Pet Peeves #1 (Originally posted 5/9/08)

1. I heat up the milk in my mug for my coffee. It tastes better and stays hotter longer. But it seems that every time I go to put my mug in the microwave at work, the glass turntable is off the track. WTF are people heating up in there? Bricks? What is so damn heavy that it knocks the turntable off the track every time? Are you SURE you wanna eat that? BTW, you knew you knocked it off. FIX IT.

2. Walgreens and CVS no longer process regular film - they only do digital photos now. That's cool, whatever. But, when you physically go to a CVS or Walgreens, they say, "Oh, the machine is broken" or, "the machine isn't working right". After getting that at no less than 3 different stores, we went online and found out they just don't do regular film anymore. WHY DON'T THEY JUST TELL YOU THAT AT THE DAMN STORE instead of bullshitting and wasting our time?

3. Yes, gas prices are getting ridiculous. Here's a newsflash: Other countries, especially the UK, are laughing at us. Other countries love to see us greedy, fat, over-consuming Americans unhappy about anything, so no sympathy is forthcoming. The Oil Cartel buys more Mercedes. The oil companies are richer than ever and could give a crap about anyone. Stop bitching and take the bus, the train or carpool if at all possible. It's like being in New York in the summer and whining about the humidity. WHINING ISN'T GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING. SUCK IT UP AND DEAL.

4. Ladies, for the gazillionth time, no one wants to see your expelling privates. So, when you're in the bathroom, here's the deal. If you're going to cover every crack of the stall with toilet paper (ensuring that I am left with ONE SQUARE with which to work with, thanks, bitch) ANSWER when I knock on your stall door! How the hell am I supposed to know if it's occupied if I can't see a head or arms or something and you don't answer when I knock? you get pissed when I try the door, so since I'm not the friggin' IRS, working for Amway or a Jehovah's Witness, SAY SOMETHING. Anything! "Hi" or "occupied" works just fine. WTF am I supposed to do? All a wanna do is take a leak and you are making it a project.

5. Look, I'm no rocket scientist, but is there anyone with more brain cells than a knapsack taking the Air Train? I was surrounded by stupid on my way home from JFK last week. First by English people who can't read English then by a family-pack of non-English speaking people who figured they couldn't communicate with me, so they would just surround me and babble hoping I was going where they were. It was ridiculous - 20 people standing in front of one door...when there was like, TEN doors to choose from. I had to make a break for it to the other end of the platform.

6. Speaking of unfortunate unchecked breeding, Paris Hilton recently said that she, "...loved South Africa and West Africa...they're both great countries." Jesus H. Christ. Someone please take this heffa's uterus and set it on fire before she births mini-versions of her dumb ass. Just goes to show, no matter how much money you have, sometimes you can't even save your own gene pool!

7. People, if someone has an unusual name, ask them how to pronounce it and actually LISTEN before you try to say it. Nothing gets my knickers in a knot faster than someone who asks how to pronounce my name, then before I can finish saying it, blurts it out wrong anyway. Even worse is when there is a peanut gallery to comment on the exchange. This happened last week at the Roulette table in NOLA. After the pit boss asked how to say my name (and then cut me off and said it incorrectly) the nimrod next to me says, "Did he just call you uterus?" Thanks for that all-important input, Dan Rather. "No," I replied, he just called me urethra, yet another attractive body part." So now I'm twice as annoyed. But hey, at least I won some money....