Are there little things in life or that people do that drive you absolutely nuts? You try to ignore them, but you can't? You don't, or can't, do anything or say anything about it at the time, but it makes you twitch? Some of my personal peeves:

People who say the letter 'O' instead of the number 'zero.' For example, when saying a phone number, it's, 5-Oh-6, 7-Oh-Oh-8, instead of '5-zero-6, 7-zero-zero-8.' Try dialing the 'O' and see where it gets you.

People who think I'm their new best friend when I've never even met them. They call me 'Richard' or 'Rich' when I call customer service, instead of the more appropriate 'Mr. Davenport.'

Ads for diet products or exercise equipment that show people with the looks and bodies of Greek gods and godesses, instaed of the fatsos that really use them.

Safety caps on items like aspirin. First you have to peel off the protective plastic cover that has been soldered on. Then you go blind lining up the little arrows, then break a knuckle prying the top off. Then you have the annual cotton crop of Georgia to try and pull out, only to get a fuzzy Anacin.

People who stand right behind you when using an ATM.

Recorded greetings and instructions...like 'press 9 for this, press 7 for that, press 8 for this, press 4 to repeat, press 5 to speak to a customer service representative. PRESS THIS

Actresses old enough to be Lady MacBeth who try to look like they did in 1940. An example: RoseMarie. She was pushing it on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", but today she looks like Ernest Borgnine in drag, but she's still got the blonde bob and the little bow.

There...I feel better now.

People who cannot count to five so use the 'five items or less' checkout with eight items in the basket.

People invading my bodyspace when I am queuing, please take a step backwards or I might just tread on your foot.

Drivers who force their way in front of me instead of allowing me to invite them to join the traffic queue in front of me.

I agree Sue!! I have never understood the need to stand practically on top of the person ahead of you. It certainly won't get anyone served faster! If I try to inch away from the person behind me, he/she scoots up some too.

People who call me and demand "WHO IS THIS??" right after I said hello....you called ME, you should know who I am!

Skinny girls who ramble on and on about how FAT they are.....

Oh I could go on all night! I will add more as we go on!

One of my pet peeves is people who use massive golf umbrellas in crowded city streets - and (just to be controversially heightist) especially those under 5'6" or so which means that their umbrellas become dangerous weapons. Also those people who smoke in public and hold their cigarettes so that the smoke blows away from their own faces but into mine.

You know there's another one of these going and it feels so good to get it out of your system and not feel petty, that I think there's room for ten!

All of yours annoy me too. The umbrella thing is that I prefer using a raincoat rather than using an umbrella because I'm 5 4 and hate obstructing the sidewalk...it is nice to have a taller person offer to walk with one though!

Infomercials with gorgeous hunks and babes annoy me. Richard Simmons at least had women and men who really needed help. Gotta love him!

Spam bothers me, the real thing and its namesake, but I love the Monty Python sketch that ...spawned it.

I hate snobby boutiques in France and even back in Philly, where you're looked as gauche if you mention something you can buy in a supermarket or as I was told about a Christmas ornament in a snooty shop that was half price, "Well it's last year's model!"

I had a little tiny one the other day, then forgot it...but it's really annoying me...oh yes, someone keeps on toying with my rear view mirror...or what do you call the side one...my car has enough little nagging problems, I'll start a thread about car talk for it, but are they just getting into their car and brushing it? I get in and I can't see the motorcycles passing me...I mess with it...every night for a week!

I do get annoyed at my coworkers, males for the most part, playing with their cell phone alarms...everyone must have a different one though...not an easy task.

Cigarettes...the one non smoker is on holiday and the smoker is having a "holiday from non smoking" at her desk...we've shut her in...but it still circulates in the system.

Say, worse yet, how about people who extinguish their smokes in glasses or cups! I cannot bear that...it's disgusting beyond belief. I bought them an ashtray here and one of them broke it, brought another one and they use it.

Tailgaters...should be shot. ooops...perhaps a bit hasty. They should be tailgated.

Dogs in restaurants in France.

Dogs eating off of plates beneath the table in France with food prepared by the chef!

The high pitched girlish French woman's advertising voice, they just can't do commercials properly...get a sexy Lauren Bacall or something, you'd sell more...what is this little voice? No woman alive speaks like that!

