The Peevery

411 is a joke in your town

Why do I still get phone books delivered to my house?  They go straight into the recycle bin.  I should have to opt into delivery, not opt out.

Also, why do 411 operators still exist?  I know that there are some people who use this service (and pay a fee for it) when the exact same information is sitting on their desk in a mysterious grey box right next to the phone they just used to call information.  

None A'Ya Business

My work number received a call from the switchboard today, meaning I couldn't tell where the call originated from. The caller was looking for someone other than me and didn't seem to understand why I was answering. Is this Company ABC, he asked?

He asked me to look up Person X, but I couldn't find her in the address book.

He then asked me to look up Person Y, which I did, and provided the number. Caller than asked if Person Z reported to Person Y, as Caller was trying to reach both parties.

When I bluffed and said I didn't know that info, Caller asked whether I was on Outlook, because I should be able to see the organization information.

I clarified that yes, I could see that info, but since I didn't know who he was or why he was calling, I wouldn't give that information out. So then the Caller started muttering to someone else about me!

I gave Caller the supersweet, "And you're WELCOME!" before hanging up.

More Like Eat Frozen

While watching the Little League World Series over the weekend, they kept showing a Subway commercial for their new sub, the oven crisp chicken. It looked awesome, but I figured I'd wait a few days to see if the craving for it would go away. It didn't.

Both my son and I were looking forward to trying it last night. Lo and behold, we didn't get them. Why? Because the chicken was thawing, and had to for 24 hours. Thanks, Subway, for killing that craving. I guess that's someone's way of telling me to actually eat better.

I Wanna Be Sedated

Co-worker whose wife recently had a baby is back in the office.

While I'm thrilled the baby is healthy and the new parents are happy, I could really do without the graphic descriptions of labor, delivery, and, um, nourishment.

Thank God for the Ramones.

It's My Peeve and I Need It Now!

The J.G. Wentworth commercials that are on morning cable news channels have got to fucking stop. 

Squinty McOw

Damn farm country. The harvesting that's taking place is stirring up all sorts of shit that is aggravating my allergies.

I really only get allergy symptoms in my eyes, which means I am rubbing them all the time, even though I know rubbing my eyes just dislodges eye lashes (which may still be wearing vestiges of Saturday night's mascara), which disrupts my contacts, which makes me hurt.

Ow. Sniff. Ow. Sniff. Is it winter yet?

Open Door Policy

I don't expect anyone to open doors for me but it's a nice gesture when they do, especially when I'm carrying stuff.

Sometimes I hold doors open for people rather than slamming the door in front of them.

I just hate when people act entitled to a door being held open.

Like this one old bag. I was walking toward a very busy first-come, first-served restaurant, and the old bag was dropped off in front. She scurried like a rat to race me to the door. Then she just stood there and looked at me expectantly. She wanted me to open the freaking door for her, and she wanted to be seated before me. She told me some bit about sitting in church for a long time. Maybe she thought that gave her an edge. Maybe Jesus wanted her to get a table first. I gave in and opened the door for the church lady old bag. I'm a suckah.

Cheater!

I have friends who own a deli. I often lunch there. However, I decided to try the new crispy oven-baked chicken sandwich at Subway. The Subway is one block from the friends' deli.

As I was walking out of the Subway with my sandwich, one of the deli-owning friends drove by and spotted me. They immediately had their kid call me to bust me for not supporting the little independently-owned delis. It was like getting caught for cheating. I felt kind of guilty.

But, the guilty sandwich wasn't half bad and it took less than 5 minutes for me to pick up lunch as opposed to 30 minutes.

See You Later. Just Kidding.

I started physical therapy last week because I'm officially 800 years old. I made an appointment at that time for today and this Wednesday. I didn't bother to take their print-out confirmation because I'm really good about maintaining my own calendar and being an adult.

