Wonderful put-down line George!
I suppose those days are so far behind me that I can't remember what we'd say. I do recall a fellow asking me to dance, then he asked me if I couldn't ask my friend to dance with him, as he really liked her and was tongue-tied!
Needless to say I refused.


Did we mention panty hose here? I know that spending all that fortune on panty hose that don't last more than a week drives me bananas.

Keep me in the loop? Like what the Fruit Loop? The loop the loop? The hula hoop?
Around here in France, people use English words but pronounce them with a heavy accent and expect me to realize what they mean...not easy!
They use them to be cool.

How about mechanic's syndrome? You take the blasted car to the mechanic and the funny noise goes away!
I hate that.
My mechanic in PA was a doll...never once doubted me. Sniff sniff, how I miss him!

I hate getting a mechanic or a dentist who takes one look at the job, and says, "Geeez, who did this mess? I'll have to totally redo the whole job."

I'll be 25 in slightly less than 2 weeks, but I look really young. It drives me absolutely nuts when people ask me things like what grade am I in, when will I be old enough to drive, things like that. Then it makes me even crazier when I say something about it, and I get told that I'll appreciate that when I'm older.

Chippy, you'll appreciate it when you're older. Sorry....could not resist.

In view of the attack on manhood by amberg and bruyere I feel I have to leap to our defence (by the way, I think I must have met you in a pub, amberg! ) - just as bad (and I am talking about a long time ago when I was young) when you finally pluck up the courage to ask a girl to dance - you go over to where she's sitting or standing with her friends - you ask her and all the girls start giggling - no talking just giggling - OK so I'm a bit hairy and carry a bunch of bananas around with me but I ask you - giggling -it does dent your self confidence!

Sorry coz, but I've just had a good giggle at your post! It however was not meant to dent your confidence - men who make women laugh always have more success. It wasn't an attack on manhood - the minority let you down that's all. Being asked to dance is much nicer than a bloke asking you for a s**g and expecting you to jump at the chance which has happened more than once.

Another pet peeve and it's about my pet - you put down your cat/dog food and it's not a cheap brand and they turn their nose up and look at you as if to sy "You expect ME to eat THAT". Animals are just to expressive!

I understand the bit about being told I llok young - I hated it. Now I'm in my 30s I miss it like mad!

If you miss being told you're young at thirty then try it in your forties! The only thing I manage is voice wise, in which I apparently don't sound as old as I am! At least that's the backhanded compliment I hear! then they say, "ooops".


Monkeycouzin, I have publicly maintained it must be a pain to have to ask a girl to dance and then have her refuse you and her friends giggling about it. So with said friend I mentioned, we attempted to ask men to dance and they always refused us! Well, in those days once you got on the dance floor you didn't see the person forever...no one danced together! It would take you the whole song to realize he'd gone off somewhere to get a drink!

My cat has this annoying habit of reaching his paw up and scratching at the cupboard next to his dish if he doesn't like it...like oi oi...I don't like this stuff!

Our dog used to pick up his bowl and try to bury it.

I hate hairdressers who don't say anything to relieve the tension of having to look at yourself with outlandish stuff in your hair for a while...I even had to talk about Alain Delon breaking up with his girlfriend, nothing worked!

People who talk too much. And people who talk too slowly, making long pauses during their sentences. I always try to guess what they're about to say and say it for them. I realize this habit of mine must seem quite annoying to them but I can't help it. Talking too slowly is almost as awful as leaving sentences unfinished.

I hate going to fast food places. I either go in knowing what I want, or decide what I want while I'm waiting in line. But I always seem to get behind someone who talks to their friend until they get up to the counter, THEN they start looking at the menu. Then, they must discuss each and every item on the menu. If my turn comes up, and I haven't decided yet, I'll let the person behind me go while I decide.

That is very decent of you, Chippy! I just thought of a pet peeve~It's when you're waiting on the phone for a "representative" to speak to you. First you must ring up, listen to a taped voice putting you through your paces of how to reach where you're trying to get to (and in Canada you'll get this blurb in French and English!), you finally make your selection (and hope it's the right one), then listen to canned music for about eight minutes, interrupted every 2 minutes or so with a message such as, "Your call is important to us! Please hold and one of our representatives will be with you shortly." OR "All our representatives are busy with other important clients at the moment. Please do not hang up as incoming calls are prioritized and you will get through faster by holding than if you try to call again. Thank you for calling so&so.....please hold." Aarrrggggghhhhhhhh! This happens with most calls from catalogue sales to the Canadian Government to courier services! I hate it!