Celebrity culture and journalism! I DON'T CARE ABOUT REESE WITHERSPOON! (I barely even know who she is).
I'd rather read LONG BORING ARTICLES ABOUT TARIFFS or SASKATCHEWAN POLITICS than look at Jennifer Aniston's mug one more time. And while I like Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin, I don't really give a hoot what they think about any particular issue, however loudly they may express their opinions. They're ACTORS, for god's sakes!

"Anniversary" journalism. Are the double-digit IQ's slowly taking over? Why report on the India-Pakistan conflict or write analytical think pieces on the Middle East when you can waste untold column inches on the 25th anniversary of the death of... Elvis?

People who use the word "prestigious" in any manner other than the totally ironic.

People at parties who have long conversations about consumer items. (Once watched open-mouthed as two couples talked for a half-hour about GAS GRILLS)

Moms (and Dads, too) who blab on and on about their precious offspring. I don't care if little Skyler knows 508 words (yes, a parent actually said that 2 me!). I don't want to hear about little Britney's potty progress. And please don't tell me that 1st grade is not STIMULATING enough for Brandon!

Mmmmm... only getting started here!

People who moan about how busy they are and how they never have time for anything.

People who talk with an accent other than they were born with.....but only if they haven't left the country. If they have it's understandable they should pick up the accent.

Ditto on the accents, but it does take courage to keep the accent with which you were born sometimes...here in France they mock the ones who stay true to their regional accents. And the ones who adopt the Parisan one are treated like fakes in their own regions!

Coolupway, haven't your kids done science fair projects yet? Now there you're going to see the manifestation of a thousand parents making the kids' projects and stopping at nothing to make it look like the kid did it him or herself!
My daughter cried that hers was too little...I looked around, space shuttles, nuclear reactors, solar systems with solid gold accessories, you name it, abounded! You'd have thought that the future of America was safe with braniacs like that! Just wait!

Anyone mentioned the toothpaste tube?

or...leaving vegetable peelings in the drain? For Americans, in France we don't have a garbage disposal, so you can't just wash it down the drain...it drives me crazy!

I can see this is going to be a long thread. (Heh, heh)

Not yet for me on the science projects, Briar (my oldest is six), but I know it's coming. Over here it's called parent-homework. (Some dope with an el-ed degree is gonna make me sit down and construct a working volcano??)

I love people who have "mystery jobs." "I'm in Human Resources," they tell you. WUZZAT? A PIMP is in Human Resources, for god's sakes! "I'm the second VP of Interfacing, Outsourcing and Marketing..." I love those corp-speak titles. (The idiot probably refills the toilet paper in the men's room.)

People who show you pictures of seemingly interesting places they visited on vacation, and whose photos quickly reveal that they somehow managed to miss the point entirely. "Here's a picture of a McDonald's in Paris. Isn't that great? And here's a little store where we bought candy. Here's the store again. Isn't it cute? Here's a big rock we saw... And this was Belgium... see the cute statue of the kid peeing? Here's a Starbuck's we visited in Stockholm..."

Anyone who can still speak nostalgically about the presidency of JFK, despite the thousands of incredibly detailed debunking books which showed the thing up for the total sham it was. (Will not even MENTION Jr!)

People who tell you such things as "I'm very musical" or "I'm very smart" or (the worst one) "I'm very creative." (Are any of these imbeciles ever RIGHT?)

Oohh. One last one, for the morning:

People that you have no real connection with who nonetheless for some strange reason pester you to go out, have a play date with the kiddies, go out drinking, whatever, and then when you finally say yes, THEY say, "oh I don't know now, I've got to check my schedule."

The grinds at the EU in Brussels should work on a Uniform Grudging-Acceptance Retraction Protocol to cover this!

Drivers who don't know how to turn their lights on dim, even worse if they happen to be behind me and are blinding me in the rear view mirror. For some reason I actually like to be able to see when I am driving.

People constantly moaning about how bad their life is, when the extent of their problems is that their car needs refueling and their partner will be home 5 minutes late on Tuesday.

Cats who throw up on the bed. (Ok, this only happened once, but it's awfully annoying when you come in at 4 am and have to change all your sheets and blankets).

MY my, we're feeling cranky, aren't we?
Coolupway, the volcano is nothing, that's when you and I were babes, just a bit of papier maché, a bit of baking soda and vinegar...plus they should be paying royalties to the encyclopedia companies for ripping off their material for the research and typing it up! I'm sure the parents all typed up the info on their computers the night before.
Fortunately the judges go around and grill the kids on their projects and judgement day, behold the child knows nothing about nuclear physics!