So yes, I should have seen it coming that today they had no record of my appointment and couldn't fit me in with my girl. Oh, and they didn't have me down for Wednesday either. Oh, but I had an appointment last week, was that what I was thinking of?

No, honey, it's not.

You can be assured I took the print-out today when I made new appointments.

Category Five Stupidity

As much as I rolled my eyes at the apocalyptic descriptions of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene leading into the weekend, I'm even more irritated by the people complaining that the storm was "a joke" because it was less severe than predicted. I'm happy that I have power and didn't sustain any property damage, but many of my friends, neighbors and family members are not so lucky.

Holey shirt!

Six of my new-this-summer solid color t-shirts that I always wear to work have little holes through the fronts of them, right near the waist area. I usually don't see the holes until I get to work, then I curse myself for dressing in the dark and looking like poor white trash. Luckily I carry a sparkly cardi* in my bag to throw over the embarrassing shirt.

* saying "cardi" for cardigan is an auxiliary peeve 

Can You Get Diabetes From Watching TV?

Our TV recently informed us that it found some new freeview channels (we refuse to pay for cable or satellite). Lo and behold, we now get the Food Network! I love the Food Network because I love food. This Food Network, however, seems to only broadcast from 6pm to 10pm, and consists entirely of dessert-oriented programs. Not a speck of nutrition anywhere to be found. I love me some sweets, but even one episode of Kid in a Candy Store is enough to make me want to vomit sprinkles.

All By Myself

My sister who lived in London for a year moved back to Canada this past week. Today, my Facebook feed was full of all three of my sisters discussing their fun and exciting plans for hanging out at our family's lakefront cottage. The whole family will be there except for me and they'll be having a blast.  This is the first time I've felt lonely and left out since moving to England last Fall.

On the other hand, I don't have to worry about leeches, snakes and the crappy septic system at the cottage which will surely buckle under the stress of 10 people all weekend. I may not be with my family, but I don't have to poop in the woods tonight!

Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer

Due to the extreme heat I am feeling a bit irritable these days.  Here are the most recent annoyances.

1.  I can't watch the news any more because of the incessant hurricane hyperventilation.  Please let me know if NY washes out to sea.

2.  There is a new Whole Foods near by that sells beer on tap.  They have a tiny bar back near the wine/deli area.  I tried to buy some the other day and it took forever for the poor girl working there to get to me because some guy with a pony tail and tiny round glasses kept wanting to have a free sample of each beer.  Really?  Look, tool, it's mostly Anchor Steam beer or Shiner Bock, either of which has been widely available for many years and is nothing unusual.  Cough up the $3 for a glass and stop cadging free samples.

Also, they sell beer to take home but I feel like a dirty hipster saying, "growler" so I can't bring myself to buy the jug.

3.  I had not noticed it before, but since Food Network has switched to an all-Guy-Fieri format, I really think this guy is a total chafe for the following reasons, among others:

• He totally overpronounces his name as Fee-eddie.  It's not as though you just arrived at Ellis Island from the Old Country.  In general you sound like Bill and Ted, so why the exaggerated pronunciation of your name?
• Sunglasses on the back of the head is a distinguishing mark of the genus douchebag.
• The flip-flops in a restaurant kitchen, along with the capri pants.

 

Class Action Lawsuits are Usually Stupid

I got a notice that I MAY be part of a class action lawsuit. I have no records from the time so I am declining to participate but what I noticed that particularly bothered me was that the respondents will share $450 million and the attorneys will get $90 million. The last time I got an actual settlement from a class action lawsuit I got 37 cents. It took more to mail me that check than I received. I wonder how much the attorneys got then.

Bigger is Better

Since when do cotton balls come in different sizes?  I was waiting in a long line at CVS and noticed my balls were the size of maybe bunny balls.  I had to go to the back of the store to examine the balls and found I needed "triple-size" balls, the normal-sized balls, akin to the diameter of a poodle's balls.  Now, I have to examine my balls more carefully when I need more.

