Pet Peeves, part 2

**Blue Bead** · 07-30-2003, 02:06 PM

What really irks me are people using their cellphones while driving, telemarketers, and mothers attending to their kids while driving.

It seems that when drivers put a cellphone to their ear their brains shut down in all other areas except hearing and speaking. Invariably they can be spotted fairly readily because they don't use turn signals (they don't have a free hand with which to turn it on!), they drive 10 to 15 m.p.h. below the posted speed limit in the center lane on the freeway (and often the passing lane as well), they make unexpected lane changes, and they are totally unaware that they are sitting in your car's blindspot when you are trying to change lanes, and they pace you. For some reason in my part of the US when the weather gets really hot the cellphone drivers multiply, LOL.

The do-not-call list is a godsend but I'm sure some telemarketing company will figure out some legal way to circumvent it. Maybe a bunch of people who have been hounded to pieces with calls should get a class action lawsuit against the telemarketing companies for some major millions of dollars, LOL

On the way to a doctor's appointment today I was back of a not-so-young mother who had her child's safety seat secured in the back seat of her small car. She had her right hand between the front bucket seats fooling with her child. She was traveling about 45 miles an hour behind a large dump truck. She was so distracted that she swerved left of center and caused an on-coming car to pull into the berm. It never fazed this driving mother! About a quarter mile later she swerved to the right while fiddling with the child and missed a mailbox by inches. I stayed about 10 car lengths behind her because there was no way to determine what would happen. Luckily nothing did, and she turned off on a side street. The sad part about this was if there had been an accident she, most likely, would have survived but I doubt that the child strapped in the car seat in the middle of that back seat would have been so lucky!

Blue Bead

**windspirit** · 07-30-2003, 08:00 PM

- Bad drivers: (rant warning) 1. Tailgating is DANGEROUS; 2. Find where a turn signal in your car is and USE it, especially when changing lanes on a freeway; 3. Unless you're driving a B-I-G truck, you DON'T have to move as far to the left as possible when turning RIGHT, and vice versa; 4. If you want to turn left you DON'T have the right of way (unless it's a 4-way intersection and you've gotten there first); 5. DON'T honk at people who stop at the stop sign, especially when there's a train track behind it (duh!); 6. MAKE SURE that the garbage you insist on driving with is securely tied to your car and WON'T fall off -- a matress lying on the freeway in the middle of the night/bouncing barrels/buckets/chairs/ETC. are a HUGE NO-NO!; 7. when you get in your car in a parking lot and see another car RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU waiting for some people to pass, the LAST thing you want to do is step on gas; etc.

- People on bicycles in the middle of the road who have no idea of any rules that regulate the traffic and NO COMMON SENSE. Same with pedestrians. People who are unable to guess who's gonna win when 150 pounds of meat and bones meet with 1.5 tons of steel.

- School buses stopping every 10 meters, as if it'd kill one kid to walk to the next one.

- Freaking LOUD and persistent church bells at 6:57 a.m. on Sunday.

- People at the movies having conversations during a movie; translating the whole thing to someone who don't speak the language; eating pizza with onions... Do I have to go on?

- People clipping their toenails in the same room you're eating dinner in (I had a roomate like that :o ).

OK, I feel better now.

**Grgranny** · 07-31-2003, 12:19 AM

You know, if they would charge a lot extra for babies, etc. I bet they'd get a baby sitter!:rolleyes:

**RealtorGal** · 07-31-2003, 01:27 AM

I saw a guy sitting in public last week flossing his teeth. MAJOR gross out! I couldn't believe it when I saw it!

**Seonaid920** · 07-31-2003, 11:36 AM

I once saw a woman stop at a bench where office workers were sitting eating lunch outside and she took off her shoe, pulled up her foot and commenced clipping her toe nails. It was horrifying.

I have also been witness to people (usually men) clipping their nails on a train while innocent bystanders have to move to avoid being hit by flying bits of nails.

drivers who run red lights or speed up at the yellow

drivers who block the crosswalks or while they're sitting at a red light keep inching up while people are trying to cross the street.

people still driving with cellphones (even though it is illegal in this state)

walking behind someone who is smoking

**Pookie** · 07-31-2003, 02:01 PM

How about someone who will take their dentures out at a restaurant and put them in their pocket? Eeewwwww!

