Things That Grind My Gears
Isn't hate one of the most delicious emotions? Seriously. I know, I know, I know that I'm not supposed to hate people or things. But it's such a self-indulgent emotion. I would be lying if I said I don't relish it sometimes.
I have a long list, believe me, of things that I hate. But these three are at the top of my list, things that I hate and am -- even worse -- constantly exposed to.
1) People who wear exercise clothing in public when they have no plans on exercising
I work in a lab. Which is by no means a professional environment. I am always in jeans, often in a t-shirt. Sometimes what I am wearing is holey; sometimes a perfectly fine item comes in and leaves holey. But I am a grown up. I always manage to make it to work in something other than glorified pajamas.
In all honestly, I'm not a big fan of anyone wearing workout clothes anywhere that's not the gym. I admit that I am sometimes responsible for wearing gym clothes to the store after a workout, but it's not my preference and I usually have on some sort of large shirt or jacket to cover my ass. (Because, fact: I don't have gym pants; my ass has gym pants, and I don't need everyone to see my business. It's different when I am at the gym -- everyone can see everyone's business, and so it's ok.)
Because I work out pretty often, and often for decently long periods of time, I can sometimes spend 3 or 4 hours of time in my gym clothes. But those hours are NEVER the same hours that I'm in my lab with my co-workers. And certainly never just hours when I was just too lazy to wear clothes that have buttons on them. If you want to wear exercise clothes for a living, then be a personal trainer or a junky housewife.
(in interest of full disclosure, I often give my best friend a pass on this rule. however, in her favor, it's usually because she has to go to a doctor's appointment or to get an MRI and she doesn't want to have any metal on her)
2) People who ask me when I'm getting engaged or -- worse -- when I'm going to have children
First, I'll cover the baby-having portion of this. Number one -- Have you seen my house? I'll give you a few clues. Weeks after Halloween, it still looks like the Hobby Lobby took a giant shit in my living room. I've been eating with plasticware for the past few weeks because we have no clean silverware. We are still sleeping on our mattress and boxspring on the floor, because we never assembled our bed after we moved. We are in no way prepared for the responsibility of a little person. Number two -- Have you seen how much money we make? I'll give you a hint: one of us is a professional student on a (low, living wage) stipend. The other one of us is a department manager at Wal-Mart (with a college degree that would have gotten him a job, fast, any year of graduation before 2009). Although we live relatively comfortably -- can pay bills, are able to go out to eat at relatively nice places and buy most things (within reason) that we want -- bringing a child into this world would be complicated. Number three -- bipolar disorder. I am on a medication that is not approved for use during pregnancy and has shown some teratogenicity. Although I'm not jazzed about going off of it ever, I will one day when I chose to have little people. But it will take extensive planning, and extensive coordination of resources. I'm not ready to do that, yet. I don't think either of us is.
Number four -- we're not married. I would like to be married before I have kids and/or buy a house. All other things are negotiable.
So, all of you who ask me when I'm getting married (including those of you who want me to get married solely so you'll be able to wedge yourself into my wedding planning; actually especially those of you who want me to get married solely so you'll be able to wedge yourself into my wedding planning), the answer is Whenever Joey and I Damn Well Please. Everyone acts like it's so easy to get married. But it isn't. There are a lot of things to consider.
Like. 1) What type of ceremony to have? I am at least moderately religious; one of Joey's favorite things to say is "That's a trick question, there is no God." 2) Where to have it? We are from the same town, but most of our friends live somewhere else. Since our general idea of a wedding is "Bigass Party Where We Give Friends Lots Of Booze (and declare undying love for each other)," we'd like to have it here. But here is very expensive and is a popular spot for destination weddings. Which brings us to 3) See above where I mentioned our salaries. My parents have five kids, and they are still in the process of putting some of them through college. There isn't an ample amount of money, and we kind of want to wait until we are in a financial situation to have the wedding of our dreams (and that includes an open bar with good alcohol).
But the biggest thing is this: we were engaged before and it ended kind of poorly. Yes, it ended poorly because I had a mental illness. Yes, it has been a very long time since that awful awful time in our lives (as much time now since we broke the engagement as the time before we got engaged). But the wounds that were there were so deep. We are doing so well, having so much fun together -- and we have been for a while now. And it is disrespectful to his patience, to all of the work I've done in therapy and with psychiatrists, disrespectful to the busted road of love that we traveled until we reached something better, to imply that it's really not that important until we're engaged or married. Yes, the ring is beautiful; I've worn it before and I hope one day to be lucky enough to wear it again. But it's nothing in comparison to his comfortable and broken-in love, which I wear every day.