 

This would have been a much funnier post if I was a boy.

How is this better, Bill Gates?

For about 20 years or so, I've been using MS Word. There are only a few functions I don't know how to use.  Why the "geniuses" at Microsoft decided to fuck around with the software is beyond me.* 

Hey, your entire industry uses the form toolbar?  Guess what? Not anymore, bitch!  You know where everything is on the menus?  Think again, sucker!

What used to take me 10 minutes to do, now takes me 30 because I have to spend time trying to figure out how to see the goddamn gridlines in a table!  

Oh, and that Calibri font makes my eye twitch. 

 

*Yes I know I'm 4 years late in this peeve, but there's obviously a reason I've resisted the upgrade for so long. It sucks donkey balls.

Peeves of Yore: Weather Edition

With Juice out of town, I'm taking over this week's duties for POY. I've decided to go with the obvious, the weather, because you can't escape the hurricane that is Irene anywhere on the news. We've had a lot of wind down here in Savannah, but it's nothing like what the rest of the East Coast will be enduring later this weekend. Batten down the hatches, people, and stay safe!

Amy lost one of her trash cans to gale-force winds, and wasn't looking forward to lugging a new one home on the bus. I bet that looked hot!

Blaugra let us know she's a xenophobe. How genius is she for using a big word when talking about snow? Awesome.

Winter came early for Hazel. As in, two days after the beginning of Fall early.

Jen14221 wrote a letter to God because she wasn't down with the temperature being 45 degrees in late May.

How could I not love military life?

While I'm excited to move to Texas, knowing that we'll only be there for 10 months and then moving again to who-knows-where is making me stressed, even though it's not until next summer. I need to chill.

If everything really is bigger in Texas, they better have some fishbowl-sized margaritas ready for me.

Stick it where the sun don't shine.

Is there really a need for advertisers to show women's feminine products in all their blazing white glory (besides those new colored tampons ... really?) on commercials and in magazines? Like we don't all know what they look like?

I'm getting sick of listening to my 12-year-old son proclaim "Ewwww" every time a commercial comes on.

Psychic Scheduling

I got copied on an email reply which reads, in part,  "...I've already asked Karen to set up a call today..." I have gotten no such request from the writer, so this is the one time I'm happy to have been randomly copied on something. Now I'm off to violate the laws of time to find time in the packed schedule for the call to happen.

Potty Humor

I just found out that while the new toilet was installed in my aforementioned bathroom renovation project, the seat ordered for it is the wrong shape. I will have to wait two more days for the new seat to arrive.

My husband was so excited to poop in the new toilet and he is extremely disappointed and impatient now.

I'm putting him on the punch list!

The contractor on my bathroom renovation project is starting to piss me off.

Starting a War with Palau

Whenever I have to select my state, Pennsylvania, from a drop-down list on a website's address entry form, I quickly type "P", enter, and my state comes up as Palau. Then I have to go back into the list, scroll down, and correct it and this happens all the time and you'd think I would know this by now so I can save myself the extra second it takes to correct it. Palau is populated by 21,000, which is smaller than the city where I live. I think Pennsylvanians should take precedence over Palauans in the drop down list simply based on volume. I'm sure it's a lovely place, especially compared to Pennsylvania, but really, America started here and my state should be first.

OCD Can You See?

At least ten times a day, I catch myself mentally chastising people on the street with, "Fix your shirt (skirt, tie, wiglet, glass eye, etc.). It's driving me crazy."

The day is probably not far behind when I follow one of them home and straighten all the pictures in their house.

Down In The Boondocks

Today I took my massive stack of BlogHer food coupons to the grocery store...

...the same grocery store that doesn't carry Dove bars OR Michel Angelo's products.

What kind of state do I live in where you have to hunt for Dove bars? Sigh. Woe is me.

And then I forgot to use the Trop50 coupons on the juice I bought.

