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

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?

My Mum, who's French used to say "Nous sommes pas chez les cowboys"

"Nous ne sommes pas chez les cowboys", even

rational angry at sitting in my closed, air-conditioned car at a stop light and the guy in front of me blows cigarette smoke out the window, which somehow makes it's way through my air ducts and into my car.

i didn't know your mum was french dl! (she probably dropped the "ne" anyway)

He also has an annoying habit of trying to practise *fucking* juggling in our living room from time to time.

i have gone all dan perry with this one

Tracer, yeah pretty much raised to speak French till I was 4 y/o and then forgot most of it when I went to school. But, yeah, regular trips to the Toulouse area helped me retain enough to have a regular conversation.

also. je55e, your curtain rods sound awesome. what did you use to hold them up?

did your mum keeping speaking to you in french after you went to school?

Not so much. Only on holidays or if we had French guests. It was pretty much impossible. I started pre-school chatting French to all the teachers and students (amusingly, I thought all women spoke French and men spoke English) but my sister and I would soon be coming home and speaking English, so it went.

I would NEVER put my feet on someone's coffee table if I didn't know it was OK, but at the homes of friends I visit most, it is definitely OK, as it is in my home, aka chez cowboys. Not with shoes, though.

also. je55e, your curtain rods sound awesome. what did you use to hold them up?

― kkvgz, Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:16 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

I forget how I explained the project above, but it's a vertical pole going from floor to ceiling, with a T joint near the top, from which another steel pipe - the curtain rod - extends to the wall.

The floor-to-ceiling part is necessary b/c on that side there is no wall to which to fasten the rod. If there were, I would just buy a curtain rod.

Dude on the train next to me this morning that kept looking over at my Nook to stare at what I was reading, in the most blatant and not at all subtle ways. Especially considering he had his own Kindle on his lap.

people who post on facebook shit like "why is Deadmau5 so fucking awesome?"

I posted about this in the earthquake thread, but:

Californians being dicks about 5.8 earthquakes in places that never get them. As if the reaction is about the earthquake itself and not the fact that it is ridiculously novel.

Deep Southerners being dicks about Northern heat waves. Yes, you live in the steaming armpit of our nation. Good job.

Cascading dickishness from north to south re the more southerly people's reactions of alarm and paralysis at snowfall and cold that is routine to the more northerly ones. Surprise, surprise: places that don't get much snow are less prepared to manage larger amounts of snow. Superiority of humanity increases as latitude decreases.

― weakness for Cinnabon; rampant heterosexuality (Je55e), Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:51 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Out West, Eye Rolls and Jeers for East

I'm sure some of it is good-natured ribbing, I'm also sure that definitely not all of it is.

sack up, pussy

You joke, but that's the genuine reaction of a lot of people in the situations I listed.

I was trying to think what NYCers annoying stereotypical "pfft that's nothing" would be in reaction to, but I dunno.

Everything besides earthquakes, I guess.

that's what makes New Yorkers so endearing though

Crime? Crowding? The smelliness of trash on the sidewalk in August?

building collapses

here are some driving things that make me IA, a series:

1. people backing into parking spaces when there's no clear reason to (ie they need to load things into the back or... no that's the only reason), especially when they suck at it and waste ten seconds of my time trying

-People in general seemingly think it is just fine not to reply to emails