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Springtime version. By the wonderful Grace Farris.
P.S. Larry-David-style pet peeves and kid humor.
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Whistling. There is no need for you to make music with your mouth in a public place. Why are you assuming everyone wants to listen to you do that?!
Bringing restaurant leftovers home and leaving them in the fridge, never eating them or throwing them out.
OMG my mother, no matter how much is left on her plate at a restaurant, insists on getting a take-away box for it. She’ll save a 1/4 of a hamburger and 3 french fries. She’s in assisted living, so no microwave or fridge. Drives me crazy.
If someone tells me they hates cats, I can’t help it but I like them less. (I feel really guilty – people should be free to think what they like, but my heart can’t forgive it).
I’ve found that people who say that actually have very little experience with cats. In my life, the people I’ve heard that from have never had or really been around cats that often (and are making untrue assumptions), OR are allergic (i’ll give those people a pass I guess).
So relatable! lol.
Off leash dogs who rush up to my young daughter who is terrified of dogs. Especially when the owner is far and yells “He’s friendly!” I want to yell back “We are not friendly!” I honestly love dogs but I think they should be trained to not run up to small children.
1000%. This made me so scared of dogs when my kids were little. They are teenagers now and fine with dogs, but I’m not!
I agree (and I love dogs too). AND I think they should be trained not to run up to anyone. When walking in public, they should be on a leash. It is not an issue of the dog being friendly or not. Your dog and I are strangers to each other. I don’t want a dog
I don’t know or trust near me without my consent. While out on walks. i have seen a dog unexpectedly attack another dog )m(the friendly dog was the victim here), I have witnessed a frail elderly lady getting knocked to the floor by someone’s “friendly” dogs (they looked rather aggressive). I was attacked by a jealous family dog when I was a little kid. I could go on. Dogs are animals, they can be unpredictable. Keep your dog away from all strangers.
Totally!
As a dog owner, I get really pissed off at people who let their dog wander around off leash. Sure, your dog might be friendly! But not everyone wants to interact with your personal pet! Also, the dog is still an animal and could react badly at anytime, even if well trained. You just can’t know. I give people a stern warning whenever I see them with off leash dogs in public places.
Good ones! 🤣
Rolled up socks in the dirty laundry
One wash, I didn’t unroll them. Most will unroll. I became a fan of those that didn’t.
Every single one of those!!!! (How are all these universal?? 😆)
Sorry to disappoint anyone who is annoyed by open cans of seltzer…it is not only teenagers – my husband does this all the time so some people will never grow out of it LOL
I do it sometimes I feel so terrible!! I’m chasing a toddler and a baby and sometimes I forget.
You’ve nailed three out of four of my pet peeves as well, Grace! Why is it easy to overlook some things and others just GET MY RAGE FLOWING!?!
My biggest pet peeve is loud chewing and when people don’t chew with their mouth closed. HOWEVER, I have always wondered and there’s no wya to ask this without sounding loads I’ve aggressive, but maybe this is a safe space to ask: for people who DO regularly chew with their mouth open, why? Is it an unconscious choice? Is it just more comfortable to chew with your mouth open? I genuinely am curious!
It’s not me but growing up my older brother would regularly chew with his mouth open. He suffered from bad allergies (dust mites, seasonal, etc) and was often congested so my hypothesis is that he had trouble breathing through his nose while chewing with his mouth closed. Still very gross but perhaps understandable?
Before my adenoids shrank as a teen, they badly obstructed my ability to breathe through my nose. I snored like a freight train and wasn’t very fun to dine with. I’m pleased to say that *some bodily processes* do get better with age!
Emma, I am grateful you expressed curiosity about this! People who chew with their mouths open aren’t able to get enough air through their nose. Underdeveloped airways are associated with deviated septum, swollen tonsils or adenoids, restricted frenulum (tongue tie), narrow or other palette problems, recessed lower jaw, and sleep apnea. Thankfully for today’s kiddos who are born with some restrictions, there is a wonderful world of myofunctional and airway therapy to help them grow into healthy, well-breathing adults before their cranio-facial structure is set. Until about a decade ago, this type of treatment wasn’t available, which is sad for the loud chewing grownups of today.
a wet bathtowl on my side of the bed
hahaha!