 

Martha Stewart's Dumb Cousin

I made dinner tonight: ginger curry meatballs, cooked in a curry/coconut sauce with brown rice and green beans. It took me a little over an hour, because I can't ever do anything simple and I had to make white cheddar/black pepper biscuits AT THE EXACT SAME TIME.

And then I burned my tongue on the first few bites, like a jackass, so I'm not even sure how the meal turned out.

And then I realized I forgot to add the almonds. For shame.

Everything Counts in Large Amounts

I haven't pooped in four days. I'm terrified of things to come.

Only Pretty People Count

It annoys me pretty blond women who make bad choices and disappear are featured in magazines and media and yet males, people of color, people of size, brunettes, uggos and old people are rarely, if ever, featured when they vanish.

No, I'm the Busiest

I met with my group from my marketing class on Sunday. We talked about how far along each of us is in the MBA program. I said I only take one class at a time because I have little kids. One of the other women said she has little kids, too, and she is taking two or three classes at a time. It was the look on her face when she said it that irritated me, like she was surprised I couldn't manage both. She neglected to mention that SHE DOESN'T HAVE A JOB. She was even more surprised when she saw I scored ten points higher than she did on the case study, especially after I told her I wrote it in one night. SUCK ON THAT, LADY.

Holy Walls

My wife was kind enough to inform me this morning that she wants shelves for the living room. She wants to display things without the kids getting hold of them and turning them into sticky pieces of what used to be displayed.  Fair enough. 

The problem is that she rearranges the furniture every three months, and I would then have to move the shelves to new spots and drill new holes for the anchors. At that rate, I'm guessing it will be about a year before my living room will look like Scarface used it for target practice with his "little friend". I'm not sure how this argument will end, other than in my defeat.

Pissed Off

The hallmarks of the infection I am fighting include frequency and urgency of urination. While I wait for the antibiotics to do their job, I am supposed to increase my fluid intake.

I'll be setting up a desk in the ladies' room if anyone is looking for me.

39 Weeks

I'm achy, exhausted and none of my maternity clothes fit anymore. Time to get this baby out of me!

Weird Al, you are not.

Old Navy! I hated that Debbie Gibson song when it was popular back in the 80s.  Doing a poor man's version of a Weird Al Yankovic parody of it to sell your jeans only reminds me of that past annoyance.  

And also, Only in My Dreams is now stuck in my head.

Boy Germs!

Low toilet + tall, nearsighted husband = a bathroom floor which will live in infamy.

Squeeze Me, Please!

I get really distracted when I'm talking to someone face-to-face and they have a pimple that's just begging to be popped. I want to reach out and squeeze it. I try hard to look in their eyes when they're talking, but my eyes inevitably wander back to the zit.

I always wonder if they go home, look in the mirror, see the zit, then think I'm the world's biggest jerk because that's what I kept staring at.

Grossest Chip Flavor Ever

 

"Creamy"  +  "Dill Pickle"  x  hand touching a floating chip = inclination to vomit

I do not think it means what you think it means

Would the temp in my office kindly stop using the word "marriage" when referring to the stacks of files she is combining?  I swear she said it five times over the course of 20 minutes.

"Since there was only one report in this folder, I married it with the stack for next month."

"Is it OK that I married this pile of TPS reports with the old ones from last year?"

No! I want a divorce from your vocabulary.

We Are All Originals

And to prove it we all wear the same Adidas dreck.

Beef-O-Rama

Sunday I made a pot roast in the crock pot.  I have enough to last me all week for lunch as well.  Usually this means I eat chicken for dinner since I don't like to eat THAT much beef in a week. Unfortunately Monday night I was digging in the freezer and pulled out a roast beef and left it on the counter overnight. I had to cook it because it couldn't be refrozen. This now means for the rest of the week it is all beef all the time.

