and just generallu can be distracted, sometimes I forget to decide before order, we all do some things like this, great post 🙂
I’m not happy with my hubby when he tailgates, either. 🙂
I can understand the frustration, I try not as much anymore 🙂
I’m the person who drives the speed limit (though I try to stay out of the fast lane). I stop at all stop signs, even when no one is there. And I lose track of where I am in the grocery store when I get a story idea.
I do that, too. I also lose track of conversations when I get story ideas from something someone said. My daughter can be talking to me about small towns in Italy, only to have my response be, “Social media trolls are the same people who burned the witches during the Dark Ages.” 🙂
Haha great post. I complain about things like this a lot, especially in my blog, but I am guilty of them sometimes as well. Like you said, it’s a good reminder to be patient with others sometimes:)
Your comment goes will with your name. 🙂
Haha, yup your post was right up my alley!
Please stay out of the HOV carpool express lane into town if you won’t go as fast as the car in front of you…that one…the one waaaaaaay waaaaay ahead of you…get off here – use the main lanes if you wish to crawl along….jeeez tdo you see the line backing up behind you?
Sorry. it drives me crazy ( but I do not flash my lights or weave nervously back and forth behind them trying to get them to go faster…but it drives me crazy)
LOL. I’m happy to go the speed limit and even one or two miles above, but if the car in front of me is going ten miles over, I let it go. If they guy behind me wants to speed by that much, I’m not willing to risk a ticket or my life just to please them. . . . Where I live, the HOV lane is 10 mph slower than the main road, and it’s the favorite haunt of local police. Anyone wants to pass me there, they are welcome to it, because I always need the laugh when they get pulled over. 🙂
OUr HOV lane is one lane going one way with concrete barricades on each side protecting the lane – and it’s usually pretty fast(main lanes inch along)…the only problem is when a bus breaks down…you can inch by very very slowly. But theses lanes are great when they work
I love them. It’s white knuckle driving any time of the day or night through the city, and I can’t wait to get to those HOV lanes.
*deep sigh* I’m the one who sneaks in an extra item or three when using the grocery store’s express lane. Two cans of beans count as one, right? I’m the one who drives the speed limit in the HOV lane. I’m the one who refuses to use her turn signal, just because. I’m the one who calls children “it.” As in, “What’s it trying to say?” I’m the one who yells at strangers for leaving their pets in the car, even on a mild day. (In my defense, if that car is stolen, so is the pooch. Not cool.) I have no intention of changing that last one. 😉
Sounds like you’re quite comfortable with yourself. I think that’s a virtue. 🙂
I always apologize before I’m picky with my food order- I used to work in food service, and when my kids were little I tipped based off the mess they left LOL.
Humm I’m not sure what irritating habit to pick- oh wait I’m the customer who gives WAY too much information. I mean really you don;t care what my kids did that more, you just want to know if I want a large or extra large tea.
I am apologetic, too, but it doesn’t stop me from getting picky. Sounds like you take care of your waitress, though, and that’s probably the part that matters most.
You know, when my kids were little, I did find the random carts in the parking lot rather handy. 😀
I almost always put my cart up. I can’t say “always” because there might have been a few times when I didn’t.
Tailgaters drive me nuts, too. I make sure I’m doing the speed limit and stay there. They can pass me if they’d rather tailgate someone else.
My son was 20 lbs at 6 months old. (He’s now 17 and 6’8″.) I couldn’t carry him in with his car seat, and if I didn’t find a shopping cart in the lot, I had to go somewhere else. Many years after, my mother was staying with me for her last months. She couldn’t walk from the cart corral to the door, as they are usually well out in the lot. Again, if there wasn’t a cart in the parking lot close to the building, she couldn’t go in the store. I consider it a service to new mothers and old ones to park my cart where they have easy access to the store. 🙂
I’m the one who explains the food cost to profit ratio when the person behind me in line stares when I dump my change into the tip jar at the take-out stand. They think giving a counter worker who’s busting his or her a$$ for minimum wage to make sure their hot dog has just the right amount of relish and not too much onion. Sorry to people who custom order, fifteen years in kitchens will do that.
I’ve worked in restaurants, too. That’s why I’m always polite and tip well.
I’m the one who does things like, when the hotel bellhop says ‘ask me anything, I’m here to help,’ I’ll immediately say something like ‘what is the capital of Abysinnia’ (this is a true story, my wife kept reminding me of it for quite some time afterwards…)
I expect it would be easier for the bellhop to simply find you a hooker or some pot than to tell you the capital of Abysinnia. That said, and not being in the market for hookers or pot any more than I’m guessing you are, I will probably do the same thing you did the next time a bellhop asks me that question. Guess I’d better find out the capital of Abysinnia before I travel again. 🙂
I tend to be the one with a lead foot on the gas…but I do not tailgate and hate it when others are so far up my A%$…sorry I digress. Like you I slow down to a crawl when people do this and then I wave and smile as they go around me giving me the finger! I do tend to not follow conversations because I am thinking about a story, and I talk to myself in the store so people stare at me with weird looks. Again I usually smile and wave. 🙂 Great post!
LOL. I tend to lose track of conversations, too. My daughter will be talking about small towns in Italy, and I’ll come back with something about Bigfoot. It really does make sense in my world. 🙂
I’m the one who, when the cashier asks if I would like to save 10% by opening a credit card, I respond with, “No thank you, I prefer to pay full price for everything.”
LOL. I always do, too. Maybe I’ll start saying it. 🙂
I’m the one who asks (rudely sometimes) the young employee, to NEVER CALL ME MA’AM. I remind them that even if I were 120 years old, I prefer to be called Ms. 🙂
I’m the one who spits gum out from the car window. But I pick up cans and garbage off the streets/sidewalk, so I’m hoping that evens things out.
If I pay cash, I make sure that even if I’ve put some bills down to make sure I have correct change or something, that I ALWAYS hand it to the cashier. When I was a cashier it drove me BSC when someone wasn’t even standing three feet away from me and couldn’t be bothered to hand me their credit card or cash. I mean, really??