Infuriating

In light of what happened to me on my lunch break, I decided to list a top-10 list of minor things that should probably just be shrugged off, but get me so mad that I can't focus on anything other than the boiling rage in my heart. Anyways, here we go.


10. People who don't use a turn signal - If there's any car within a reasonable distance that maybe, just possibly, would benefit from the knowledge that you're turning, use your turn signal. It's people like this that cause problems at unprotected left-hand turns and other driving situations that shouldn't be situations at all.

9. When someone tells you they have to leave early from work because "there's no time" to get stuff done. Case in point: A coworker told me yesterday that she wanted to leave early so she could mow her lawn. Since she works and lives in the same area I do, I can say for a fact that work ends at 5 and the sun sets at 9. You need more time than that to mow your lawn? She does get bonus points for actually mowing her lawn though. There was some doubt in my mind that this would actually happen.

8. Getting something to eat at a drive-thru and finding out they fucked up your order when you get home. By that time, you're usually ready to be done driving, and it's easier to just scrape the pickles and ketchup off your bun than go back to the store and demand a new burger. The whole concept of the drive-thru is speed, so stopping to make sure your order is correct is not a good idea. Once the person behind you sees the bag go out the window and into your car, they put their car back in drive and start creeping forward so they can have food handed to them. If you pause, you're either going to get rear-ended or anger the person behind you and everyone behind them. It's a no-win situation. Of course this could all be avoided if the people inside would just take 2 seconds to realize that the ticket says "- pickles/- ketchup" on it."

7. When sports announcers get someone's name wrong and/or give erroneous information. If I know it, you should know it. You're getting paid to know these things. Especially football commentators. You do one game a week. That means you have at least 6 days to study the rosters and come up with interesting (and accurate!) factoids to entertain your viewers. I can tell you right now that I don't know who Kentucky's starting left tackle is, but if you gave me six days, I could probably tell you his name, height, weight, and what his most embarrasing moment was in high school.

6. Anytime the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. I've bitched about this before, so I'll let it be. But it angers me.

5. That video stores have movies "guaranteed" to be in stock. First off, they simply can't guarantee that, unless they buy so many movies that they actually lose money on the deal. Secondly, their solution when their "guranatee" is proven to not be a guarantee is to give you another movie free. How does this solve your problem? "I know we guaranteed your 1 choice would be here, but as a token of our apology, please see your 2 choice on us. Unless of course your 2 is guaranteed to be in stock as well, which means it's probably all checked out."

4. Bums with signs that say why they're homeless. I'd say that 99% of homeless people have probably had a tremendous stroke of bad luck at some point in their lives. You don't need to explain this to us. The tragedy is not why you're on an off-ramp begging for money, it's the fact that you're there at all. I'm actually less likely to give you money if your sign says "wife killed, need money for funeral" because my first thought isn't "Oh that poor man," it's "This guy is lying about someone dying to buy porn. What an asshole."

3. People who don't know when to use except and accept. I don't care that I can figure out what you meant, it just infuriates me that the school system failed you to the point that you can't even speak/write our own language properly. This goes for any words that sound similar (to/too/two, your/you're effect/affect etc.) It's not that hard to get it write people! (And yes that was intentional.)

2. Complaining about your work load and asking others for help when you spend most of your day either on break, talking to someone, or updating your myspace page. Yes, I realize that I am myspacing at work as I write this, but I'm also not asking someone to do my work for me. I got it done already, so I have time to do this. As for those people who say "yeah, but your job is easier than mine" keep in mind that I'm probably getting paid less than you. I'm not ashamed to admit that my job could be done by a middle schooler. What I am ashamed of is the fact that I'm 27 and this as far as I've made it in life this far. But I'm back in school trying to correct this problem.

1. This is the reason I started this blog. I went to return a library book today. I pulled into the parking lot to place my book in the drop bin.....only the drop bin is locked. Apparently the drop bin is locked during business hours. So I had to park. I park, get out, go inside and return my book, only to come out and see that I have a parking ticket. $10 for two minutes. That's roughly $300/hr that I just paid for parking. First off, why on God's green earth would the city feel the need to charge people to park in the library parking lot? This is a place that people bring their kids during the summers to learn how to read, and we're charging people? It's free to check out a book, but you have to pay to park your car outside the building? Secondly, what kind of ninja meter maid was this? She was not in the parking lot when I went into the library, and she damn sure wasn't in it when I came out. This was a drive-by ticketing plain and simple. I'm pretty sure that the guys from the Italian Job would've had a tough time pulling off this Meter Maid's uncanny timing. I don't think I can describe how bitter this made me. The really infuriating thing is that I can argue the ticket, but to what end? I'm not taking time off work to go to court on a $10 parking ticket. I can send in a letter of protest, but you have to pay first and then they mail you back a "refund" if they deem your letter worthy of such a reduction. My guess is that my ticket gets reduced $5 at most. That's still $5 more than it should've cost me to park at the PUBLIC LIBRARY in the first place.

Ok I'm done now.