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  Friday, February 6, 2009 Want to know what REALLY bugs me? Barbara Venezia: A lot of complaining out there. BARBARA VENEZIA The Orange County Register It's the little things that annoy us the most – pet peeves – others' irritating behavior. Your degree of tolerance probably determines what peeves you. A Google search of pet peeves turns up 2.44 million sites. Apparently little annoyances are quite rampant. At www.getannoyed.com, they claim to have the "Web's Largest List of Pet Peeves". If you weren't PO'd before, just reading the list will get you revved up. At www.mypetpeeves.com, you can "rant, rave and revel" and enter their $1,000.00 pet peeve contest. At www.thinkchristian.net you can blog your prayer pet peeves. Yes, there really IS an outlet to complain about every itchy behavior that bugs you. But are we becoming a nation of complainers and getting more and more intolerant? I asked my OC Register e-mail list (which you can be part of by sending me your e-mail address for notices about my columns) members what peeves them most. As you can imagine, there were lots. I was surprised how many explained they felt better writing/venting, even if it were only to me. Chuck's peeve: "The traffic lights on MacArthur and Jamboree aren't synchronized." Mike hates it when "local government makes promises and doesn't keep them". (Mike needs to wake up and realize that IS local government). Mark's agitated when a store won't accept a bill over $20. Angela gave her peeve a name, "the victimization syndrome." She wants "everyone to start taking responsibility for their actions instead of blaming everyone else." (A lot of peeves would tragically be lost if that happened!) The No. 1 pet peeve in my unofficial survey: "Friends sending endless e-mail jokes." Attention jokesters: If you send out more than one joke a year, to more than two friends, then you're part of someone's pet peeve. Reading this should give you a clue to stop. … And by the way, you need to get a life. Your friends are being kind in not telling you that. Lateness was the second biggest peeve. "Dinner guests showing up an hour late." "My girlfriend's never on time." Etc. Here's a tip: Wait for no one. If you're late to dinner, you get cold food. Don't arrive on time, we've left for the show. A friend who was chronically late asked why I stopped inviting her to things. I explained, "Because you're always late. I assumed you were too busy. I didn't want to add to your already stretched schedule." She was never late again. The third biggest peeve: Driving habits. No one put it better than Steve, who wrote, "How about drivers who choose not to use their blinkers or just cut you off because they aren't paying attention? 'Oh, I'm sorry, my mind-reading capability isn't working today. I didn't realize you were going from the car-pool lane to the next exit, across seven lanes of traffic on the 405 so everyone could slam on their brakes! Just wait one mile and turn your stupid self around!" In an already stressful world how DO we lessen our peeves? By understanding what pushes our buttons and looking toward solutions, we can eliminate a lot of what bothers us. Of course, we could simply become more tolerant. Hmm…we'd have to stop complaining? What would we do at city council meetings if that happened? |
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