One of my pet peeves is calling a business and getting an answering device which gives me a number of options - "If you are calling about this, press 1, if you are calling about that, press 2 etc. etc." Inevitably, the reason I am calling doesn't fit into any of their options!

However, I have found the perfect way to deal with it. Simply press the hash key repeatedly. I don't know what it does to their answering device, but you get a human being on the other end really quick!!!

Phones, the bane of my existence for about a two year period of intense phone work. I once realized that when I had to put someone on hold, the music was some classical piece that irritated the hell out of them...finally someone told me, the system had it in there as a default...we changed it and things immediately got better.
I work next to the intense phone person in my company and he often puts his speaker phone on while he's on hold, and I hear the obnoxious voices they put on their machines and the music...don't they study these things in Marketing 101?
The impression of a company is created in five seconds, with the first person to whom you speak.

The French woman's voice on the telephone goes about one octave higher and it's really a pain! I hate it.

When you are in the supermarket and you get to near the head of the queue and at the front is a customer, usually a woman, who is deeply engrossed in conversation with the cashier. They are talking about what they saw on TV yesterday evening, pets, what the woman at Number 43 was doing yesterday, how her husband never does the housework etc. etc. When eventually the cashier tells the woman how much the total bill is, the woman then seems surprised that she has to pay and then comes phase 2- the hunt for her purse in a bag that seems to hold the entire contents of her house. Next she tries in pay in small coins, each one of which is extracted singly from the depths of the purse and when the money is finally handed across, she proceeds to fold the bill up very carefully and packs everything away - very slowly. Whilst this final packing has been going on, the cashier has now diverted her attention away from you, the next customer, and is now in earnest conversation with her friend, who is the cashier on the adjacent till. You then have to listen to the details of which club they went to last night, which one they are going to tonight, who they are going with and other details that are beyond that which a reasonable person wants to know.

I enjoyed that last one, didn't know you'd been down here to this area of France Monkeycouz, sounds exactly like the supermarkets here!

I also hate it when you've got shopping for a week for your family and you are alone or with another person, and you have to negotiate how you're going to push your cart, load it, and then get it through and then get back in place and pay and load your groceries, as it's very cumbersome.
We have people who do it in the States, and I'm always homesick here!
The cashiers always look at you as though it's easy to push the dang thing through, get back into place...
Or else you go first then lean over to get the things in the bottom of the cart.

Yeah, supermarkets are way too freaky for me....cumbersome is the right word. Some of them here have no packers and some do.
With regard to men and dancing....I would love it if men asked me to dance, or even asked for a snog....since in fact it frequently happens without any conversation taking place at all!
Also, with regard to looking young, I'm going to be 25 in a few weeks too...and everyone asks me have I done my final school exams, though this is happening a bit less.
I hate it when people don't read aloud properly...in my philosophy class a guy mumbled this poem he was reading, but I felt if he read it properly it would have had more philosophical meaning...maybe he could have got someone else to read it out.

I've also remembered that I hate when people say they are dying of flu, and they're well able to get up and go to work and socialise...sort of trivialises the thing for people who might actually be dying, and also it's just plain exaggeration.

My pet peeves are:
1. When a driver pulls out in front of me and drives slower.
2. Store policies where you return an item and have buy something else in the same department instead of getting a store credit.
3. Downloading music and it is either the wrong song or not even completed when finished.
4. Cashiers who don't know how to do their job right.
5. My neighbor who drains all of his pool water out into the streets instead on his lawn, which is better for the soil then the sewer.
6. When my friend doesn't call me back after I leave a message on her answer machine or to her parents.
7. When bugs appear in my and I go to get something to kill then is gone!
8. My dad brags on me on how to do certain stuff, when I have the ability to do it myself.
9. My work shirts.
10. When people think I look exactly like my older sister, when I do not!
I can go more about this, but my fingers hurt from typing.