My pet peeve is my teenage boys leaving crumbs on the cutting board and bench or when they do wipe down, the dish cloth is soggy so they leave wet crumbs on the bench.
In the warmer months, all of my produce gets a bath of water with vinegar immediately after getting home from the grocery store. It will kill or wash off any existing fruit fly eggs and helps a TON to keep them at bay. If that’s not enough, I make a trap by putting a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (to attract) in a jar with a tiny drop of dish soap (to break surface tension) and it’s quite effective.
Whoa. I had no idea the fruit came home with eggs on it! I always wondered where the flies appeared from. This is mind blowing and genius!
LOUD CHEWING omg. Just this morning, I was grading in our faculty workroom and ended up LEAVING THE ROOM because someone came in to eat and was licking their fingers, sucking (?) on their sandwich, and slurping soup, while also crinkling the saran wrap around their sandwich. I thought I was going to die.
I cannot stand people who do not pull forward in the carpool line. It’s gotten to the point where my kids get excited if they see someone stop at the beginning of the line. They think my ranting is HILARIOUS.
Recently, someone parked, got out, AND WALKED THEIR KINDEGARTNER TO THE DOOR. Excuse me, there’s a parking lot for that. I was so irate. Let me tell you, I communicated with that mom so intently via my eyebrows. I’m sure she could feel the force of them through her suburban.
In the drop off line one morning last week… my son looks ahead and says “why are all of these people out of their cars?! Parents these days.” And shakes his head.
The five point , 3 minute parking job in a giant parking lot because had to BACK IN to the spot.
At Costco even- where you want cart next to truck. People!
I am a safe but not very confident driver and I worry I will scratch the cars beside me while I park, backing in with my reverse camera helps that fear so much! Just to give a perspective from the other side…
Havin hard time getting into any kind of fun stuff
Does anyone know of any relationship which has survived through major breach of trust?
No. End this thing now. Save yourself years of agony. You deserve fun and you will never get there with this hanging over your head. Do this for you. Fun will follow!
How do you feel when you follow your intuition? When you honor yourself first, feel all your feelings, commit to radical honesty and self-compassion, and move from that place? Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and feel your worth. You are doing your very best, which will change, and moment to moment.
You are worthy of deep love, care, self-compassion, and changes that bring you alignment and nourishment. ❤️
If it’s infidelity, I suggest checking out chumplady.com. And even if it’s not, I think her posts could also apply to large breaches of trust (financial infidelity, etc.).
I know I would flunk a friend-date with Joanna if I ever had one because I would absolutely take one last sip of my ice water as we got up to leave.
These comments made my evening!! Ah ah you’re all crazy. Except yeah, no ball games inside, but that’s science. Love from Paris
I feel seen! My thirteen year old regularly kicks his soccer ball around the house AND leaves full cans of sparkling water in random places.
Sometimes a fizzy drink sounds amazing but the commitment is too much, y’all! Right?! My poor husband chugs a lot of once-sparkled water.
I’m the person at a party who compulsively cleans up while people are still there (which I’ve found people are either appreciative of or find repulsive, I don’t take either personally), and abandonded sparkling waters drive me bonkers. Kids are especially bad about this. If my kid ever asks for sparking water, I will pour a small glass for him and drink the rest.
Maybe this is more than a pet peeve, but I don’t enjoy being in a car with a driver who is impatient or who yells at other drivers. I live in LA and have spent a lot of my life in my car and I decided long ago to be chilll in the car and enjoy myself. I listen to music or a podcast and accept traffic for what it is. If someone cuts me off or does something dumb, I always give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are on their way to the hospital to have a baby and wish them well.
I hear that on driving (grew up in southern CA); I just can’t be in the road-rage headspace where I dwell on what other people do. Mildly related: I just spent a week in Puerto Rico, driving regularly for the first time in years, and I didn’t hear a car horn the entire time. At one point my friend’s passenger-side door was open and blocking a narrow street – I kept waving the cars past us, thinking they were waiting for us to vacate the parking space – and it turns out they were just patiently waiting for her to close her door. At another point two wild horses were nuzzling each other in the middle of the road, and everyone just…stopped. Eventually someone smacked the side of their car a couple of times to startle them, but that was it. Astounding!
