Things That Annoy Me, But Shouldn't

Chuck Tingles is the Rule34 of the book world.

 

And to think, the guy won awards for writing stuff like that.

 

All week someone in my neighborhood has been shooting off fireworks and the first time it happened, I thought it was gunshots and I panicked thinking the riots reached my shitheap of a city. But it turns out. They haven't. My neighbors just like the boom.

 

The expression ‘sadly missed’.

first off, how else do you miss someone? And also have noticed how it’s only ever used formally, usually for celebrities or people the person saying it didn’t really know? When has anyone ever said a close departed relative is ‘sadly missed’? No, they’re just missed.

 

Oh, that's pitiful!

Something that has always secretly annoyed me is partner's snacking on crackers. Not the crackers themselves, but the noisy cellophane package, from which my SO methodically selects a single cracker every 30 seconds, for what seems like an eternity - even from the next room. Obviously, it's far too petty an annoyance to complain about, so for 30 years, I didn't.
Then last night, as I was opening a fresh box of crackers, the lightbulb finally turned on ---
and I replaced the cellophane sack with a silent, durable, sealable, altogether superior soft plastic bag from the bulk food store.
(30 frickin years!)

 

Talking to midwesterners over the phone....

Person: id like the book "sweet ruts" [cant remember exact title but "ruts" is in it]
Me: -looks up the title- nope, we dont have it.
Person, what do you mean you dont have it? It says online you do!
Me: who is the author?
Person: [authors name]
Me: -looks up authors name- nope. Im sorry i cannot find the title. Can you spell it out?
Person:-huffs- S-W-E-E-T R-O-O-T-S
Me:........ Sweet ROOTS?
Person: thats what i said!!


Person2: id like "RutnRin"
Me: Rut in Rin?
Person2: no "RutnRin"
Me: Rut and Run?
Person2: -slower- Ruuuuut and RIIIIIIIIN
Me: ok who is the author?
Person2: Maberry
Me: -looks it up-........ ROT and RUIN?
Person2:.....yeah?


-flips desk-
-sets fire to phone-
-throw away the whole midwest-


(ETA: I should be the LAST person to talk about the way people talk but GOD DAMNIT WHAT THE HELL??)

 

I am sorry you have to deal with ineptitude like that.

 

I sent my son off to college and told him, "I'll miss you."

He said, "I know, I filed the sights off your rifle."
(stolen from Steven Wright)

 

I thought that was from Emo Phillips?

ETA: I don't know if this is a reliable source (and Steven Wright might have said it too) but:

 

Apropos of the above, I read a novel one time with the title I Still Miss My Man, But My Aim Is Getting Better. It was quite a good read. Goodreads has reviews of it.
meh, not funny anymore

 

My bad. I saw Emo's act at The Laff Stop in OC, but it was so long ago.

 

Long ago and far away, I once worked for an over-the-phone interpreting service. We had many contracts with state government offices, so if said office had a registration period as part of their working dynamic, we would get waves of their calls for a period of time and then not hear from them for a while. Taking those calls, I learned that there is a place in America, somewhere in the South, where people pronounce the name for the letter R as "arrow".

"Interpreter, I'm'a spell this back at'cha. Arrow. Oscar. Golf. Echo. Arrow. Is that correct?"

Roger?

 

If you ever have dealings (dilleens) with someone from North Carolina (which is in the South, perhaps this begins to explain their issues), you'll be puzzled for a while trying to understand certain words. This is because they pronounce the long E sound as the letter I. This guy kept telling me about how it hurts to walk on his hills, and I had to ask him several times for clarification before I understood that hills means heels. If he says kill, he might be talking about the keel of a ship. Or it might really mean kill, I suppose you need to go off of context to figure out which. I really don't know what their dill is.

Which takes me back to grade school when I was in a music class and the teacher asked what song we should learn next. A girl said "Hooked on a Fileen". I now assume she must have had an NC accent, though not entirely sure. I don't know exactly where the tendency comes from to pronounce "ing" as "een". The teacher caught on pretty fast, but I was puzzled for a while as was most of the class, because he played along as if she really meant what she was saying—"What's a fileen? Do you mean like a filling in a tooth?" and other questions, at which she grew noticeably frustrated but kept smiling. She knew she wasn't pronouncing it right, but was unable to do so even when he very deliberately pronounced it for her and asked her to try it. She just kept saying Fileen and then cracking up and said she just can't do it. Funny and memorable.

And don't even get me started on the English, and far worse, the Scottish as far as pronunciation on what is supposed to be the same language I speak...

 

Potato skins annoy me. The appetizer at a lot of microwave restaurants. Just something about them that makes me want to say "potato skins" in the tone of "Dinkleberrrrg!"

 

My family is from deep south if you're familiar with Louisianan accents, "Nwalins" pretty much sums it up. Rural North Carolina, they do not even pronounce the r... Aunts name is "Cora" but they call her "Coh" or "Coh-ah" from "Nawth Call-eye-na"

Midwesterners add syllables to words like "real-lit-ter" and say stuff like "ruff" and "rut" when they mean "roof" and "root".

 

Yet another dire warning today, from someone who should better, about the incumbent US president refusing to leave office when his term is up. We've been hearing that horseshit since at least the Reagan administration. Won't happen, can't happen.

 

The accuracy of the Midwestern ones is painful. I have a more northern Midwest accent, but only on certain words. Only when I'm pissed does the Jersey come out.

 

It's possible that we interacted professionally... Not regarding those fucked-up phonetics, but that job.

 

On the topic of things that shouldn't annoy me, I hate it when people say my first name in real life. If I don't know you, my name is "Ma'am". "Sir" is an acceptable substitute. Heck, you can call me Tommy Pickles, just don't call me by my name unless I know you well.

 

When streaming services or sometimes even CD players leave a gap between songs on an album that's supposed to flow seamlessly from one song to another. How the hell am I supposed to listen to Pink Floyd or The Avalanches with random gaps in the music!?

 

Or when your mp3 player records the skipping from burned CDs.