Things I Find irksome:
1. Envelopes with those little windows on the front for an address to show through.
2. Phone solicitors. I suggest you tell them if you want to hear any shit out of them you will squeeze their head.
3. Statements, you know, which end in "you know". If I do know, why are you telling me?
4. TV political ads. Sleaze perfected.
5. Merchandise coupons. I either lose them or can't find them.
6. Mail in rebates. If you calculate the time of your labor to collect, what did you get?
7. Canned sales pitches while on hold. It seems maybe the only reason you might be on hold is to listen to these sales pitches. And if you really do need to wait you get the every ten seconds "your call is very important to us". It is? Then why am I waiting so long?
8. Parents who can't control their kids in public. My favorite was the gal in the Bronx Botanical Gardens who told her two kids: "Momma said no 3 times, and this is the fourth time I am telling you no." Now that is tough love.
9. Little yappy dogs that force you into a nervous tap dance as they circle your ankles while annoying your eardrums.
10. Politicians expressing moral outrage. (there are a few exceptions including Abe, Barry, and Barack)
11. Professional player salaries.
12. Private ownership of sport teams, corporations which are totally unregulated. Cities should own the teams that play there. That would stop the blackmail and provide some needed revenue.
13. Large people on airplanes. (There should be a separate seating section to comfortably accommodate these people)
14. Stereotyped hatred of diverse groups
15. The death of a pet. Even the dumbest amongst us realizes that something of real value in life is gone, like unrestricted affection.
16. Fourth of July and the endless bang, bang, bang......Other than an excuse to go somewhere with others, after X number of years the scene wears thin.
17. Bratty spoiled kids on airplanes.
18. That these bratty kids are almost always American.
19. Ice storms
20. Balancing my check book
21. Negotiating the price of a new car.
22. Looking for anything I can't find
23. People who drop by unexpectedly. Maybe I shouldn't say unexpectedly because invariably it will happen when I least want company.
24. People who call and say "Guess what?" Huh?
25. Observing those with little going for them get blindsided by tragedies.
26. The stupid trying to act smart
27. The smart pulling fast ones
28. Politicians trying to act sincere
29. Meanspirited pompous assholes parading their obnoxiousness in public.
30. Traffic jams
31. Slow drivers in the left lane.
32. cell phone use while driving
33. bars, dances, and parties where I am age dependent irrelevant
34. Chronic long winded complainers
35. Pompous know-it-alls. They are especially annoying to those of us who do know it all.
36. Realizing that there can only be ONE most beautiful baby and every mother believes she has it.
37. Realizing that there can only be ONE most charming, smartest, most lovable pet and every pet owner believes they have it.
38. Chit chatting with people you are not likely to see again. "You're an accountant at the bank, how fascinating, you must tell me more about it. "
39. Any pet not on it's own property, especially if it is my property or home. Some gal used to visit my mother with this dog and my mother spent the entire visit checking up to see what the dog might be into.
40. My forgetting to get the check when the meal is brought to the table and then having to search for the waitress later.
41. The trouble involved with using he/she to gender neutralize when "Hey YOu" did that for years.
42. Snowblowers, snow shovels, and snow anyplace where it needs shoveling.
43. Used cars, used condoms, used handkerchiefs.
44. Pet vomit---ok, vomit period and mother's overcooked hamburgers
45. Groceries bagged in paper bags. I want to be able to carry in 6 bags at once.
46. Cops driving behind me
47. Speed traps.
48. A cop car on the expressway going exactly the speed limit and no one, including myself, willing to pass him.
49. Perfumed pages in a magazine
50. Those damn little index sized cards spaced throughout a magazine which I have to rip out before I read the magazine.
51. Snakes and skunks
52. Pit Bulls. I am always delighted when one of them eats their owner, or at least tries to.
53. Animal fights of any kind.
54. Noisy restaurants. Occasionally I want the person opposite me to hear what I am saying.
55. Clarinets. My parents made me take lessons to play one.
56. Sound polluters who talk loudly on their cell phones in store aisles, in lines at airports, in museums, etc. Like smokers we need to isolate them to designated areas or cut their larynxes down to the proper sound control volume.
57. Commuter trains should have cell phone talking and non cell phone talking cars.
58. Really hot spicy food. I prefer to taste my food and can always munch on heated charcoals for that burning sensation.
59. Political and charitable organizations who send you asinine questionnaires to fill out like "Do you favor reduced taxes?" Or "should we protect the environment". I resent being talked down to like a child.
60. Political organizations that send you propaganda in large, really large envelopes. Why does the post office permit this. And of course inside will be one of these asinine questionnaires.
61. Early morning trip departures. Necessary but discombobulating.
62. Being outsmarted by one of my cats.
63. Being outsmarted by anything else
64. Getting in the shortest line at the grocery store only to find out the person in front of me needs price checks, remembers two more items they run to grab, has 352 coupons, and pays by check. At these times I am all for a law which allows you to carry a concealed weapon.
65. Trying to find a cat when it is time to go to the vet. How the hell do they know?
66. A sick cat getting a veterinary appointment the same day and when I am sick being told the nearest appointment is 3 weeks away. This causes me to multiply the symptoms until if it all were true I would have been dead an hour ago.