My husband is an incredibly impatient / judgmental driver. A couple of years ago he was driving home and a car very blatantly cut him off trying to make a last minute right turn. My husband lost it and ranted for a good few minutes and looked at me like I am clearly not mad enough with him. I just said “I only get so many f’s a day, and that person does not get one of them.” It’s a wild world, you have to protect your peace as much as possible!
@SARA my husband is the same way! What bothers me most about this characteristic is that he a) complains LOUDLY, often sarcastically about this – regardless of who is in the car. I do my best to ignore, but I hate that our kids hear him being so impatient. and b) he maintains the annoyance for far too long. Yeah yeah, you have the moral high ground – get over it.
(whew! felt good to get that off my chest)
(he’s absolutely wonderful in a million ways – poor driving is HIS pet peeve!)
To give some (what I find interesting) perspective on road ragers: they might be people who are conflict avoidant, non-confrontational, or people pleasers in their typical day to day life, and the car is a safe space for them to let out their bottled up “conflict”/confrontational energy without actually having to confront a person. Not saying it excuses it (spoken as this exact type of person lol, who really is trying to work on it because I have kids and also yunno greater psychological benefits), but sometimes understanding the motivation behind it can be helpful! My sample is small but this is true for me and two of my brothers in law.
If there’s an open can you can just… leave it?
Signed, someone whose open cans get poured out and recycled if I leave them for FIVE MINUTES
THIS! Like coffee, I sip mine slowly throughout the day, so please don’t pour it out. At the same time, I dislike when house guests waste sparkling water or a beer, so I always offer them with a glass. I also only take one can out at a time with my family.
It would really bother me to have people leaving cans everywhere in my house. If you want to drink the rest later, stick it in the fridge.
I get a visceral reaction to loud chewing and wrapper crinkling. Coworker’s eating an apple? Time for a bathroom break. My kids eating chips during a movie? I become a robotic nagger, “Chew with your mouth closed!” Someone opens up a granola bar and then proceeds to keep the wrapper on while they’re eating the granola bar, crinkling it lower and lower down the bar with every bite? I wide-eyed stare at the wrapper like I’m going to be able to magically make it disappear.
Are these pet-peeves or misophonia? The inner rage I experience leans towards a neurophysiological disorder, lol.
Seriously consider a pair of Loop sound softening earplugs. I am also hyper sensitive to sounds other people don’t even hear and these help so much. Also, make sure you’ve got adequate B complex vitamins in your diet (I supplement) as your nervous system may be depleted, hence: the rage (been there).
I have really debated if I have misophonia lately, for similar reasons! My reaction is almost always anger lol
Fruit flies are just trying to live, man! (I don’t love them at my place either, but since we both love fruit and I’m the one who brought it in and let it get funky, that’s on me.)
Washing fruit immediately after getting it home really cuts down on the fruit flies, fyi. I guess it washes their eggs off the fruit? (or wherever they come from…)
After years of trials, I have perfected the fruit fly live trap: take a plastic food container, like the kind you use to pack lunch food. Many shapes will work. Put a bit of flies’ favourite food in there (bit of mushy banana, drizzle of balsamic, etc) and then put on the lid, leaving it ajar. The lid should be aligned with it’s bottom with one side or corner fully attached into the base, but the top sticking up open a bit. Leave it overnight, or as long as you need to collect a bunch of flies. Sneak up on the container and SNAP the lid down fast! Then you can carry your container outside to release / live and let live. Repeat as often as needed, but it’s usually just twice for me to free the flies from my kitchen
This grouping together, I feel so seen! Fruit flies, full sparkling water cans, romance novel comments – you are living my life.
TGIF everyone!
Mine are both driving related. People who are in the left lane but aren’t passing anyone on the highway and drivers who don’t use blinkers. It annoys me so much!
I write romance novels and I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to hear the jokes. Some of the smartest people I know write romance, and their day jobs include professor, lawyer, teacher, nurse. Thank you for always showing us the respect we deserve!
pretty please share your links or titles with us! even just a hint, if you use a pen name?
I love romance novels and am so impressed with authors, kudos to you!
Dear Lauren, I ❤️ reading romance novels. Keep up the good work!
The nearly full sparkling water left behind by a teenager is so oddly specific and 100% accurate, hahaha!