I'm a Terrible Student

I'm so ridiculously tired this morning because I was up until 3 AM writing a paper for my marketing class. It was due at 7 PM last night, which I realized at 6:30 PM. I hadn't even started it because I thought it was due next week. Fortunately, a few others were in the same boat, and the instructor gave us until the morning.

Captain Obvious

There's a guy at work, not married, but has been living with his girlfriend in their house with their two children for ten years.  This guy thinks that no one knows he's enjoying the company of one of the girls in the office.  I don't object to the affair; to each his own, I guess, and good luck with that.  What bothers me is that he thinks that every one else is too dumb to notice what's going on.  Dude, we are not blind.  Don't pretend we're stupid, too. And don't be surprised when one of your underlings rats you out to your kids' mother in retaliation for you being a complete asshole to your entire staff.

Unconnected.

Good: I was on vacation last weekend.

Bad: I was on vacation last weekend in an area that had spotty cell service.

Good: I'm on vacation again, starting at 5pm today.

Bad: Starting tomorrow morning, I'm driving to a not-my-family family reunion at a lake, where there will be a billion people I have to meet and, probably, spotty cell service.

You'd think all this unconnectiveness (wha?) would help break my addiction but instead it's making me very sad.

Rectum Immobulus!

Starting tomorrow night, I'm spending three nights in a two-bedroom cabin with my boyfriend, his sister, their dad, and his girlfriend.

Is there any way I can lock my rectum for the weekend?

Yo Soy Mejor Que Tu

If you are going to be the boss of me, I expect you to be better than I am at something, anything. From what I can tell, the only thing my boss is better at than I am is negotiating a starting salary and title. Oh, and being older.

Hey pervs, look here!

I find it very creepy when parents put pictures of their prepubescent daughters in bikinis on Facebook with the caption of "Bow chicka bow wow." I've seen others, also, that were suggestive. Maybe I'm prudish, but it just left me with an icky feeling. You never know what kind of sickos are out there.

Obviously they never watched the same after-school specials I did.

Retail Me Not, Not

Dear Retail Me Not:

Yeah, I was attracted to your Blizzard of Dollars Cash Grab at BlogHer. Who wouldn't be?

Then you reeled me in. "Just fill this out...you can get in the cash grab chamber and win money if you fill out our application...here, just apply!" I didn't really know what I was applying for, I just wanted to grab some cash.

Not only did I not win any cash, just a T-shirt, but I got a follow-up email from you that said:

"After reviewing your application, we have determined that it does not meet the criteria for our affliate program...There are a number of reasons why your application may have been declined. Some of these include 1) You are not in compliance with our terms and conditions 2) the quality of the website is not in line with our network standards 3) the information you submitted is incomplete or unclear."

I was a little put off. This was my introduction to Retail Me Not. I don't really want to know any more. You don't think the quality of my website is in line with your network standards, whatever those are?  You can suck it.

Sincerely,

Blaugra

Meeting with the Bobs

One of the three Targets in my town is apparently managed by Lumberg from Office Space.  It doesn't matter what time you shop, the place is a den of chaos in one form or another.

This morning, I got there when the doors opened at 8 thinking it would be less crazy. Silly me.

In every other aisle where the food is displayed, someone was stocking product.  Not to mention the 20 boxes of crap lying on the floor waiting to be put away (in each aisle), which I had to dodge or move in order to navigate my cart.  

Of all the Target employees lining the aisles, only the young guy with the Snidely Whiplash mustache was brave enough to ask me if I needed help.  Apparently through his alleged drug hangover, he remembered some of the customer service training.

Can someone from corporate please audit that place and get it to run more efficiently? What is it you do here?!?

One of Those People

Way too much of my conversation centers around work, gardening, and cats.

Better just issue me those granny panties and get it over with.

Extra Padding

All the pregnancy books advised that I should stock up on maxi pads to use postpartum. Now that the bloodletting is over, I'm left with a lifetime supply of pads that I'll never use. 

Can I cash these in for something I really need? Like Spanx?