Do Pet Peeves Ever Go Away?
I Revisit Some of My Favorite Pet Peeves
For Christmas last year, I gave my mother a Storyworth subscription. Storyworth sends Mom a writing prompt once a week and she replies by email. At the end of the year, her vignettes will be collected in a book, and hopefully, given to kids and grandkids. It’s cool. Anyway, last week’s question was “What are your pet peeves?” Mom told me on the phone that she couldn’t think of any and didn’t think she had any. If you know my mother or any mother anywhere, you know that this cannot be accurate. Moms rise and grind on the promise of new pet peeve every day. I started to offer her some examples.
“Some people hate the sound of other people eating yogurt,” I said.
Before I could think of another one, she replied, “Oh people eating with their mouths open.”
She got the idea. This made me wonder about my pet peeves and whether I’ve had the same ones for a long time. This is where it helps to have a blog that I started in 2005. I have 34 posts about “things that annoy me,” and they are very instructive in reminding me what my pet peeves are. I even had a post called Why I Hate The Things I Hate, which I’ve reprinted below as a jumping-off point for this discussion.
BD and I are going to NYC this weekend, and he wants to take in a play (I hear that’s what you do when you go to a play – you “take it in”), and that got my thinking about how much I hate plays. And then my cousin mentioned that he knew I hate plaintiffs’ attorneys (which I don’t), and I thought: There’s a lot of misinformation out there about what I hate and why. This calls for a blog post.
Theater – Its true; I hate Theater. This is based on my dual aversions to strong emotions and bad acting. I am not crazy about Art Films for the same reason. Mind you, I am not a stoic. I feel emotions very strongly. Plus I am the Queen of Willing Suspension of Disbelief, which means I feel strong emotions very easily. But afterwards, after I have cried and feel all emotionally wrung out, I feel used and a little dirty. For example, I cried through all of Little Man Tate. I just felt like an ass after that. Really? Little Man Tate? I feel like a cry-whore just remembering it. Okay, so that’s not Theater, and its not Art Film, so my point isn’t being made very well. BUT. My first roommate in college starred in a production of Agnes of God, which was both Theater and Art Film, and I felt like crap after watching it. Big Themes, Moving Story, Heartfelt Performances. Yuck.
Soup – I have a love/hate relationship with soup. I will eat soup and often think that a specific soup tastes good. But I don’t think soup is a meal and it annoys me when people treat it like a meal. I do hate cold soup. Just the word Gazpacho makes me feel a little sick to my stomach. On the other hand, I like the soup party. A part of me wishes that we had an annual pulled pork party instead, but you take your husband for richer and for poorer, for soup and for pork.
Sandwiches – This is a corollary hatred. I don’t think sandwiches are a meal. I also think they have too much bread (no matter how little bread they have). That said, I eat sandwiches almost every day, because even the popularity of the Atkins diet has not convinced me that its acceptable to eat just salami and cheese right off your lap with your fingers.
Berkeley - there are too many posts to even add one single link here. If you need evidence, just look there to the right and read the categories Bay Area, things that annoy me, and BPN. Smile Rockridge might have some material on this particular hatred, but it would be a more general dislike of things that are Berkeley-esque, as opposed to be specifically about Berkeley.
Chinese Food: Its not Asian food that I hate, its Chinese food. Because I love Japanese and Indian, and occasionally crave Thai. I am not crazy about Korean food, but the issue just doesn't come up that much. But Chinese food is shorthand for "don't feel like cooking, don't feel like eating out", and it almost universally has too much sauce on it. Goopy sauce. Dare I say, it's soupy sauce. Also, my mom dated a Chinese man for several years and I ate a lot of Chinese food during that period and I feel like I had my lifetime supply already.
Short Stories: Yeah, its true. I think that this is due in part to the Theater/Art Film phenom, which is that short stories are intended to Make a Point, usually by being shocking or sad. When they are funny, they are essays, not short stories (see David Sedaris and Ian Frazier, both of whom I like). I like long books, because if you see something sad coming, you can either put the book down for a little while until you are ready to deal with it, or the book keeps going after that, so you know that not everyone will be dead at the end.
Looking back at this list, I think hate is a pretty strong word for how I feel about most of those things. Still hateable: Berkeley, Sideways, Burning Man, and theater. Still totally unacceptable but I’m not wasting hate on: short stories, Chinese food, and soup. My feelings have become more nuanced towards boomers and sandwiches. Boomers and sandwiches both come in a variety of types, some of which I hate and some of which I like. In fact, I’ve done a lot of Italian sub reviews lately that should give you an idea of which specific sandwich has overcome my historical antipathy to the genre.
Do I have new pet peeves? Oh yes.
The phrase “. . . gives me life.”
My kids using my car all the time.
The fact that every book on our library’s ebook app is always checked out. They are electronic; why is there such a finite supply of them?
The sad truth of it is, with so many real problems occupying my time - the Russian civil war and the Earth off its axis are just today’s problems - it’s hard to generate real anger over insignificant stuff. But I pledge to do better, you guys. I will work hard to find more stuff to get mad about, I promise. Until then, I leave you with this extremely specific analysis of two pet peeves I still hold.
And then finally, have you wondered what you might hate more than Blackwater USA, the mercenary contractor responsible for untold numbers of Iraqi civilians deaths and Godknowshowmany propped-up dictatorships? And how about those irritating sound effects in NPR stories? You know, the laughing children on the playground, the birds chirping, and then you have to change the station before you lose your mind? Do you hate that more, or less, than military contractors in Iraq? Well, I briefly got an answer to that question the other day when I heard a story about protests at Blackwater's training center outside of San Diego. The owner of Blackwater came out to address the protesters, but was quickly shouted down. He got back into his vehicle, and the tape catches a protester angrily yelling, "Oh, you drive a HUMMER?? What about the environment? You gas guzzler!!"
Like the owner of Blackwater gives a shit. Like he should be driving a Prius.
And for a brief moment, I felt . . . I don't know what. Sorry for how lame the protesters are. Sorry that I have to listen to NPR's pitiful filler-in-lieu-of-news every day. Sorry that the best argument that can be summoned to yell at the owner of Blackwater, just hours after 17 Iraqi citizens were killed, is that he's a gas guzzler.
Earth’s axis, ahem. Oh, and we do not get to choose our birth years. I am a baby boomer, or whatever. Do not hate me please. It is a waste of your time and effort. ❤️