Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[rcc]

Never wear anything bought in any store without washing it first. Walmart, Macy's, anywhere.

[Mindthinkr]

21 minutes ago, rcc said:

Never wear anything bought in any store without washing it first. Walmart, Macy's, anywhere.

I don't drink much soda...I was always told to wash the can tops before drinking out of them because when in storage they can sometimes be sprayed with a insect or rodent repellent. I guess the answer is to literally wash everything that can be washed. This includes cans before opening them. 

[TattleTeeny]

For the first time in a bazillion years, I had to wear something without washing it first--a dress from Target. I busted the back zipper of my much better vintage dress at work, so I then had to put on a long cardigan in 90-dregree weather and hope to find something nearby. I did (and I actually liked it!), and put it on in the changing room and went about my business. It was all oddly stressful.

[theredhead77]

3 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I don't drink much soda...I was always told to wash the can tops before drinking out of them because when in storage they can sometimes be sprayed with a insect or rodent repellent. I guess the answer is to literally wash everything that can be washed. This includes cans before opening them. 

I worked for a major grocery store and used to pull inventory from the warehouse. Always at least rinse the tops of canned food and soda cans.

[Smurf]

3 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I don't drink much soda...I was always told to wash the can tops before drinking out of them because when in storage they can sometimes be sprayed with a insect or rodent repellent. I guess the answer is to literally wash everything that can be washed. This includes cans before opening them. 

Ewwww, Thanx for posting that. I don't drink much soda but I do drink a lot of Water Bottles and Snapple Teas. That is just gross to think.

Hope no one has a Pet Peeve of Thanks being spelled Thanx. :)

[ennui]

8 minutes ago, Quof said:

My Pet Peeve is children in places intended for adults. 

Or adults pretending to be children in places intended for adults. 

I'm developing a pet peeve about so-called "service" animals in people places. 

[Katy M]

15 minutes ago, ennui said:

I'm developing a pet peeve about so-called "service" animals in people places. 

The thing that annoys me about the people with fake service animals is that they make it harder for the people who need real service animals. 

[bilgistic]

1 hour ago, theredhead77 said:

I worked for a major grocery store and used to pull inventory from the warehouse. Always at least rinse the tops of canned food and soda cans.

I need to know more, please! Spoiler tag it for the squeamish.

[theredhead77]

4 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I need to know more, please! Spoiler tag it for the squeamish.

What was posted above, bug and pest spray can get on cans but also think about it. A can leaves a [hopefully] sterile encouragement, goes on a truck to a warehouse that is exposed to the outside where bugs and creatures can get in through loading docks, people who handle the merchandise in the warehouse use gloves that may have come in contact with non food things, etc...

 

Also, ice machines, anywhere are disgusting inside.

[bilgistic]

Dang, I was waiting for something really gross. I've heard about rats running over tops of cans and leaving poo behind.

[Katy M]

I hate the phrase "broke the internet." Also, it "destroyed us."  Now, I don't mean in every sense.  If your child died, if a whole country was destroyed by a tsunami, etc, "it destroyed us" would be a perfectly reasonable response.  A celebrity posing with a puppy, not so much.

[theredhead77]

8 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Dang, I was waiting for something really gross. I've heard about rats running over tops of cans and leaving poo behind.

I'm sure that's happened. I never saw it personally though. 

After working for an HVAC company ad hearing stories about ice machines it's rare that I consume ice I didn't make at home.

[Qoass]

Can the term "side hustle" just go away? People have been doing stuff outside of full time work to supplement their income forever and slapping a new, stupid name on it doesn't make it cool.

[Blergh]

Anyone else see this in their locale yet?  HALLOWEEN store displays over two months before the actual event! ARGH!!

 

 Come on. I know summer's over, the kids are back-to-school but can't they just let folks have normal non-holiday downtime for even a few weeks  in the stores before having to hype displays and costumes that'll likely be ignored/forgotten about by those few folks' kids who successfully pester their folks to buy?