Did we say anything about undisciplined kids? We could start a thread on it, and though ours have their problems, we know that the mother and grandmother who say nothing to a four year old boy yelling and running in circles in a clothing store and running into ladies and store personnel are not doing their job! They're the ones who should be spanked!

People who criticize the plant on my desk. It's sensitive.

I'm really really trying to be a tolerant person (and I think I pretty much am one), but I do get annoyed over certain things.

Gym clothes, for example. I have nothing against them inside a gym but why on earth do some people wear them in public? Don't they have any other clothes? Or are they trying to show off how sporty they are? Or is it just that there is something seriously wrong with their sense of beauty?

Then there are people who listen to their car stereo as loudly as possible. No explanations needed.

What also annoys me is people who rush into public transport before those who want to get off can do so. Geez, what ever happened to consideration for other people or at least basic politeness?!

I feel much better now.

Good ones, I think that I also don't like it when some people tell usually younger people, "well your little problems are nothing now, you're young!" I mean, what hope does that give them?

Transportation seems to be getting on lots of people's nerves.

Oh get this one...one of the neighbors smokes a cigar in the elevator! And his wife wears really stinky perfume! They are just a fun couple!

More yet...

We all hate those stupid phone trees, but the worst ones are the ones that eventually leave you on hold and then replay a message which says in part that your phone call is "very important to us". Could anything more definitively underscore the fact that the company deems you a nuisance and treats you accordingly?

A special tip of the cap to those deep thinkers who have somehow drawn from the events of 9/11/01 a "message" that what we all need is MORE religion in our lives.

I came of age in the 70's, when nearly every college prof (and most college students) bashed the big, bad US for CIA adventurism in the 50's, the Vietnam debacle, polluting the environment, the Japanese internment, etc, etc. The stars 'n stripes was in effect viewed as a symbol of oppression. Now, since, 9/11, you can't drive three feet without seeing a flag in or on some boomer's car. At least Charlie Daniels was a patriot all along!

TF Chatroom peeves: No problem with the teens, per se, but
"Are you my friend?", "I LUV BRITNEY" and "Why do U hate me?" tend NOT to be the best conversational gambits.
Also, if you're going to get on and say "Everybody hates me", be prepared to elaborate, so perhaps other chatters can try to help you pinpoint the real problem and maybe, just maybe, be able to put things in a somewhat better perspective. The response "they just do" really doesn't get you anywhere.

And (this will draw flak) please spare us the rock and/or rap lyrics. It's not Shakespeare, it's a POP TUNE! 99 out of 100 times, the thing will have no lasting significance and disappear down the memory hole in two years. In the 70's, everyone thought that dopey Billy Jack song was "deep" and "significant". Well, It wasn't. No one remembers it now.
It has no effect on the cosmos, on the American moral vernacular, or anything else that really matters. Oh, and those long chats about which bands you're into? LOSE 'EM!
Yes, we all have thought a great deal about the Beatles. So did Charles Manson! Don't conflate a mutual liking for "Dark Side of the Moon" with a shared worldview. It don't work that way!

When you start that thread about car annoyances, let me know! I'll fill up the whole thread!

My pet peeve is people petting me, like you'd pet a dog or a cat. I'm in a wheelchair, so I'm down a lot lower to the ground. This seems to give people the idea that I should have a head pat instead of a handshake or something along that line.

Another pet peeve, is customers at fast food restaurants. Normally, I expect to wait in a short line. While I'm waiting, I decide what I want so I don't hold up the line when it's my turn to order. But it seems like I always get behind someone that waits until they get to the counter to decide. The stand there mulling the decision for a bit, then ask their friend "What are you having? What looks good to you?"

Why do people call me on my home phone, and say "Where are you?"

I would hate getting petted like that too! I don't let people do that to my kids...they hate it. They have always hated it.
The only comparable thing is people patting your tummy when you're expecting a baby!

Oh, Chippy, that's a good one...I always choose a good line in the grocery store, sorry ladies, but I often pick guys to wait behind...no not for any other reasons but they often use their shopping lists and normally go in with a mission, but I always get the one with the coupons or the discount that isn't taken off, or someone who hasn't had his vegetables weighed like they have you do here!

I hate checkout lines with mirrors because I look up and think to myself, "My she does look tired" then realize it's me!

Ahh, Bruyere, we have a new grocery chain in my area where you weigh your own produce. It certainly saves time at the checkout, and one can check to make sure the right charge is made for the right code.