Chanting in the car is one of mine. I didn’t realize until I had multiple kids. I had to instigate and enforce a strict “no chanting in the car” rule. I eyeroll myself (so feel free to do so also), but also OMG does it drive me nuts!
I am feeling SO SEEN that other people have teens/tweens that leave around sparkling water. This one really made me LOL.
Ugh chanting in general just drives me nuts but I realize I can’t outlaw it entirely. No chanting in the car seems like a reasonable rule that I’m going to adopt now!
It’s funny how different things bother different people. My kids used to chant in the car, particularly on road trips, and I thought it was so cute! I never got tired of hearing it. However, whistling of all types was absolutely forbidden in my house. I just can’t handle whistling.
in the vein of fruit flies, since my two year old is a literal fruit bat, but somehow we can never get through the bananas fast enough, if anyone has a favorite way to use old bananas, I am all ears!
the cans of water, i feel that viscerally, haha.
No fruit flies here, just ants and we got ant traps :(.
Banana bread, but since I need to eat more protein/fiber after 45+ I make these packs and then add water and a scoop of Orgain protein in the morning. A banana is the key to a good smoothie! https://www.realmomnutrition.com/make-ahead-green-smoothie-packets/
Throw the bananas whole into the freezer. You can use them to make banana bread, smoothies, banana “nice cream”
Celeste, yes, ants ! They seem to be gone at the moment, knock on wood. We used ant traps too. Plus put our cupboard food in plastic bins where it remains. On a chair in middle of kitchen. Also, for our cat food bowls on floor, we used the “moat” method, which worked in the past also. We put the dry food bowl into another bowl which has water in it. Thus the moat. It really works to keep ants out of food bowls ! Excitin’ stuff , I know ! Ha. Oh, and yes, banana bread. My freezer is full of black bananas as we speak. So obviously I haven’t been making anything. I’ve also put mashed bananas in my very delicious carrot cake recipe instead of the carrots. Same measurement, 2 cups. Delicious !!
Yes. My kids love banana bread so I make it often. But also, bananas really are key to a good smoothie, so when they start to go bad I’ll peel them and stick them in the freezer to throw in the blender later
Peel them, cut them up, and freeze for smoothies.
When too ripe. I peel and throw the banana(s) into a gallon freezer size bag into the freezer. I just keep adding them until I have the bag half full. Once full, I take them out let them defrost and smash within the bag. It makes a double or triple batch of banana bread loaf or muffins which can then be frozen. It can also be used for smoothies and banana pancakes.
We freeze them and love to drizzle chocolate syrup on it. You could also make ice cream with frozen ones. Banana brownies too!
I feel you on the bananas – my kid has one every day with breakfast, so we’re always buying them, but a misstep of buying too many at once gets us overwhelmed. I make instant pancakes with milk, and first puree bananas and spinach with the milk. Peel and freeze in chunks! Great for smoothies, or at that age, banana “ice cream” might also delight. Or fruit popsicles!
Here to plug a COJ classic- Two Ingredient Banana Pancakes. I made them again this week! I double the recipe to use a whole banana and add cinnamon. Make sure you mash the banana thoroughly.
Oh! Also, freeze them for this classic cup of jo recipe. House favorite when my kid was little.
https://cupofjo.com/2014/04/21/two-ingredient-pancakes/
Just made this banana cake from another commenter’s link several posts ago and it turned out great plus it used 4 deeply freckled bananas up!
Yall! What a treat to return to all these great ideas, this comment crew; the best.
I make baked oats with mashed up bananas, Bobs Red Mill protein oats, eggs, chia seeds, coconut milk (carton, not can), cinnamon, maybe some chocolate chips. Bake it up till form and you have lovely breakfast or snacks all week. My picky eater loves it. This is similar to what I do: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/banana-baked-oatmeal/
Yell sneezes! So annoying!
OMG YELL SNEEZES! Why is this something only older men do?!?! Like boys start out with appropriate volume sneezes, and they just get louder through their lifetime, or what???
The sparkling water!! But sometimes I’m the culprit…
I am sometimes the culprit too haha. Doesn’t stop me from feeling annoyed though!
I am the culprit at my house but also a pet peeve is when I come back looking for my open sparkling water that I know I didn’t finish and my husband has finished it 🤨
Y’all better stop playing with me with these open cans!!!!
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