10) When I'm wearing a long skirt, such as in church, and I bend over to pick something up, and step on the skirt unknowingly, and then inadvertently pull it down when I stand up! One time, I was in front of the church years ago, sitting on the platform, and then when I stood up, I heard this loud RRRIP! I had stood on it and ripped it! I was sure everyone heard it. The whole seam ripped, and I had to hold it together and walk out of the church sideways! A close "cousin" of this experience is when I'm wearing lightweight, loose-fitting slacks, and I put something in my pocket (such as keys), and then, when I run, or walk more quickly, the weight of the thing in the pocket pulls my pants down. I've had that one happen in public a few times, where my pants came all the way down!
9) Traffic! No further explanation needed with this one! I loved having very little traffic to speak of in South Dakota. I'm learning my way around Albuquerque, and figuring out the best time to leave in the mornings to avoid rush hour (which, like LA traffic, doesn't rush!). I'm also seeing which side-streets are more direct than the freeway. Even Jesus must relate to this, because Matthew 8:18 says, Now when Jesus saw the crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea.
8) When someone brings you a drink you enjoy (soda, iced tea, water...whatever), but it's 3/4 full of ice with very little liquid. If it's water, you just don't get enough to quench your thirst, which is annoying in and of itself. If it's any other beverage, it's the same problem, plus the added annoyance that all that ice waters down the flavor. I prefer no ice in my drinks if it's already refrigerated. If it is room temperature, I like very light ice to cool it, but not much.
7) When you're at someone's home for dinner, and they're getting the salad ready while you're all visiting before the meal. You watch them cut up the veggies and it looks delicious and mouth-watering. Then they add the one vegetable you don't like, and put it all over the salad and it kind of ruins it for you! You would have loved the salad otherwise, but the thing they added (for me, it's onions) makes it so you can't enjoy it, and it is usually applied to the salad in a way that you can't politely pick it out (or even if you can, it alters the flavor enough that, even if you remove it, the taste lingers). For the record, if you ever come to my house for dinner, I always set up a salad bar, so people can put what they want on it.
6) This happens to me at Walmart all the time, but has happened at other places too. When I'm at the Walmart photo center printing pictures or having photos put on a disk (which I do a lot), there is seldom an actual employee behind the counter or anywhere near. If there is any problem at all with the machine, or if I have any question at all, I have to leave my stuff there in the machine, go to some other department (hopefully the electronics, which is right next to photos, but sometimes I have to go further) and find someone, who usually doesn't know anything about photos, and has to run and find someone who does, and it turns out they don't come in for another hour or two. Yikes! If this happens at Walgreens (the other place I often go to print pictures), the store is so much smaller than Walmart that it is easier to get help, but this still happens.
5) This is a big teacher one. It can happen at church, school...wherever, and has happened with all ages. If a child I am in charge of in some way is acting out, being disrespectful, or especially if they are doing something dangerous, but their parent is right there, I'm left not knowing if it is appropriate for me to correct them. What's worse, sometimes I forget myself and correct kids who aren't my responsibility at all, and I've had to go back and apologize to parents. The pet peeve here isn't really the child acting up (because they all do, it's normal), but that awkwardness of having the parent right there and not being sure how to intervene, or even if I should. This most often happens during drop off or pick up times when both parent and teacher are present.
4) When someone loses a significant amount of weight and suddenly wants to give you all their "fat clothes". Please, people, just give them to goodwill! I've had people offer me clothes five to ten sizes bigger than I wear! I was left thinking, "Wow, I must give off the illusion of being a lot bigger than I am." That is incredibly awkward. Some people are perfectly satisfied with their weight and body image, and some are terribly insecure. Either way, offering someone your big clothes is not complimentary, even if your intention is to be kind and helpful. Please just give them to goodwill. Or find a creative way to reuse. I had a coworker who lost 80 pounds, and had the clever idea of saving her clothes for pregnancy, so she didn't have to buy maternity clothes. She got good use out of them when she was pregnant.
3) When your favorite TV show kills off important characters! Pictured below are a few people they've killed off from my favorite shows over the years...and it was a big mistake! I'm still trying to get over When Calls the Heart having Jack die! Cruel! I guess it goes to show we shouldn't get too emotionally attached to fictional characters.
2) People asking indelicate or vulgar questions. A friend of mine is constantly asked when her baby is due...and she isn't pregnant! She even gets strangers coming up and touching her belly! It really offends her, understandably! When I was in high school, it was, "When are you going to college? How will you pay for it? What job are you getting? What? You're not working yet? What's wrong with you? How will you ever pay for school or a car or insurance? You know that's expensive, right?" As a teenager, I was very overwhelmed by this, and I walked away without a word. When I was a single adult, it was, "Why aren't you married yet? You need to get out more! Ditch that little church God called you to do ministry at and join a big church that has a singles group, just for the express purpose of meeting someone, because this singleness thing is a curse that needs to be broken, and that's more important than following God's plan for your life and trusting His sovereignty. (okay, I'm paraphrasing slightly!)" My response to this reasoning was a hyperbole, "Because I'm a reject nobody wants!" just to get them to realize how rude they were being. Today, it's "Why don't you have kids yet? You're getting old! What if you can't have any?" As if I don't feel rotten enough about it every time I look on Facebook an see that people a decade younger than us and who have been married less time than us are having kids, and we aren't. We want to be happy for our friends, so it is a quiet pain to bear. My answer to this most indecent question is, "Gee, I don't know why we don't have kids yet, but we sure enjoy trying!" I figure if people are going to ask a vulgar question, they can expect to get a vulgar answer. Sometimes, this is a good way to be a little bit funny, but also establish a boundary.
AND THE MOST ANNOYING THING TO ME IS (the envelope please...drum roll)
1) When I tell someone about an experience I had after the fact, and they say, "Well, if I was there, I would have...". First, that not only implies that I handled it wrongly, but also that the person I'm talking to would handle it so much better. This is arrogant. Even if this was true and I did handle it wrongly and should have handled it their way, the situation is over, and someone telling me how they would have handled it doesn't help me in the present. It's useless. It helps no one And really, no one really knows what they would do in a situation until they're in it. It's one thing to hear someone talk about a situation and think how you'd handle it, but it is entirely different to actually have the situation thrown at you, sometimes without a chance to reflect on the best response. I've gotten to the point where, when someone says, "Well, I would have..." I say, "I'm sure you would have. Maybe that's why God put me there and not you." This shuts them up!
What things annoy you? Have you dealt with any of the ones I listed here?
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