Now -- how about standing at an empty information booth, or cash register when someone FINALLY walks up and then has the gall to say "Are you being helped?" Does it look like it? Am I standing here looking like where is someone to work this area? Oh no, I'm just standing here killing time. Or maybe the person that should be here! aarggh!

Ok, blood pressure is dropping as we speak.

Now, don't everyone get all bent out of shape but, don't you think that we become more peevish at certain times of the month? like when it's a FULL MOON???

I see where you are at Cool with the "Everyone hates me" thing. Very strange!

I hate when you are standing in front of an elevator and someone comes along and presses the button. Erm.. was I supposed to press the button, I just like to look at the door!!!! Very annoying. The same thing with traffic lights, I could be standing there all day but for the bright spark who reaches across me to press the button. Stop doing this.
One thing I hated when I was pregnant was complete strangers coming up and touching my stomach. How would they feel if I just approached them and started rubbing their tum for God's sake. Stop doing this.
I think I may have said in multi player once "Are you my friend?" but I was drunk and felt silly later.

My pet peeves, Part 1

People who rock up out of the blue to the house at lunch time and expect to be fed.

The words "Internal examination". If I never hear those again I'll be happy.

Being told really obvious things like "becareful that knife is sharp"

People who talk just to fill in the silence.

Like others have said about people asking who they are talking to when you answer the phone. I always reply "who are you looking for?" . And people who ring late at night when they know full well that you'd be in bed. "Oh, were you in bed" (this is the same bloke that turns up at lunch time)

Mike Munro (an Australian current affair show host)

Still more...

People who ignore clear, unambiguous answering machine messages. (There is no one at my house named "Julius";
the Jacobses, whoever they were, haven't had this number for 12 years; I do not know if your wedding gown is ready; and no, my wife and I do not repair foreign cars.)

Slow, feeble drivers who need slide rule, sextant and compass to negotiate that ever-so-difficult 90-degree turn into the driveway. It's not a trigonometry problem, it's a right turn, dummy!

People who use their kids as props through whom to broadcast messages to bystanders. ("Well now, little Donovan... how do you like Daddy's NEW PORSCHE TARGA-CARRERA?")

Teachers who refer to themselves as "educators." (I'm the son of two TEACHERS who cringe whenever someone uses the "E" word). Lawyers who list themselves in the phone book as "Doctor" (Juris Doctor degree). Salesmen who call themselves anything other than salesmen.

People who tell you about this GREAT NEW BUSINESS they're involved in, and who implausibly deny it's Amway until you've listened to them for a half-hour, whereupon they admit that it's "like" Amway, or it's "related to" Amway, or some such. (P.S. I can buy my OWN detergent at the supermarket!)

Anything related to semiotics-- especially semiotics PROFESSORS.

Tupperware parties! I hate it when people invite you to a party with a bunch of women and then they reveal their ultimate design, selling you things that you won't use. Tupperware exists to assuage one's guilt. You put bits of leftovers in it that you won't eat, you leave them in the unmarked recepticles for the given amount of time and then you open them, say yuck and throw them away!

French supermarkets almost never have cashiers who weigh things.

As to that time of the month, well I hate it when someone says it, generally when I'm trying to load a stapler or change a lightbulb and then they find themselves on the floor with a head wound and I say, "No, what makes you say that?"

Ok, another thing that bothers me is when some people are incapable of making a sincere complement or being positive...sometimes the summum of their positivity is, "your hair doesn't look too bad, for a change." If you watch Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets" try to make a complement, you'll see what I mean. Or they see a lovely girl and then say they have cellulite...is this the "Fox and the grapes" or what?
Or when the child brings home a good paper, with a 99, they say, "what did you get wrong?"
It drives me crazy...
Perhaps these are good survival qualities in some places, but in others, they are hard to live with.

I dont like it when people are rude and snatch things from you.Manners are not a thing that you forget but some people have trouble saying a simple PLEASE and THANKYOU

People who use computers for any correspondence, but see no use for the shift key or punctuation. PEOPLE WHO HAVE FOUND THE SHIFT KEY AND DO NOT SWITCH IT OFF. I h8 ppul who confuse fones & cmptrs. Also people who feel the need to end sentences with '!!!!!!!! LOL'. If a 'joke' requres to be marked in such a way it probably was not well written in the first place.

I'm adding a rather timid huzzah to that last one!

Testing, testing - as requested