Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

when you're out with a couple and everyone is deciding where to go and the couple have to both decide together since they're no longer individual people and then they can't decide and their weird communication problem and possibly years of disagreements drift over the group like a mist. this happened last night and i wanted to say "can you two go outside and come back in when you've made a joint agreement/had a row etc"

lol towards the end me and my first wife wd basically have fist fights in company

at least if it's an outright fight everyone else can talk about whatever or do best to ignore. but when the discussion of what to do next is infected with this, and everyone is like suddenly in this mass relationship, so annoying.

passive tension is so poisonous, tru

it's weirdly rare to find a couple where there's no problem if eg one of them goes home and the other stays out if they want, though those ones do tend to be pretty solid

looks like I'll have to talk to my roommate about how loud he insists on watching his movies. like I know you have a flat screen and surround sound, but the living room is right outside mine, and I get kinda annoyed when your shitty second-tier action flick sound effects are imprinting themselves on top of Common's "Be".

I listen to shit mondo loud and even this is way too loud for me! to think I got asked to turn down my music/kung fu movies multiple times for crimes less egregious than this.

(ok that's it, headed in there now to tell him off!)

Talking objects in commercials make me irrationally angry

Also shops like butchers or chicken&chips outlets who have as a mascot a cheery-looking version of the animal they kill and serve on a plate. Worst near me is a butcher whose mascot is a big wearing the stripy apron and holding a big knife.

a PIG i mean

http://suicidefood.blogspot.com/

http://thumbnails.hulu.com/228/40022228/40022228_384x288_generated.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1171/952588483_f0ac7095f7_o.jpg

(Found that here - http://www.weirdomatic.com/creepy-ads.html - which is full of greatness.)

in aswer to the thread q.

having to read or, not read but at least look at/register, the sign on name "Aphex Twin … in my vagina?" 50 times per day.

i mean, come on.

Does she even post that much? Or are you boning up for an exam?

she posts a lot. enough for me to notice it.

I was expecting Neanderthal to report back quickly.... Is he ok?

it's weirdly rare to find a couple where there's no problem if eg one of them goes home and the other stays out if they want, though those ones do tend to be pretty solid

― lex pretend, Sunday, 21 August 2011 11:28 (Yesterday) Bookmark

any couple for whom this isn't at least a slightly awkward point at the time is on the rocks imho

This makes me rationally angry: unsolicited opinions from strangers.
Two examples:

1. Last winter, Corey and I were at the grocery store, picking wine to
go with a spicy meal. I chose a muscato that I was reasonably sure was
fruity with a little residual sugar. A young woman who was previously shopping for yogurt stepped over and advised that, maybe I didn't know this, but moscato is a dessert wine and it was way too sweet to drink with dinner. She added that she used to sell wine, so she knew.

I tried to brush her off, but she went on a standard helpful-waiter interrogation, asking what we were looking for in a wine, and what we were eating, finally coming to the obvious conclusion that what we wanted was a Riesling (Corey was patient enough to answer some of her questions).

I filled her in on the gaps in her knowledge of muscato and put the wine in the cart. She said "Okaaay..." with that pained, pitying look of a parent who knows she has to let her child learn from his own mistake, however much she would like to protect the child from the inevitable pain.

2. Today at Home Depot as I was having a worker cut and thread some steel plumbing pipe, another customer asked what I was making. I told him I intended to screw the pipe into flanges on the walls for use as a curtain rod.

He found the threading and use of flanges preposterous. Did I not realize that I was playing with about a 1/16" tolerance?? EVERYONE knows that you use closet rod holders for a project like this! I was throwing away $15 b/c there was no way to achieve the kind of precision necessary for such a project!!! The hubris! THE OVERWEENING PRESUMPTION!!

I told the dude that I was aware of the gamble, and I had planned for errors, and if the whole thing failed, I'd start over. All he had to say then was, "Well, it's not gonna work. You're wasting your money. You need to get closet rod brackets."

Outcomes were that the wine was exactly as expected. The pipe was too short, but I unscrewed it a couple turns, and it is now a curtain rod of NASA-grade perfection.

God that's a long post.

Read it anyway.

i'd think moscato would be a little sweet, but i'd never tell you not to buy it.

Well yeh, syrupy dessert wine is the first think I think of when I think of moscato or muscat grapes, and probably most people do, despite there being a fairly wide variety of styles. My problem isn't with misconceptions, but with that person being a nosy, and being a know-it-all who didn't know what she was talking about.

I appreciate others' helpful observations or suggestions if the person isn't pushy or nosy. Like if I'm looking at a public transportation map and someone asks "Where are you trying to go?" and they are helpful, that is great.

OTOH, if I were saying to a friend "Let's take the #36 bus" someone jumped in with "Where are you going? You're not going to Wrigley Field are you? If you're going to Wrigley, you need to take the Red Line," that'd be overstepping and obnoxious.

There've been times I've been on a bus or tram and overheard ppl talking about something and GETTING IT WRONG but the last thing I'd do is step in and correct them. Thats just effing rude.

Well unless perhaps they were about to swap trams and go the wrong way and didnt know, but tbh even then I've just sat there and thought "eh, they should have looked at google maps before they went out".

I once stepped into a conversation in a music shop when a lady was asking for DVD recommendations for her grandson who was going travelling. The clerk said they didn't have anything like that as it was a small shop, but I jumped in and suggested Koyanisqatsi (sp?) and she bought it and he clerk thanked me :-) But yeah, there's a difference between that and SMDHing at strangers who won't take advice.