 Sadly, I'm already anticipating the hours-long 'downtime' between Halloween and Christmas Day that'll happen in the wee hours of November 1st. Boo.

[DeLurker]

I'd like the term double down to cease to be used, especially by the media.

[rcc]

18 hours ago, Smurf said:

Ewwww, Thanx for posting that. I don't drink much soda but I do drink a lot of Water Bottles and Snapple Teas. That is just gross to think.

Hope no one has a Pet Peeve of Thanks being spelled Thanx. :)

No thanx is fine but I do not like Xmas.

[bilgistic]

If you're going to write "thanx", just go for "thx" instead. "Thanx" is saving only one letter.

[DeLurker]

Two actually

[auntlada]

Unless I'm counting wrong, which is possible, it's a net savings of one letter because you are taking out two (ks) and adding one (x).

[Katy M]

9 hours ago, Blergh said:

Anyone else see this in their locale yet?  HALLOWEEN store displays over two months before the actual event! ARGH!!

We're probably only two weeks out from Christmas displays.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 8/24/2017 at 6:49 PM, ennui said:

I'm developing a pet peeve about so-called "service" animals in people places. 

Major peeve of mine, too.  Have you seen this article before? 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/pets-allowed

[topanga]

3 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Major peeve of mine, too.  Have you seen this article before? 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/pets-allowed

That is ridiculous. Service animals are one thing, but ruining someone else's lunch or plane ride because you want to keep your animal with you at your convenience? Selfish and rude. 

My ongoing pet peeve? School fundraisers. I have two high-schoolers who won't go back to school until next week, but I'm already being inundated with requests to make a donation or attend special fundraising dinners. Worse yet, my kids are being asked to supply the school with names and email addresses of people to harass with donation requests.  I hate to do it, but my kids will be 'penalized' (I have no idea how) for not participating in school fundraising efforts. If I were a rich woman, I'd simply donate the money myself. 

I do try to limit my victims to relatives, close friends I don't know won't mind, and people who've hit me up for their own kids' fundraisers. I mean, I get it--schools and extracurricular programs often don't have enough money to cover their costs, and teachers and coaches have to find some way to bridge the gap. But I absolutely hate what essentially amounts to standing on the side of the road and holding up a sign. 

Edited August 26, 2017 by topanga

[TattleTeeny]

I don't often drink right from a can but I don't find it at all out of the ordinary ot clean off anything that one is about to put one's mouth on (haha, no off-color remarks; I just realized how that sounds...though maybe that's a sound plan too). It would just be reflexive to me. 

Edited August 26, 2017 by TattleTeeny

[Zola]

26 minutes ago, TattleTeeny said:

I don't often drink right from a can but I don't find it at all out of the ordinary ot clean off anything that one is about to put one's mouth on (haha, no off-color remarks; I just realized how that sounds...though maybe that's a sound plan too). It would just be reflexive to me. 

I don't drink from cans or bottles bought from stores for similar reasons. Probably paranoia, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, especially the state of some ring pull lids that look decidedly grimy. Same with fruit and veg - all have to be rinsed and cleaned religiously before eating. 

[Quof]

To conclude the saga of the Home HandyPerson:  The guy showed up when he said he would, took a little bit longer than expected to do the job, so I paid him a little bit more than he had quoted, he did great work.  I told him I would recommend him to everyone I know.  But in fact I think I will keep him all to myself, lest someone steal him away.  

[StatisticalOutlier]

3 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

I don't often drink right from a can but I don't find it at all out of the ordinary ot clean off anything that one is about to put one's mouth on (haha, no off-color remarks; I just realized how that sounds...though maybe that's a sound plan too). It would just be reflexive to me. 