67. Waiting forever in a doctor's office to see the doctor, although once the doctor is in front of me I don't expect him to be in any rush, the rest can wait.
68. Middle aged affluent clowns who clog up intersections wandering around with a cup for questionable local charities. If the poorest soul in town gets out there with a cup he/she would get immediately arrested. I think it should be like bowling, if you skid into the intersection and knock all of them down you get a strike and a trophy. I was once in a car with my mother and told her "Mother, I'll run this pest over and then you get out and stomp on him. " She fussed: "That's not funny, when are you going to grow up?"
69. Arriving in the express check out line behind Mr. or Mrs. Important who has at least half a cart full of groceries.
70. Being in the regular line with a full cart and having the express check out gal motion that she will take you in her line since no one is in it. You no longer start unloading your full cart when a dozen people with an item or two show up and stand behind you glaring at you. As Jackie Gleason would say with an idiot's look: "Ubba, ubba, ubba
71. People who tailgate.
72. Call waiting. You call someone, end up on hold while they decide which person to talk to. My idea of call waiting would be a message which comes on BEFORE your phone rings and asks, "are you sure I want to listen to what you have to say?"
73. Scotch
74. Solicitors at my front door. It should be legal to drive them away with a cattle probe or a stun gun so you can watch them writhe down the driveway like a wounded snake.
75. People who throw trash out car windows. It should be legal to make a citizens arrest and throw them out the window as legal trash to be heaved out a car window.
76. Half wits who take up two parking spaces.
77. People who inherit money and then are furious about welfare recipients.
78. People who character assassinate those with whom they have little first hand experience. Am not referring here to political attacks relating to political positions.
79. People who get all lathered up about other people's sexual preferences or fetishes---I mean why do they care, are they forced to participate?
80. People who are smarter, better looking, and more talented than me at something.
81. That both my parents died before I could write a book blaming all my deficiencies in #80 above on them.
82. "May I give you a little advice?" Damn, you can feel your blood pressure rise almost immediately and generate a bad mood.
83. Seeing some hapless soul living a life of quiet desperation at a social gathering being ignored, unless it is I doing the ignoring.
84. People who never smile---I wonder if they did smile if their face would fracture.
85. People who yawn when I am making a lot of really good points---even if they are really just trying to say something not yawning.
86. People in the check out line who have paid for their goods but continue to chat with the cashier about their kids, their spouse, their pets, etc. Move the fuck along.
87. Giving gifts to those who, like myself, need no gifts. That is one of the reasons we have so much unused crap lying around. I wonder what percentage of gifts get eternally circulated?
88. Wine connoisseurs. I once dumped a cheap wine into an expensive wine bottle and watched the connoisseur describe the qualities which made it a good wine---something about subtlety, delicacy, a bit of something---whatever. If it tastes good and is not expensive I buy it. If it tastes good and is expensive I don't.
89. People who raise hell about something, then when told "Ok, we'll do it your way", protest it is not necessary, that they are 'happy to do it the other way once in a while". When I do this it is then an act of cooperativeness.
90. Getting real agitated about some slow poke in front of me in a car until I realize while passing them (often illegally) that it is some old person as old or older than me. Old people should have special plates so we can be more tolerant of them. Except me. I just want a plate that says GO HOME--Get!
91. Sales persons in a store who hover over your shoulder.
92. Not seeing a salesperson as far as you can see in a store 2 blocks long.
93. Beef overcooked, potatoes undercooked.
94. Other people who should be out in nature, but not where I am out in nature.
95. Other people in a grocery store who can't get by because my cart is blocking the aisle. There are plenty of other aisles they could go down.
96. People who need advice via cell phone as to what brand of peas to buy
97. People who stand behind you and say "Hello". When you turn around you find they are making a cell phone call.
98. The use of slave labor at home or abroad to produce cheap goods for us to buy. If that is not wrong, nothing is wrong. Without global minimum wages, a global economy is global slavery.
99. TV commercials in which I have no idea what they are trying to sell.
100. TV commercials in which I know exactly what they are trying to sell.
101. Spam in my e-mailbox or on my dinner plate.
102. A recent survey which showed that 44% of teen boys have seen at least one nude photo of a female classmate online or via cell phone. I don't know, maybe I just want to be a teen again. Wow, have times changed. "My son thinks your daughter looks real good naked".
103. People who think their own religious beliefs should be the law of the land. How obnoxious is that?
104. That a million species are predicted to become extinct by mid-century
105. That no politicians even talk about human overpopulation or responsible reproduction. Insanity gone wild.
106. That 26% of new jobs created in this country a few years ago went to non- citizens. Slavery is alive and well in this country, just in a different form.
107. That the biggest industry in our country is the military. Our military expenses are greater than the military expenses of the the next five biggest military countries combined. And after all that we lost in Vietnam, have been fighting in Iraq for over 7 years, and seem to be losing in Afghanistan. Crazy.
108. Oversized all terrain vehicles or large SUV's. It must be some kind of King of the Road mentality. They just block your view, threaten your well-being, are gas guzzling. Finally they are falling out of favor and all the phony reasons for having one evaporate and they do quite well with smaller.
I think I will stop here. Now I wonder, when the hell am I not irksome? Where can I get an Uzi?
