Let’s face it. There are some tiny things that happen to us that can spoil our five minutes, if not our day. As Peter from “Family Guy” puts it, these are things that really “grind my gears.”
1 People who don’t use turn signals. Now, I may occasionally neglect to turn my signal on if no one is around and alerting my intentions of vehicular motion would be extraneous. No, I’m talking about high-traffic situations. Like, when you’re trying to turn onto the road, and people who you thought were going to drive really fast past you instead slow down and turn, but it’s still too late to turn onto the road since other traffic is coming. Or the people who scare you to death changing lanes when they gave no indication by way of, oh, say, a turn signal.
And then there are the people who slow to an almost complete stop in the middle of a highway in order to turn, and you can tell they’re going to turn, but they still don’t have their blasted turn signals on. God put turn signals on cars for a reason, people!
2 Commercials for antiseptic products. The advertisers spend the entire 30 seconds to a minute trying to convince you that you live in a horrible, germ-ridden world and that anyone who doesn’t use their product is the social equivalent to a leper. Big colorful microscopic organisms are shown on countertops, sheets and messy floors. Who puts whole cuts of raw chicken on the countertop, anyway? For myself, my counter is so messy that I don’t remember what color it is.
Then there was that commercial with the guy about to jump into bed, and we get a close-up of the germ-ridden, brown terrain that lies hidden on his nice white sheets. Apparently we’re supposed to wash our sheets every day. But these commercials usually don’t feature men. Instead, smiling soccer moms indulgently chase around their unruly children with Lysol wipes, cleaning every mud streak seconds after it is made and then making cookies. Why not work the vacuum while wearing your heels and pearls while you’re at it!
And, unless someone in your family has severe allergies, get over the whole germ overkill thing before we become a society of anal retentives.
3 Garfield. Yes, the comic strip about the lasagna-eating cat. Now, I used to love this comic strip. It was funny. It even bordered upon hilarious, occasionally. When I was younger, I even bought a few of the books of comic strips, and I’ll occasionally reread them for a giggle every now and then.
But now it just sucks. The jokes are overused. I swear I read a Garfield a month ago that was completely recycled from 1995. Panels are literally being used over and over again, so facial expressions may not change for a week. Most writers or comic artists take a hiatus or give up altogether when they can’t think of anything original. It’s time to consider that, Jim Davis.
4 Restaurants with bad acoustics. Whenever I go into a restaurant, especially one in which I expect to pay more than $8 for my food, I want a certain ambiance. After all, most of what you pay for in restaurants isn’t food, but entertainment costs. I go to a restaurant for a relaxing evening, so even if it is 7 p.m. on a Saturday, I expect to be able to have a pleasant conversation with the person I’m with. It’s ridiculous when you can hear the 3-year-old across the restaurant, or the guy a few tables away tell all the details about his hernia surgery. Spaghetti, anyone?
I realize these are all little things that we have no control over and we just have to live with. But that doesn’t prevent me from complaining. And complaining is what I do best.