I've discovered canned fizzy water and drink a lot of it.  If I remember to do it, I run my thumb over the top of the soda can, but that's it.  And a while back I opened a can of fruit or something and noticed the lid dropped flat into the can, submerged.  Yuck, right?  But I just handle it the same way I handle meat--don't think about it. 

I help out in a soup kitchen and it's been enlightening to see how others do kitchen stuff.  This one woman rinses cantaloupes.  It never occurred to me to do that (well, obviously, since I don't even rinse cans), but I guess when you cut it, the knife starts on the outside and could collect something from the outside and push it into the inside.  Seems a little excessive to me.

[I used to go out with a guy who taught Health to 9th graders.  His mantra was, "What do you have an immune system for?"]

I also wash dishes there, and think about it every time I use a glass or fork in a restaurant.  Yeah, I know it's sanitized, but...gross.

Oh, but the fizzy water brings up a constant peeve--having to read labels so carefully these days.  It's waaay too easy to think you're buying lemon seltzer water when what you're actually getting is some sort of "beverage" with Splenda or something like that.  I've bitched about this before here, but "no sugar" might mean it has Splenda instead, and some of the waters say "no sweetener" but I'm not 100% confident what that means.  I dislike shopping enough--I don't need it to turn into an IQ test when reading the labels.

[janestclair]

4 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I've discovered canned fizzy water and drink a lot of it.  If I remember to do it, I run my thumb over the top of the soda can, but that's it.  And a while back I opened a can of fruit or something and noticed the lid dropped flat into the can, submerged.  Yuck, right?  But I just handle it the same way I handle meat--don't think about it. 

I help out in a soup kitchen and it's been enlightening to see how others do kitchen stuff.  This one woman rinses cantaloupes.  It never occurred to me to do that (well, obviously, since I don't even rinse cans), but I guess when you cut it, the knife starts on the outside and could collect something from the outside and push it into the inside.  Seems a little excessive to me.

[I used to go out with a guy who taught Health to 9th graders.  His mantra was, "What do you have an immune system for?"]

I also wash dishes there, and think about it every time I use a glass or fork in a restaurant.  Yeah, I know it's sanitized, but...gross.

Oh, but the fizzy water brings up a constant peeve--having to read labels so carefully these days.  It's waaay too easy to think you're buying lemon seltzer water when what you're actually getting is some sort of "beverage" with Splenda or something like that.  I've bitched about this before here, but "no sugar" might mean it has Splenda instead, and some of the waters say "no sweetener" but I'm not 100% confident what that means.  I dislike shopping enough--I don't need it to turn into an IQ test when reading the labels.

I have never wiped off a can before drinking from it unless there was visible schmutz on it.  My mom also used to rinse cantaloupes.  

It's extra annoying reading labels because "no artificial sweetener" could mean there's stevia or monkfruit in it, both of which are vile.  Then you have the fancy beverages which have agave nectar, which is basically another way of saying it's regular sugar.  La Croix seltzer has no sweetener in it whatsoever, so that's what I buy all the time.  No reading the label, and it's delicious.  I've stopped drinking soda at home, so seltzer and plain iced tea are all I drink.  

[DeLurker]

10 hours ago, topanga said:

Worse yet, my kids are being asked to supply the school with names and email addresses of people to harass with donation requests.

I'd probably give the names and email addresses of the people who decide on school budgets at the state and local level.

[Quof]

I'm all about Boylan's Lemon Seltzer. Please don't tell me it's full of chemical crap, I don't want to know.

Otherwise I drink Perrier at home or in restaurants.  I gave up soda years ago, but discovered I really liked the bubbles most.  I will have an Italian soda, but I generally cut it half and half with sparkling water. 

[Moose135]

1 hour ago, janestclair said:

I have never wiped off a can before drinking from it unless there was visible schmutz on it.

Many people, especially since I moved to Charlotte, look at me funny when I use the word schmutz.

[bilgistic]

8 hours ago, Zola said:

I don't drink from cans or bottles bought from stores for similar reasons. Probably paranoia, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, especially the state of some ring pull lids that look decidedly grimy. Same with fruit and veg - all have to be rinsed and cleaned religiously before eating. 

I have a former friend who, along with her live-in disabled father, mocked me for washing vegetables. I never understood their reason why--something about dirt being being OK to ingest in moderation and building up one's immune system...or something. She had a toddler at the time. How about fertilizer and pesticides? I don't know.

[Quof]

I grow many of my own vegetables.  Since I am a lazy gardener, and barely water them, I certainly don't use fertilizer or pesticide.  I guess I could skip washing them (or even sell them as organic?).  I wash them because of the grit.  And the creepy crawlies.  

[Katy M]

On ‎8‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 10:30 AM, walnutqueen said:

Here's a peeve:  I can deal with all the indignities of "old age" and being a post menopausal woman.  The Big Ones, that is.  But it's the littlest things that piss me off the most.  I know some ladies lament about the ubiquitous chin hairs (and yes, I've got those, too), but I want to bitch about the random wild eyebrow hair.  The one that pops up coarser and of a different color than all the rest, and is about 3 times longer than it has any right to be.  Just what in the holy hell is happening inside my body to make this freakish hair sprout from my right eyebrow (and yes, it is always the right side, never the left)?  The rest of the hair on my body is totally normal - hell, I don't even have the lovely grey hair on my head for solace - but this delinquent follicle is pissing me off!

Well, I hope you're happy.  I was just cleaning in the bathroom, and I look up into the mirror and I see a mongo gray hair coming out of one of my eyebrows.  I feel like you cursed me somehow.  It's on the left side, so maybe it's your other one.

[walnutqueen]

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

Well, I hope you're happy.  I was just cleaning in the bathroom, and I look up into the mirror and I see a mongo gray hair coming out of one of my eyebrows.  I feel like you cursed me somehow.  It's on the left side, so maybe it's your other one.

The curse of the wicked witch (or is that bitch?)!  I mourn for the loss of your innocence and fair youth, and am happy to welcome another crone into the fold, but retain my rights to plausible deniability for your errant left eyebrow hair.  ;-)

[bilgistic]

Welcome, indeed. I feel like I woke up one day and thought, "Where did my life go?" I'm theoretically only about halfway done, barring any unforeseen accidents, but damn if I'm not exhausted. My grandmother is 91 and still lives by herself, drives, cooks (full Christmas dinner for the whole family!), does all the things. I don't know that I want to be around that long. Maybe if I wasn't born with chronic depression, I'd feel differently!

[bilgistic]

This cracked me up. From Forbes:

For The Eclipse, People Put Sunscreen On Their Eyeballs

Quote

This is not the way you are supposed to use sunscreen. The directions on a sunscreen bottle typically do not say: 1. Open bottle 2. Squeeze some sunscreen on your fingers and hands. 3. Put on eyeballs. In fact, this is true for most things around you such as spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, or toothpaste.

It goes on to say that opthalmologists are seeing people who did this. Imagine being an eye doctor and one of your regular your eye exam patients, Jim, comes in to see you for a raging eye infection, and he says the cause is his putting Coppertone on his eyeballs so he could watch the eclipse.

Do you a) step out of the exam room to tell your colleagues and fall over laughing, b) call the authorities on Jim because he's clearly a danger to himself and others, c) call the local news, who will release the story on the wire where it will be picked up by Forbes, or d) all of the above.

[AgentRXS]

I choose D.

People are such idiots.

[Zola]

2 hours ago, bilgistic said:

This cracked me up. From Forbes:

For The Eclipse, People Put Sunscreen On Their Eyeballs

It goes on to say that opthalmologists are seeing people who did this. Imagine being an eye doctor and one of your regular your eye exam patients, Jim, comes in to see you for a raging eye infection, and he says the cause is his putting Coppertone on his eyeballs so he could watch the eclipse.

Do you a) step out of the exam room to tell your colleagues and fall over laughing, b) call the authorities on Jim because he's clearly a danger to himself and others, c) call the local news, who will release the story on the wire where it will be picked up by Forbes, or d) all of the above.

Quote

hen, flush your eyes with plenty of eye drops, saline, or running water, while blinking frequently. Of course, be careful about the source of water. You shouldn’t use something that will damage your eye like a fire hose or is dirty like what’s in the Hudson River or your toilet. 

From the same article I saw this disturbing comment - I mean are people that dumb to want to wash from a toilet bowl!? 

7 hours ago, walnutqueen said:

The curse of the wicked witch (or is that bitch?)!  I mourn for the loss of your innocence and fair youth, and am happy to welcome another crone into the fold, but retain my rights to plausible deniability for your errant left eyebrow hair.  ;-)

I shall be performing a daily eyebrow check from now on, for any signs of my first virginal grey hair, which will be well and truly plucked!

[TattleTeeny]

Quote

It's extra annoying reading labels because "no artificial sweetener" could mean there's stevia or monkfruit in it, both of which are vile.  Then you have the fancy beverages which have agave nectar, which is basically another way of saying it's regular sugar.  La Croix seltzer has no sweetener in it whatsoever, so that's what I buy all the time.  No reading the label, and it's delicious.  I've stopped drinking soda at home, so seltzer and plain iced tea are all I drink.  

I go through a ton of seltzer (unflavored) cans a week (used to use bottles but then the recycling would fill up with plastic so fast, and it would go flat on the off chance I didn't finish it all at once). I've started using metal straws, which need to be washed, obviously--they come with a little brush--but when you're drinking just water with them, there's no need to get too crazy with the scrubbing. 

Haha, I also use it to "cut" my white wine if that's what I am drinking. Yes, it's a bit "trashy" (not that I am ever indulging in a fancy-pants wine or anything--or that I would even know what one was) but it tastes good and prevents one from killing that bottle way too fast and inviting a gnarly headache! 

Edited August 27, 2017 by TattleTeeny

[Mindthinkr]

22 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Oh, but the fizzy water brings up a constant peeve--having to read labels so carefully these days.  It's waaay too easy to think you're buying lemon seltzer water when what you're actually getting is some sort of "beverage" with Splenda or something like that.  I've bitched about this before here, but "no sugar" might mean it has Splenda instead, and some of the waters say "no sweetener" but I'm not 100% confident what that means.  I dislike shopping enough--I don't need it to turn into an IQ test when reading the labels.

This irks me when I'm out to eat. I like seltzer. Plain. No sugar or substitutes. NO SALT. Club soda has a pinch of salt in it. So if I go out and inquire "Do you have seltzer?", I usually receive the answer yes. Then when it comes to the table I taste the salt and know I've been given club. Ugh. I dislike salt and even a wedge of lemon or lime won't take that burn off of my tongue. So it's off to join the rest of you to drink Perrier (slight mineral taste) and Pelligrino. 

Our local water is contaminated. Last week Erin Brockovitch was here to see if she could help and get us some media attention to help make the ppl putting the contaminates in our water supply stop. There is no way to filter the chemical out. If you want clean water you have to buy bottled. What is sad is that not everyone can afford bottled. Well water in the areas are showing that they too, are contaminated. (PS They knew about the cancer causing pollution for years but hid the truth. Those class action attorneys have been flooding the local stations with ads) 

[ratgirlagogo]

21 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I have a former friend who, along with her live-in disabled father, mocked me for washing vegetables. I never understood their reason why--something about dirt being being OK to ingest in moderation and building up one's immune system...or something. She had a toddler at the time. How about fertilizer and pesticides? I don't know.

I'm familiar with the "dirt theory" about autoimmune disorders and it does make some sense to me - but I've NEVER heard it put forward that you shouldn't wash vegetables!  As far as that goes even when you wash them you've going to retain a little (hopefully a useful) bit of the "good" microbial dirt.  The kind of grit and dirt and dust you get in filthy urban buildings BTW is "bad" dirt that just gives your kids asthma and doesn't contain enough helpful critters to strengthen your immune system.  According to this theory, anyway.

21 hours ago, Quof said:

 I wash them because of the grit.  And the creepy crawlies.

Yeah, I'd think so.  How could you possibly eat spinach or collards or kale or anything like that without washing all the sand out of it first?

[Zola]

One reason why I wash fruit & veg bought from a supermarket is that you never know how many fingers, hands (and noses) have prodded, poked, sniffed, squeezed, maybe even licked the item in question before deciding to put it back on the display shelf waiting for the next unsuspecting shopper to pick it up and take it home!

Edited August 27, 2017 by Zola

[peacheslatour]

35 minutes ago, Zola said:

One reason why I wash fruit & veg bought from a supermarket is that you never know how many fingers, hands (and noses) have prodded, poked, sniffed, squeezed, maybe even licked the item in question before deciding to put it back on the display shelf waiting for the next unsuspecting shopper to pick it up and take it home!

o_O Eeeeewwww.

[TattleTeeny]

YES! Anything that hands touch gets cleaned! Well, I'm sure I miss some in day-to-day life, but I do clean my own light switches pretty often.

[auntlada]

Just because you (the editorial you) saw a TV show on some pseudo-documentary channel does not make the show's topic real and does not mean everything the so-called experts said was right. Have some skepticism and check it out for yourself -- including the credentials of those experts.

[Katy M]

13 minutes ago, stewedsquash said:

(I am acknowledging that this comment by me is playing to a sexist stereotype (yet true, come guys you know it): The men will be like she has shoes?)

This is a peeve of mine! Every time I see it, in pictures or in real life, I want to go over and fix the strap on the left out baby toe!

http://smokeroom.com/2017/08/28/photos-heidi-klum-hits-vmas-in-totally-sheer-gold-dress/

I don't think I've ever noticed that before. I think I don't spend a lot of time looking at people's feet, honestly. But, that looks uncomfortable.  Why would you not want your toe inside the strap.  But, I'm going to say that every time I see pictures like that, I just want to put more dress on the upper area.

[JTMacc99]

She's lucky the toe is the only thing that escaped from what's supposed to be holding things in. 

[auntlada]

1 hour ago, stewedsquash said:

(I am acknowledging that this comment by me is playing to a sexist stereotype (yet true, come guys you know it): The men will be like she has shoes?)

This is a peeve of mine! Every time I see it, in pictures or in real life, I want to go over and fix the strap on the left out baby toe!

http://smokeroom.com/2017/08/28/photos-heidi-klum-hits-vmas-in-totally-sheer-gold-dress/

Straight female here. If you hadn't mentioned the shoes, I don't think I would have noticed she had on shoes. I don't know who dresses her, but she needs someone else. And not because she's showing skin, but because what she's showing doesn't look good. It should all look better than that, especially on her.

[DeLurker]

3 minutes ago, auntlada said:

It should all look better than that, especially on her.

This.  The woman has been genetically blessed to the point that looking bad takes an effort.  Between the hair, makeup and dress she is a giant splotch of beige/taupe/some neutral color that only paint swatches can name.  If she stood in front of a beige background, the only thing you would see is the Cheshire Cat smile.

[Zola]

1 hour ago, auntlada said:

Straight female here. If you hadn't mentioned the shoes, I don't think I would have noticed she had on shoes. I don't know who dresses her, but she needs someone else. And not because she's showing skin, but because what she's showing doesn't look good. It should all look better than that, especially on her.

I am not a straight female but would endorse your thoughts. That "dress" doesn't do her any favours in the slightest, which is unfortunate because I do admire her in a lot of ways. And the toe just ruins the aesthetic further.