In reply to:

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Oh, and girls who dress.....in an attention-grabbing way....and then complain when anyone says anything.

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I must confess, I don't understand that one either--'attention-grabbing way' or not. Unless a comment directed to me about my appearance is obscene or hurtful, I always smile and say thank you. I wear makeup and heels, and don't feign shock or offense if someone notices my efforts to look attractive. Yes, I even feel that 'Hey nice legs' is a compliment, and I am grateful to receive it. Perhaps that makes me pitiful, but I have a feeling when these types of comments stop coming (and that will be relatively soon), I will miss them. Let's be honest, are any of us--male or female--truly offended if someone pays us a compliment? Sure, I'd rather hear that I'm clever or kind, but I cannot imagine making someone feel bad for saying something nice about my appearance. It really bugs me when other women do, so I share that particular peeve, Tanzen. Just add it to my long list.

Office parks, especially those with addresses that don't correspond to the street name. (Long Island's Route 110
is especially notorious in this regard). This--and many similar roads in so-called 'Edge Cities' are lined with office parks on both sides, and the office buildings inariably have addresses like "2 Seymour Quadrangle". "Seymour Quadrangle" of course does not appear on the map. You ask a passerby and he/she invariably says. "Oh it's one of these, around here, you know, big glass building"... which narrows it down to about 200 possibilities. Why not just use a street address?

Long law firm names that contain the name of EVERY SINGLE PARTNER. Especially egregious in this regard are insurance company "house counsel" firms, where the firm name changes 5 times a year anyway as people change jobs, and the so-called "partners" are not partners at all but merely employees of some dopey insurance carrier. What's the point? Impress your friends? Who CARES??

Well, where do I start? OOOhh, I know!!
PEOPLE WHO WON'T TURN OFF THE CAPS LOCK!!
Then there are those that abbreviate everything.
Then those who can't spell at all.
Those who drive and talk on their cell phones at the same time. Scares me to death.
People who take 10 minutes to decide what they want to order from McDonalds!!! The menu has been the same forever!
I agree with whoever said about the high beams. Trucks especially drive me crazy.
People who decide to fish through your fridge without your permission. You don't live here!
When someone asks you if you're ok--and when you say yes..."are you sure?" AAAAAAAAA!!!! If I say I'm ok, I'm ok! Either that or I'm using a discreet way of telling you it's none of your business.
Now, I'm one of those drivers who has the radio loud, but what drives me nuts is when you can hear the bass a mile away. Good Lord!! I guess they want to be deaf early.
I agree with you, cool, about the chat room peeves. "You guys are mean! I'm leaving!" And the person doesn't leave, is annoying, and wonders why we get upset with him/her in the first place! Grow up! (you know who I'm referring too.)
Kids who make a scene in a public place--and parents who don't do anything about it.
People who write out a check for 4 dollars.
POP UPS!!!! I hate going to a website and getting 3 pop ups at the same time.
Diet ads gracing the covers of every magazine out there--with a woman on the front who weighs about 100 pounds and who obviously wasn't ever fat a day in her life.
People who are always grammatically incorrect. "There wasn't nobody there." Please! Go back to English class.
Back to driving, people who pass you like a maniac only to stop at a stop light or make a turn.
People who beep at you for stopping at a stop sign.
People who stare at you when you pass--maybe you guys don't have that problem.
And when you pass, they pass again to get another look at you. It's happened to me.
PeOpLe WhO LiKe To UsE ThIs. I hate that.
Well, I'll think of some more and come back. I have quite a few more.

I hate..absolutely hate text speak. Who sits down and thinks up all those ridiculous initials and more to the point, why? Do people actually refer to those silly little text dictionaries? I was thinking of writing my own, "The Alternative Text Speak",making it as ridiculous as possible but then I realised for sheer idiocy it would be hard to beat the original.And all that 'lol'ing everywhere...AAARRGGHH.
Phew, I'm glad to get that off my chest.

Okay, I have a few.

Even though I'm only in my teens I know about the 'bra problem.' My problem is finding one to fit around my body. I mean, were those things made for toothpicks? Especially the ones made for people my age. I am not 'small' (it is indeed embarrassing, and so overrated,) and I already have to go to a certain letter, but then to have to go even higher just to find one to fit around my body? Jiminy Christmas...