**megsk8z** · 07-31-2003, 07:26 PM

You guys are good! I'd like to add "people that have stereos that vibrate my windows at some ridiculous hour of the morning."
That deep bass boom doesn't do anything for the people in the car and is designed primarily to annoy the people *outside* the car. Besides, at the ridiculous hour of 2am, don't some people realize that some of us want to get some sleep so we can be at the rink at 6am?
Aacckkk! There goes one now...............

Okay, I want to limit the stereo hours. To none. If you can hear it more than 50 feet away, it's too loud. Any time.

**RealtorGal** · 07-31-2003, 07:50 PM

They don't turn up the bass to "annoy" those outside the car; they do it to IMPRESS them! "Hey look at me! I'm really hot stuff!"

**kzarah** · 07-31-2003, 08:23 PM

People who play air guitar but cannot play a real one.
Bodies covered with tatoos
The droopy poopy pants with the butt hanging out.
Rap music.
Loud noisey neighbors.
Ants
Daniel and Little Lulu

**heyang** · 07-31-2003, 10:04 PM

Someone from the local paper called to try to get me to take the paper every day instead of just Fri-Sun. The bonus was that the difference would actually be donated to charity. I politely declined because I don't have time to read the paper every day (I spend too much time here LOL). Anyway. Before I could volunteer to make a donation, he essentially accused me of being uncharitable for not accepting the offer. I just said 'I don't want your paper' and hung up.

I also get irked when I'm targeted because of my last name. For a while, AT&T was calling to try to sell me an International Calling plan. 2 problems. AT&T was my long distance carrier and should have realized that no one in my household has called anyone in Asia - ever. The 2nd problem is that the person who calls can't do the sales pitch in English - they usually only speak Mandarin which is not my families dialect (BTW, Mandarin may be the national dialect of China now, but most of the original immigrants came from southern China where the dialect is mostly Cantonese.) Totally peeves me because they assume that I make calls to Asia because of my last name.

My biggest pet peeve is a group of people walking down the middle of the parking lot so that a car can't get past them. Hello - you're not walking on a sidewalk. I also don't like when a group of people stand in the middle of the walkway for discussion and force everyone to move around them at the mall. Move over - you're disrupting the flow of traffic.

**show 42** · 08-01-2003, 02:02 AM

Walking down the middle of a parking lot irks me too. And it's not just young folks who do it, but all ages..........they seem oblivious to the cars trying to park or leave the lot........

Here's another one of mine.........people who make right hand turns into parking lots or streets who slow to a "snail's pace" while doing it. It backs up traffic and is a hazard. Unless their balancing a three tiered cake on their front seat, there's no reason to go from 40 MPH to 2 while making a turn..........

42

**Ladskater** · 08-01-2003, 03:52 AM

My other pet peeve is parents who allow their children to run wild in shopping malls and grocery stores. These places are not play grounds. I have noticed lately, parents letting their kids ride bikes through Wal-Mart or just not minding them period as they are shopping. The kids are running through the store like it was their personal play ground. My mother would never have stood for that kind of behavior. What is with the parents these days? No wonder kids turn out the way they do. There is absolutely no discipline.

**JOHIO2** · 08-01-2003, 11:32 PM

Hey Daniel,

You forgot your favorite mammals! Does that mean the raccoons have moved on????

Kids should come with a volume control and a pause button. Too bad they don't. :rolleyes:

I've got so many pet peeves that I won't bother to list them!

Suffice it to say that I agree with all the above peeves and then some......

**mpal2** · 08-02-2003, 01:16 AM

I must agree that telemarketers make the top of my pet peeve list. I am on the no call list, but that doesn't stop Sears from calling because my roommate and I both have a Sears card. I've asked them repeatedly to not call but they are still calling about 5 times a day. I was nice for the first 2 months, I ignored them (thank God for caller ID) or politely went through the not interested please don't call routine.

Now, when I see them on the caller ID, I do answer every time with every curse word I know, a really loud whistle, etc. They completely deserve it at this point. It's amazing how quickly they want to get off the phone when you're vicious.

It's actually become a fun game for me to see how evil I can be to Sear's. I try to outdo myself with each of the 5 phone calls per day. I'm wondering how long they will continue to call if they get ruptured ear drums every time they try.

ITA with the cell phones and kids in a movie theater. I went to the Matrix and suffered through 1 person's phone calls every 20 minutes. Another group brought their 3-4 year old children who got scared by the movie, started crying and then got hit for crying. We called security on them. You don't bring kids that young to movies that scare them and then hit them for it. :rolleyes: