Leave it to peevers

I'm playing catch-up on all my favorite blogs, which I sorely neglected while I was out of town and therefore not often online, and I find that Amelia and Tiff both have brilliant new posts listing their biggest pet peeves. I have been inspired to follow suit. But I have always found it hard to share my pet peeves when asked. I think I tend to put the things that bug me out of mind, so unless they happen to be bugging me at the moment, I really have a hard time drudging them up. So, congratulations, Tiff and Amelia, for being so good at constantly dwelling on all the things that ail ya. Kidding!

I think there's probably a healthy list of things out there that get to me, and chances are I will leave most of them out in this post simply because I don't remember them at the moment. I'm going to leave this new-post window open for a while so I can add new ones as they occur to me, rather than trying to come up with them all on the spot. That may mean that many of these pet peeves turn out to be things that are somehow connected to the things I see around me at this moment. Like a game of "I Spy." Or "I love lamp."

NIGHTTIME DOG DISTURBANCES: I guess you could say this one is a true pet peeve. You all know I love my Edison and that he brings nonstop joy, light and love to my life. But he's not always yips and giggles. Particularly not in the wee hours, when he finds it an ideal time to do any combination of the following: kick, reposition, lip-smack, reposition again, and, worst of all, FREAKIN' LIP-SMACK! Dude, get up and get a drink or something, if your mouth is so dry! His prime time is just as I am drifting off to sleep. That's when he always decides that he doesn't want to be under the covers anymore, so he makes a big production of getting up and repositioning himself IMMEDIATELY after I have drifted off. Lip-smacking/tongue-clicking all the way. I am not a violent person, rarely have a violent impulse at any time (even when I'm watching a Hillary Clinton rally), but I'm not ashamed to say that I have more than once envisioned some pretty horrific things happening to the little guy in the dark of night.

THE PSEUDO-FEMINISM OF HILLARY SUPPORTERS: I certainly don't think this is true of all Clinton fans, but I have had one or two women tell me that my support of Barack Obama and my sense that she should get out of the race now has something to do with my maleness and my failure to grasp the historic nature of this moment. Yes, I get it - it's a big deal that a woman has gone this far in a presidential race. And I have wanted to see a female president all my life. Just not this female. And I certainly don't think it does feminism any good to support a losing candidacy and overlook blatant cynical nepotist opportunism just because it's a lady who's doing it.

SHAVING: Ugh.

AWKWARD PHRASES EVERY AWKWARD PERSON USES WHEN HE/SHE IS TOO AWKWARD TO THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY: "Here comes trouble!" "Happy Friday!" "Stayin' out of trouble?" There are many more, but luckily, I can't think of them right now. What peeves me more is when I find myself saying them.

"TMI": I hate it for lots of reasons. I hate that it's an abbreviation. I hate that everyone who says it thinks they are being funny when they say it. And I hate the concept of "too much information." We're all adults. We are all aware that people go to the bathroom/sneeze/blow their noses/whatever. Just because I am telling a story that happens to start with, "So I was in the bathroom the other day..." doesn't mean I have given you TMI. I didn't give any yucky details. I have given you just the right amount of I that I believe is necessary to tell you my story. I will decide if it's TM. If it is, then I will choose to filter myself. We are not in kindergarten. Bathroom does not automatically equal dirty joke.

COMMERCIALS FEATURING DOGS TILTING THEIR HEADS AND UTTERING A SOLITARY, INQUISITIVE WHIMPER: Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't. But a lot of commercials out there can't be satisfied with showing us some wacky person doing some wacky thing because of the extreme emotions brought on by a particularly exciting product. They have to let us know just how wacky it was by featuring a cute little dog - surprisingly often a jack russell terrier - tilting its head and making a noise we are supposed to interpret as meaning, "What the-?!" Haha. We get it. Even the dog is smart enough to see that you are off your rocker - but then again, you must really love those Cheetos to have emoted in such a silly way. This commercial convention was probably cute and funny the first time it was used. In 1968.