Also people that insist on dubbing you something. I tell them my name is Hallie, and immediately they start up using 'Hal.' Have you taken into consideration that I hate that name? If you wanted to call me by a nickname you should at least ask which one I'd want - I prefer the second syllable of my name, thank you. My poor father, whose name is Jimmy (on his birth certificate just like that,) always gets called James even if he introduces himself as Jim. Hello, that's not his name. Please don't assume it is. He introduced himself as Jim, that most likely means he wants to actually be called that.

I hate being brushed off because of my age. Do you think I can honestly help it? I mean, it's not my fault I'm only fourteen. Maybe if you'd try to have an intelligent conversation with me instead of just forgetting about it after learning my age maybe you'd find out that I don't act like the fourteen year olds the TV portrays. I hate it when people ask how old I am, what grade I'm in, then turn to another person and start up a conversation, or if they bother to talk to me it's asking about school: Do I like it? Who are my teachers? Any boyfriends? (that one really gets me.) Do you really think my knowledge extends only to school activities? And boys? I mean, just because I'm a teen doesn't mean I'm obsessed with the male half of the species.

While we're on the subject of guys, I hate it when people ask if I have a boyfriend and I respond "not interested." Then they go on to say "well, you will!" Excuse me? Do you know me? I'm not really a 'romantic' type person - if I ever get married it'll probably be to a best guy friend or something. Just because I say I'm not interested doesn't mean I haven't 'hit the stage' yet, it's because... gee... coud it because I'm not interested?!

Oh, this one takes the cake. I love the acne commercials where at the beginning they have all these regular kids running around, but then the one to talk has perfect skin. Yeah, like they really know what we're going through. Or if they start it with regular kids advertising it, then switch over to actors and actresses for the results.

Along this line, I also hate it that all the models in the commercials are about a size 2. Well can't you advertise a size 12? Or is that just gruesome? Like all those plastic model things in stores; the clothes hang off them. All that does is succeed in embarrassing those of us that for some reason can't fit into those sizes. Just like being looked at by some size 0 with a disgusted look on her face. Um, sorry my metabolism doesn't quite work along the lines of yours, or sorry I actually ate this week. I can't lose weight. I've tried. I'm just one of those people that remains at a constant weight, and just because that is super thin doesn't mean I didn't try.

Alright, I feel much better now.

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One of MY pet peeves is people who complain about being told how young they look. See, it stopped happening to me about five years ago, and I really MISS it!

Shishkakat...on a similar note, I was at the parent conferences here for my son in junior high..and I spoke to a few of my kid's classmates, and when I talk to kids, I try not to ask dopey questions, but usually do, I'm sure. Yet, the next day my son came home and said, "five of my friends said you were cool." "wow, that's neat...why?" "Cause you have a bit of an accent but you don't talk down to them."
I felt very reassured as it's not easy for some grownups to put themselves in a teen's shoes any more!

I loved your passage on the zits thing too! I suffered from my skin as a teen, and those commercials never showed people with real problems!
It's such a pain!

Boyfriends too...I don't bother asking my niece if she has any, it's a foregone conclusion.

I didn't mention one place I hate here in France, it's a teenybopper clothing shop with fake hippie stuff that is prefabricated. And the mothers are all skinnier than their anorexic daughters and you go in there and hear the clamor and clanking of a million hangers and women fighting over a size 0 top that looks like a cleaning rag that doesn't reach their belly button. The mothers are all skinnier than their daughters and they all chain smoke and make obnoxious comments.
I refuse to go anywhere near there!

Oh my word! I never thought about simple things bothering people so badly! I must admit that I agree with most of the things listed here though.
Some of the worst ones for me are:
1) When someone who is in Georgia says, "I'm going down to North Carolina next weekend." No you're not! You're going UP to NC, not down!
2) When people say "heighth." The word is "height."
3) people who squeeze the toothpaste from the top instead of the bottom
4) people who assume just because someone is overweight, they can't be athletic (oh, and I totally agree with those who have said something about skinny people saying they're fat just because they want you to tell them they aren't)
and finally #5) commercials for weight loss pills that show pictures of fat people who are pale and then show thin people who are tan...do taking those pills give you a tan? I don't think so.

I feel much better now...