So, yeah, sometimes I really want to silence those who keep asking with, "Well, we were engaged before and I was crazy and fucked around on him with several different people in a short amount of time, so I kind of understand his reluctance to put a ring on it, if you know what I mean." Seriously, people who have no idea what they are talking about are cordially invited to get the fuck out of my face.
3) Traffic
Number 3 is such a constant source of my displeasure that my friend Joe used to call me the "Jenny B---- Traffic Report" when I would start a sentence with, "Do you KNOW what happened TODAY?" When I go flipping through notebooks -- both old and current -- there are crude drawing of traffic situations I have witnessed. I am serious about traffic.
I am part-time driver and part-time pedestrian. So I am sympathetic to both sides. And over the past 3 years (the number of years when I've been equal parts drive and pedestrian), I have developed two rules for etiquette. Rule one: Pay attention. Rule two: Don't be an asshole.
Honestly, people break rule one much more often than two. Most of us aren't assholes, most of the time. We are nice people, who will let someone over or cross the street. The real problem is that, a lot of the time, we aren't aware that those people have those needs because we aren't paying attention. For example, I used to have to merge left very quickly to get to my parking lot -- the left turn lane arose out of a lane that joined mine only 100s of feet before the turn. I cannot tell you how many times I needed to get over to the left and sat there with my blinker on, waiting for the person behind me and to my left to look up from their phone and let me in.
Although people often do appalling things in their cars to other people in cars, these are no comparison to some things I've seen while being a pedestrian.
Being a pedestrian is scary. I have a pretty fervent respect for the rules of pedestrianism -- not because I'm scared of being hit, but because I'm all the time in my car waiting for some errant pedestrian who is not following the rules and it irks me. Everyone is big on "Pedestrians have the right of way!" and we do. We totally do. However, that means "When pedestrians are in the crosswalk and have the 'WALK' light, please don't hit them in the ass with your bumper." That does not mean, "Pedestrians can cross in heavy traffic wherever they damn well please, and scream 'WE HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!' as drivers hope that theirs brakes are tuned enough to not make them vulture feed." So, pedestrians, follow the rules.
However, drivers, you have to follow the rules too! I am totally over drivers who ignore the pedestrian walk sign. I am also over drivers who get pissed and gesture at me to hurry up when I slow down in the crosswalk -- pro-tip, I slowed down in the crosswalk because your bumper is in it and I thought I was going to get hit. When I step four feet into the crosswalk and you gun your engine, what am I supposed to do? Slowing down is a pretty reasonable response. If you pull into the crosswalk and I slow down, you are not allowed to yell out of the car, "COULD YOU GO A LITTLE FASTER?" Reap and you will sow, bitches.
Also, if you are following a car into a crosswalk and you can't see over that car, then you might want to go ahead and assume that there might be a pedestrian there. There is all the time some tiny ass car that almost hits me because their driver goes blazing into the crosswalk while following some SUV into it.
So, please be respectful, and please don't kill me or any of my fellow pedestrians.
And one last thing. When I'm crossing a highway with four lanes that all go the same direction, as I do (legally, in a crosswalk with signs) several times a day, then I have no problems with you pulling into the first two lanes while I'm walking across the last two, or vice versa. However, if you choose to not do this and wait until I've completely crossed to start turning, I will love you forever. And I will smile and wave to you, and mouth "Thank you!" to you. I promise your actions will not be unnoticed.
And if you are a PA student who is in the same parking lot as I am, and the school oversells your parking lot, and you are left as baffled as I am when you pull into a full lot 3 minutes after I do, and a spot opens up and you are in a position to snatch it, but you let me have it anyway because I was "here first?"
Then I will tell people about you all day, and no one will believe you are real. But thanks for the spot anyway, traffic fairy.
I have a long list, believe me, of things that I hate. But these three are at the top of my list, things that I hate and am -- even worse -- constantly exposed to.
1) People who wear exercise clothing in public when they have no plans on exercising
I work in a lab. Which is by no means a professional environment. I am always in jeans, often in a t-shirt. Sometimes what I am wearing is holey; sometimes a perfectly fine item comes in and leaves holey. But I am a grown up. I always manage to make it to work in something other than glorified pajamas.
In all honestly, I'm not a big fan of anyone wearing workout clothes anywhere that's not the gym. I admit that I am sometimes responsible for wearing gym clothes to the store after a workout, but it's not my preference and I usually have on some sort of large shirt or jacket to cover my ass. (Because, fact: I don't have gym pants; my ass has gym pants, and I don't need everyone to see my business. It's different when I am at the gym -- everyone can see everyone's business, and so it's ok.)
Because I work out pretty often, and often for decently long periods of time, I can sometimes spend 3 or 4 hours of time in my gym clothes. But those hours are NEVER the same hours that I'm in my lab with my co-workers. And certainly never just hours when I was just too lazy to wear clothes that have buttons on them. If you want to wear exercise clothes for a living, then be a personal trainer or a junky housewife.
(in interest of full disclosure, I often give my best friend a pass on this rule. however, in her favor, it's usually because she has to go to a doctor's appointment or to get an MRI and she doesn't want to have any metal on her)
2) People who ask me when I'm getting engaged or -- worse -- when I'm going to have children
First, I'll cover the baby-having portion of this. Number one -- Have you seen my house? I'll give you a few clues. Weeks after Halloween, it still looks like the Hobby Lobby took a giant shit in my living room. I've been eating with plasticware for the past few weeks because we have no clean silverware. We are still sleeping on our mattress and boxspring on the floor, because we never assembled our bed after we moved. We are in no way prepared for the responsibility of a little person. Number two -- Have you seen how much money we make? I'll give you a hint: one of us is a professional student on a (low, living wage) stipend. The other one of us is a department manager at Wal-Mart (with a college degree that would have gotten him a job, fast, any year of graduation before 2009). Although we live relatively comfortably -- can pay bills, are able to go out to eat at relatively nice places and buy most things (within reason) that we want -- bringing a child into this world would be complicated. Number three -- bipolar disorder. I am on a medication that is not approved for use during pregnancy and has shown some teratogenicity. Although I'm not jazzed about going off of it ever, I will one day when I chose to have little people. But it will take extensive planning, and extensive coordination of resources. I'm not ready to do that, yet. I don't think either of us is.
Number four -- we're not married. I would like to be married before I have kids and/or buy a house. All other things are negotiable.
So, all of you who ask me when I'm getting married (including those of you who want me to get married solely so you'll be able to wedge yourself into my wedding planning; actually especially those of you who want me to get married solely so you'll be able to wedge yourself into my wedding planning), the answer is Whenever Joey and I Damn Well Please. Everyone acts like it's so easy to get married. But it isn't. There are a lot of things to consider.
Like. 1) What type of ceremony to have? I am at least moderately religious; one of Joey's favorite things to say is "That's a trick question, there is no God." 2) Where to have it? We are from the same town, but most of our friends live somewhere else. Since our general idea of a wedding is "Bigass Party Where We Give Friends Lots Of Booze (and declare undying love for each other)," we'd like to have it here. But here is very expensive and is a popular spot for destination weddings. Which brings us to 3) See above where I mentioned our salaries. My parents have five kids, and they are still in the process of putting some of them through college. There isn't an ample amount of money, and we kind of want to wait until we are in a financial situation to have the wedding of our dreams (and that includes an open bar with good alcohol).
But the biggest thing is this: we were engaged before and it ended kind of poorly. Yes, it ended poorly because I had a mental illness. Yes, it has been a very long time since that awful awful time in our lives (as much time now since we broke the engagement as the time before we got engaged). But the wounds that were there were so deep. We are doing so well, having so much fun together -- and we have been for a while now. And it is disrespectful to his patience, to all of the work I've done in therapy and with psychiatrists, disrespectful to the busted road of love that we traveled until we reached something better, to imply that it's really not that important until we're engaged or married. Yes, the ring is beautiful; I've worn it before and I hope one day to be lucky enough to wear it again. But it's nothing in comparison to his comfortable and broken-in love, which I wear every day.
So, yeah, sometimes I really want to silence those who keep asking with, "Well, we were engaged before and I was crazy and fucked around on him with several different people in a short amount of time, so I kind of understand his reluctance to put a ring on it, if you know what I mean." Seriously, people who have no idea what they are talking about are cordially invited to get the fuck out of my face.
3) Traffic
Number 3 is such a constant source of my displeasure that my friend Joe used to call me the "Jenny B---- Traffic Report" when I would start a sentence with, "Do you KNOW what happened TODAY?" When I go flipping through notebooks -- both old and current -- there are crude drawing of traffic situations I have witnessed. I am serious about traffic.
I am part-time driver and part-time pedestrian. So I am sympathetic to both sides. And over the past 3 years (the number of years when I've been equal parts drive and pedestrian), I have developed two rules for etiquette. Rule one: Pay attention. Rule two: Don't be an asshole.
Honestly, people break rule one much more often than two. Most of us aren't assholes, most of the time. We are nice people, who will let someone over or cross the street. The real problem is that, a lot of the time, we aren't aware that those people have those needs because we aren't paying attention. For example, I used to have to merge left very quickly to get to my parking lot -- the left turn lane arose out of a lane that joined mine only 100s of feet before the turn. I cannot tell you how many times I needed to get over to the left and sat there with my blinker on, waiting for the person behind me and to my left to look up from their phone and let me in.
Although people often do appalling things in their cars to other people in cars, these are no comparison to some things I've seen while being a pedestrian.
Being a pedestrian is scary. I have a pretty fervent respect for the rules of pedestrianism -- not because I'm scared of being hit, but because I'm all the time in my car waiting for some errant pedestrian who is not following the rules and it irks me. Everyone is big on "Pedestrians have the right of way!" and we do. We totally do. However, that means "When pedestrians are in the crosswalk and have the 'WALK' light, please don't hit them in the ass with your bumper." That does not mean, "Pedestrians can cross in heavy traffic wherever they damn well please, and scream 'WE HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!' as drivers hope that theirs brakes are tuned enough to not make them vulture feed." So, pedestrians, follow the rules.
However, drivers, you have to follow the rules too! I am totally over drivers who ignore the pedestrian walk sign. I am also over drivers who get pissed and gesture at me to hurry up when I slow down in the crosswalk -- pro-tip, I slowed down in the crosswalk because your bumper is in it and I thought I was going to get hit. When I step four feet into the crosswalk and you gun your engine, what am I supposed to do? Slowing down is a pretty reasonable response. If you pull into the crosswalk and I slow down, you are not allowed to yell out of the car, "COULD YOU GO A LITTLE FASTER?" Reap and you will sow, bitches.
Also, if you are following a car into a crosswalk and you can't see over that car, then you might want to go ahead and assume that there might be a pedestrian there. There is all the time some tiny ass car that almost hits me because their driver goes blazing into the crosswalk while following some SUV into it.
So, please be respectful, and please don't kill me or any of my fellow pedestrians.
And one last thing. When I'm crossing a highway with four lanes that all go the same direction, as I do (legally, in a crosswalk with signs) several times a day, then I have no problems with you pulling into the first two lanes while I'm walking across the last two, or vice versa. However, if you choose to not do this and wait until I've completely crossed to start turning, I will love you forever. And I will smile and wave to you, and mouth "Thank you!" to you. I promise your actions will not be unnoticed.
And if you are a PA student who is in the same parking lot as I am, and the school oversells your parking lot, and you are left as baffled as I am when you pull into a full lot 3 minutes after I do, and a spot opens up and you are in a position to snatch it, but you let me have it anyway because I was "here first?"
Then I will tell people about you all day, and no one will believe you are real. But thanks for the spot anyway, traffic fairy.
posted by Another Chance to Get It Right at
9:02 PM
1 Comments:
I feel I should confess that sometimes I wear gym shorts and T-shirts to go to the grocery store... Exactly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with buttons. But I think aside from a couple dresses, all my work outfits have buttons (at least the pants). We can still be friends, right?
And oh my gosh -- how annoying are the wedding friends?! Where the hell were they when I got laid off less than six months later? Certainly not as interested in our well-being as they were in the damn centerpieces. People pick the wrong times to be attentive friends.
Totally with you on meds and babies. I am scared every day that we'll have a surprise, and I'll have to go cold turkey or wean and hurt the baby.
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