I've barged into people's conversations on public transportation when they were clearly going the wrong way. I am really polite about it. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear that you're going to the Museum of Science and Industry. You can take this train there, but it's south and you're heading north." And if they are indeed lost, I'll tell them how to get on the train going the right way. I really like helping tourists, though.

If I overheard people planning a route but it wasn't clear they were headed for certain disaster, I wouldn't say anything, though. I once offered unsolicited assistance to a couple of people trying to get downtown after a baseball game rendered the train inoperably crowded. They had some ridiculous plan involving multiple buses going in a large square when all they had to do was walk a half mile east and take one bus and I just couldn't handle the inefficiency.

I like helping tourists too, and I will sometimes offer help to confused looking folks, by which I mean I wi say something like, "Do you need help?" not saying "where are you trying to go?" or just giving advice based on eavesdropping.

It did take all of my willpower not to correct the tourist who incorrectly identified the State of IL building as a theater and the people protesting against proposed cuts to service programs as patrons who did not like the show.

This morning I spied a woman with a tattoo on her foot of a large diamond beneath the word "Classy" in script and I became IA at the following things in this order:

1. That she had an ironic tattoo.
2. That she did NOT have an ironic tattoo.
3. That I am now my mother.

It did take all of my willpower not to correct the tourist who incorrectly identified the State of IL building as a theater and the people protesting against proposed cuts to service programs as patrons who did not like the show.

I can't tell if you're serious.... Did this really happen??

random overheard conversations that annoy you

It not only happened, I called and told you about it on the telephone.

Dude in the cubicle next to me is replacing pages in a three-ring binder right now, one by one, apparently, so all I keep hearing is the loud "CLACK" of the binder snapping shut every 15 seconds or so.

I remember you said that they thought it was a theater, but I forgot about the other part till now b/c I didn't think it really happened! I thought it was a joke, like "The sewer monster finally broke through to the 6th floor."

Dear office roomie, you know that eating with your mouth open is rude, and I know chewing gum isn't exactly "eating" as such but, you know, shut your fucking mouth already!

I am going to MURDER the guy sitting in our reception area. He looks sort of like this

http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1886/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1886R-12184.jpg

and he is picking at his scalp. Diligently. He is reaching over his head, and his arm looks like a monkey's

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bKoAd4YrGgM/TBmJ0G6adRI/AAAAAAAAFmI/oyscfI7q3_w/s1600/monkey+head-scratch.jpg

With concentration unbroken even when he checks his voice mail or drinks his water.

And he is scrunching up his face with effort and concentration.

http://www.jcnot4me.com/images/Bush-%20Dumb%20Look%20Scratching%20Head.jpg

FUCK THIS GUY.

This is an adequate representation of what has been happening in front of me for the past 20 minutes.

http://www.endowmentcheque.co.uk/images/photos/ist2_Quizzical_Guy_202946.jpg

I guess I could go work in another office, but I don't want that. What I want is for him have a fontanelle, which he accidentally breaks with his finger, causing him to have a hideous, painful, prolonged death.

Protracted, I meant.

haha oh man, i know it is just irrational anger but i feel you, jesse. i get to hear about the diverse, odiferous horrors that my boyfriend sees & smells in his waiting room all day (emergency dept of a public mental health facility).

so i mean, i guess it could be worse?

moments after i read Je55e's post, i walked through the lobby of a campus building and saw a guy working on his laptop with his BARE FEET propped up on the little table meant for magazines. i know this school is full of hippies but FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Have I posted yet about my newest adventures at the crazy, creepy Wendy's restaurant near here? I saw a woman setting her sandwich on the table. Not on the wrapper, not on a napkin, ON THE TABLE.

uuungh

Thanks elmo. I'm sure he's seen - and you've heard about - some, uh, crazy, er, shit.... My ex-friend who is starting a masters in mental health therapy recently started a job as a case worker at some kind of low-income mental health clinic. The last time I talked to him, he was trying to figure out if he was obligated to drive his client to her doctor's office in his car if the client wouldn't shower or change after wearing her piss-soaked clothes for who knows how many days.

The thing is, my irritation - which was about a very small tic compared to what a lot of people deal with - was due to the context. This guy was a lawyer himself at a mid-sized firm, waiting in the reception area of another lawyer's office, you know? And I'd bet dollars to donuts he kept his scalp-picking under control once he met with my boss, or when meeting with his clients.

Haha. That last picture above was not at all an exaggeration of his facial contortions.

Bands who constantly update their website/feeds to let you know about concert start time changes at some place in Spain, but don't bother to let you know they have a new CD out

moments after i read Je55e's post, i walked through the lobby of a campus building and saw a guy working on his laptop with his BARE FEET propped up on the little table meant for magazines. i know this school is full of hippies but FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

― sea jasper, a vagina, rose quartz and quartz (reddening), Monday, 22 August 2011 22:16 (2 days ago) Bookmark

I have a mate who comes round and puts his feet (sometimes with shoes on) on my living room table. Okay it's a cheap Ikea job and I'm not really that houseproud, but still I feel (and get made to feel) like a total house-Nazi if I ask him not to do it. Grrr...

Telling your mate off as if you were his mum is uncomfortable, is what I'm saying.

Eh. go mad, put doilies or coasters under his feet.

i'd hope it was more uncomfortable for him. tell him off for making you feel like his mum as well

good point. think i will do this. he's a nice guy when he's sitting still, just been raised kind of bohemianly so asking him not to stick his shoes up on the table gets me an incredulously raised eyebrow. He also has an annoying habit of trying to practise *fucking* juggling in our living room from time to time. And it's not a big place. I think this is where my aforementioned HATRED of juggling stems from.

as tulisa n-dubz said of la roux, WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN?