Yesterday we purchased some new items of crockery, all of which had small store labels stuck on the bases. These labels were stuck so firmly they had to be scraped off in small pieces, and the gluey residue removed with a solvent. I've come across these annoying labels many times before, and always get irritated by them. As easy peel labels are widely available, why do stores persist in using these 'non-peel' types? Is it incompetence, or do they simply like to inconvenience their customers?
I also get annoyed by inadequate road diversion signs, usually associated with roadworks or incidents, which divert you from your route then disappear altogether, leaving you to find an alternative route through a maze of minor roads.
Small motorcycles which create a hugely disproportionate level of loud engine noise are another source of annoyance, and it's quite obvious that the idiots who drive these vile machines deliberately make the engine noise as loud as possible when passing through residential areas.
If I had my way I'd make all these and more annoying items illegal.
What, if anything, irritates you?

Aramis, I can understand your frustration. I hate those sticky labels too. I think the reason they use the "hard to remove" type is to stop unscrupulous shoppers from peeling the stickers off other, cheaper, goods and switching the stickers, thus trying to get an expensive item for a cheaper price.

I don't mind them on most things because they come off pretty easily with eucalyptus oil. But I really hate them on CD cases because the eucalyptus oil (and other solvents) eat into that type of plastic and ruins it.

I hesitate to address this one, because there are so many little idiocies comitted out there everyday - where does one start? I promise not to just drone on and on, though.

Guess I'll start with that old standby complaint for so many - people who stand in the 20 items or less checkout line with enough food for a third world country, glaring around in defiance. Pretty much self explanitory.


People who refuse to use turn signals. I love surprises generally, but not when I'm driving. In my estimation, we're all a bit safer when each driver knows what the other one is about to do.

Of course, we have discussed people and their obnoxious cell phones on this site before. Nothing is sure to make your dinner companions feel more second rate than to sit in a restaurant and watch someone yuk it up with an unseen person in Cleveland or Sherman Oaks. People always have the idea they must project their voices, too [ like in victorian days with a winding crank telephone mounted on the wall.."Hello? Wilma, can you hear me NOW?"] Yes, Wilma hears you and so does everybody else in this part of the restaurant.

Those shopping carts left in the middle of parking lots. waiting to roll into the side of my car as I'm parking. [It's just too much strain to find a cart corral to put them in. And besides, everybody knows their time is so much more valuable than mine... ]


People who sit and wait for a parking spot to open up, while the eight cars waiting behind them block traffic, creating a situation that reaches all the way out to the street.This little drama takes place so they can have a spot eight steps closer to the door, rather than go on out to the edge and just park their car and go in.If these people are physically that bad off, they need to apply for a handicapped sign to hang from their mirror and have done with it, allowing them to park wherever they want.

In my part of the province, all highways are two lane. It gets dark here early in the winter, and since I live in a small town, I often have to drive on the highway. I have a real problem, (and this is something that seems to be getting worse the last couple of years) with drivers keeping their lights on "bright" even when there is approaching traffic. Here's a hint, for everyone driving on a two lane highway after dark - when you see apppoaching drivers dim their lights, that is a signal for YOU to do the same.
I occasionally see a letter to the editor from the drivers of one of those blinders, saying "Please don't flash your lights at me, I am not driving with my brights on, but rather my SUV is so tall, and my super duper extra special high-intensity headlights are so bright, that it really isn't my fault". Sorry, that doesn't cut it. If your headlights, on regular power, are so bright that you are a hazard to all approaching traffic, you need to get different lights. Your desire to light up the road for miles ahead of you does not trump the safety of all approaching drivers.

Very well stated, Agony. Just because one's vehicle comes with ultra nuclear - powered jungle lights doesn't preclude the ability to fit them with less powerful bulbs. They don't seem to understand or care that this may save the concentration of oncoming drivers. My right eye is severely damaged, and sudden unusually bright lights cause intense pain because my pupil is unable to narrow and filter the light in a timely manner. Normal low beams aren't much of a problem but the new hi tech beams are a nightmare for me.

I also find those wretched labels infuriating. What on earth is the point? I suspect it's a hangover from the days when shopkeepers thought they were doing the public an enornmous favour by letting them purchase things from their hallowed premises and when it went almost withou saying that the customer is always wrong and doesn't even know that "there's a war on".

I have a neighbour, mature in years but in nothing else, who sometimes 'revs' his massively powerful motorbike for anything up to ten minutes, despite the fact that the wretched thing nearly always ignites without difficulty.

Shoppers that get to the top of an escalator, take ONE step, and try to get their bearings.

I also hate people that park their shopping trolleys directly across a traffic-way- would you park your car on the middle of the street?

Rude people (both staff and other customers) at stores and parking lots whose time is obviouly way more important than yours, so they will always take (sometimes very pushily) the right of way.

The expression "I NEED..." a loaf of bread, etc- my mother would kill me if I said that.

What happened to simple manners?- " Could I please have,,,?"

Things that annoy me? People that use the word "basically" in just about every other sentence. Some use this word way too often, and usually in the wrong context. Katie Couric, morning host of NBC's Today Show, has a very bad habit of saying 'basically' alot and it drives me crazy to listen to her. When I pointed this out to my step-kids, they thought it hilarious to count how many times a day they would hear someone saying it, but it drove the point home how often it's used, and used wrong too.

Another thing that annoys me? Being cold. I hate being cold, especially when it's hot outside. When I'm hot, I'm uncomfortable, but when I get cold, I get angry. And it makes be mad to be in a room where the air conditioner is on so high, that I have to go outside and put my freezing hands on a hot surface just to warm them up. Why, oh why, do offices and restaurants feel the need to have it 65 degrees F. inside all year round? I detest having to eat my dinner with a coat on and having the danged air conditioner blowing cold air on my food, and I cannot concentrate on anything but getting warm. Ooooh, this is definately a thing that irritates me....can't you tell?

Things which irritate or annoy me ... well, I won't list them all as I have already done that once before in an old thread.

But, in relation to what ClaraSue said about over-use of the word "basically", I hate it when a phrase becomes popular and people over-use it, particularly when the phrase makes no sense in the first place.

For example, one of my colleagues at work always says "cool bananas" as a response to anything you say to her. It drives me nuts. What on earth does it mean anyway? If I answered her with a similar meaningless phrase, such as "frozen oranges", she'd think I was mental. But "cool bananas" appears to be in fashion at the moment.

Similarly, my daughter and all her friends use the word "bogus" to describe just about anything they like. Do they actually know what the word really means, I wonder? I haven't asked them because if my daughter had an inkling that it got up my nose, she'd use it on purpose to annoy me ( ).

Yes, Mother Goose - if there's one thing I 've learned in all these years...never give a teenager fresh material to work with.
Always keep them guessing...

MotherGoose, I used to work for a woman who said, "Sounds like a plan to me!" for everything. Me:I'll file this now. Her: Sounds like a plan to me! Me: I'm going to lunch. Her: Sounds like a plan... Me: I'm going to slap you silly if you say that again. Her: Sounds like a plan...
Well, ok, that last one was in my dreams, but it's the thought that counts.

I really hate when people say "whenever" when they mean "when". Really, people, the two words are not interchangeable! "Whenever my dog died, I buried it" is not exactly the same as "When my dog died,"

Oh, and the ever-popular mis-chee-vee-ous. There are only three syllables in mischievous! Argh!

"Very unique" used to bother me until it started to be accepted as normal useage. Now when I hear that I just sigh and long for the good old days.

Ok, so I'm easily annoyed.

Some time ago when I was a member of a union I received on a monthy basis the union newsletter. If there were 30 pages to the newsletter there was at least 10 photographs of the union leader, I was really annoyed at that.
When I open my pay t.v guide there is always a picture of the editor on the second page, I find great annoyance at that as well.

'Absolutely' is a word that absolutely annoys me.

What irritates me is writing something here only to have it removed by someone who disagrees with it.

There are a lot of language-related items that annoy me, but probably too many to go into at one go. I can agree with most of what was already written about that, though. And at the same time, I know that I probably use or overuse a number of colloquialisms and other turns of phrase that annoy other people, so I try not to think about it too much.

I also really dislike those people who wait for parking spaces without regard to the rest of the people they are effecting. But something happened to me a while back that had me sympathizing a little. If they are so bad off that they need to park close to the doors, they should apply for a handicapped permit, but that is not an immediate thing. My mother was disabled from a car accident when I was a teenager that caused a slow but inevitable decline in her spine, and by the age of 47 she was unable to work and walking with a cane. However, at least in my state, you can't get a disability parking permit unless you are legally disabled. In my mother's case, it was roughly 2 years from the time she stopped work before she got her parking permit. During that 2 years, she was the one holding up traffic for a closer spot. She being who she is was very bothered by it. Her disability at a relatively young age was difficult enough psychologically, and the little things like that really wore her down. There were quite a number of times when she dealt with the long walk and the pain it caused just to avoid the anger thrown at her by other drivers. She was even loudly cussed out once by another driver, who abruptly shut his mean little mouth and turned beet red when she pulled her cane out of the car and started limping for the door.

And because of that as well as a few other close friends who are in wheelchairs, there's something that bothers me even more than lazy people who hold up traffic for the sake of a shorter walk: Lazy people who park in handicapped parking spaces who aren't. Some justify it by leaving their car running, presumably to let the legimitaly disabled person who might want the space know that they simply have to wait a few minutes and the car will be moved. There are some who use a family member's permit, thinking that since they HAVE a permit for that car, they should be able to use it, even if the person who IS disabled is not with them. There are others who are just blatantly lazy and seemlingly don't care if they cause problems for other people. There is never an appropriate time for someone who is not disabled to use a specially-marked parking space, I don't care how special they think they are. Hmph.

I also get annoyed when, having carefully ensured that my airline hand luggage meets the size and weight requirements as laid down in the flight booking conditions, I then see people boarding the cabin with a couple of suitcases and various other large items.
The hand luggage size, weight and number conditions arenearly always clearly displayed, yet most airline check-in staff, and cabin crew too, make no attempt whatsoever to ensure passenger compliance.
Apart from taking up an unfair share of overhead locker space, this surely must be a security issue too? If airline safety, security, and maintenance is anything like as badly supervised it must be more luck than judgement there aren't more serious incidents.

I had the pleasure of flying from North Carolina to New York last week and you reminded me of one of my pet peeves. I hate it when these people who think the rules don't pertain to them drag on items that clearly should have been checked.
In fact, I hate any instance where people flaunt the rules or the law.

People who drive while talking on a cell phone are the people that annoy me the most.

The things that are annoy me are:


People who think I have six additional arms, besides the two that I already have. My boss and co-workers must really think that I'm part octopus! Heaven forbid they let me finish what I'm doing first before I help them!

When people talk or use cell phones while at the movie theater...it's so annoying and it's rude!

When you say "Excuse me" and the person doesn't move or looks at you as though he/she's saying "Who me?".

Anyone who talks during the television show "Lost".

Someone who rambles on and on and is always contradicting their own statements. It's as though they can't remember what they've said from one day to the next, with the kicker being the person actually thinks they are being truthful! Go figure!

When you're walking your dog and someone asks "Does your dog bite?" They don't realize how stupid it sounds. ALL dogs bite...the question should be "Will your dog bite me?".

The phrase "...and I turned around and said...". Think about it...did you actually turn around in a cirlce before you responded?

Anything that George W. Bush has to say (Sorry! Couldn't resist that one!).