Author: Susie (Page 26 of 48)

I’m becoming convinced that people are the most annoying creatures on earth.  Worse than mosquitos, bed bugs, and even fire ants.  At least, in terms of annoying behavior.  After all, those other critters have brains the size of pin heads.  Humans, on the other hand, have large amounts of grey cells in their heads, and yet we so frequently forget to use any of them.

               My argument to support this theory begins in the grocery store lots.  Most groceries have two sizes of carts (not including electric carts and those big ones with toy trucks attached).  Hence, most parking lots have – in their dozens of cart corrals – two metal slots in which to place your cart once done unloading the groceries into your car.

               Common sense would tell us to put large carts on one side and smaller carts on the other side.  This not only saves wear and tear on the carts, but is helpful to the poor schmucks who have to retrieve those carts during thunderstorms, hail, sleet, and/or snow (all of which can happen on the same day in Ohio, season depending).

               One grocery store I frequent even has signs posted at the end of these slots.  BIG signs.  Signs that say “LARGE” on one side and “SMALL” on the other. 

               Now I realize that these are words that not every American can read, so I’m willing to overlook a few, occasional mix-ups.

               But these events are not occasional.  Every single time I go shopping, I have to rearrange carts in the cart corral because some human (or two or three) has put a cart into a slot with a differently–sized cart in front of it.  Then many more humans often add carts, willy-nilly, without thought to the size issue.

               Every. Single. Time.  This annoys me.  This annoys me a lot. And only humans exhibit this behavior.  You will never find a dog, horse, or firefly engaging in poor cart corralling.

               Then there are the humans that exhibit annoying behavior under the guise of “helping” others.  Here’s an example:

               Earlier this year I received a card with a little plastic card attached that entitles me to a free Junior ice cream (with another purchase) any time all year long.  This was a reward for something I did and I was thrilled.

               I put the card into my wallet, as it fits perfectly into one of the many credit card slots.  The little plastic card could be removed and put on a key ring (it has a little hole for that purpose), but I don’t like things hanging on my key ring.  Plus, in order to use it, I’d have to give the clerk at the drive-through window my keys.  That would be (no surprise here) annoying.

               So, the first time we used it, we ordered the junior ice cream, a regular ice cream and a diet soda. When it was time to pay, I handed the card to the clerk and she said, “Oh, you can take this off the card and get a free ice cream every time you come for a year.” As she spoke, she ripped the little plastic token off the card, then handed it back to me, tossing the bigger card into a trash can.

               I sat stunned.  I didn’t want it off the card.  I wanted it on the card, in my wallet.  Miss Helpful Clerk was unaware of my distress and proceeded to charge me $5.42. 

               “Excuse me, but isn’t the junior ice cream free?”  I asked.

               “Oh, yeah,” she replied.  “I forgot.”  

               Annoying.  My cat is less aggravating, and she’s a wacky thing. 

               Humans.  Yep, we’re just exasperating.

               Last week we went to a minor league baseball game.  They are always fun, and even more so now that the 30-second pitching rule has gone into effect!  While there, we enjoyed the game, the people-watching, and the yummy, not-on-our-diet food choices.

               At one point, the lady seated beside the man next to my husband decided to leave the stands for a treat.  We knew this because much later she returned with popcorn.  But in the moment, what we noticed is that rather than make about ten of us stand up, she opted to climb over the seat in front of her.  The row in front of us was basically empty at this point.

               Let me digress to mention that this lady was 82 years old.  I know this only because her husband – who was sitting next to mine – mentioned this fact after what we now refer to as “the last time” incident.

               The lady got one foot over and onto the ground.  In pulling over her second foot, it became wedged between the seat and back of the chair, with the seat pushed up.  She could not free herself.  Her husband – who we later learned was 86 – attempted to rescue her by pulling on her arm. This only pulled her off balance and made her lean into the leg that was stuck.

               My husband, busily engaged in eating his own popcorn, threw down his handful of corn and grasped her by both arms.  He probably could have lifted her straight up – as she weighed about 80 pounds – but he didn’t want to (a) alarm her or (b) hurt her further.  He helped her husband pull her up enough that she was able to extricate her leg and get both feet on the ground.

               She was unhurt and laughing and as she walked by me, she grinned and said, “That’s the last time I try that!”

               She returned with the popcorn and enjoyed the rest of the game.  Our husbands developed a game-long friendship and exchanged stories throughout the afternoon.

               Her “last time” reminded me that I’ve had a few of those myself.  About 20 years ago, I took my last swing on a monkey vine.  For those of you not raised in Pennsylvania, that’s a grapevine big enough to swing on.

               My hubby, son, and I were walking in our woods when I noticed a large vine swinging from a tree just off the path.  It looked to me like it would swing out over the ravine and back quite safely.  I squealed with delight and said, “Oh, look, a monkey vine!  I haven’t done this in years.”

               As I grabbed the vine and got a running start, I was barely aware of my husband saying, “I don’t think that’s a good…” as I swung out over the ravine.  As he ended his sentence with “…idea,” the vine snapped and I plummeted several feet to the ground on my posterior.

               I wasn’t hurt – at least not much – but had the wind knocked out of me.  I heard complete silence from my family above and when I finally turned around to see if they were coming to help me, I saw them both doubled over, laughing so hard they couldn’t make a sound and could barely breathe.

               Yeah, that’s the last time I tried to swing on a vine – of any kind. 

               Sort of like the last time I went water skiing…but that’s a story for another day!

People tweet or post on social media some pretty silly things, especially “news” blogs, though I suspect this is not the intention.  This bad posting habit may arise from a variety of issues – poor typing, rushing to complete something, failure to proofread, or just a general thoughtlessness. 

Many times, you can see epic gaffs that have been made re-posted on social media sites.  The most recent of the more terrible ones happened when a beloved former Ohio State player was hit by a truck and killed.  The newsperson (from a sports channel) who was rushing to “break” the story first, included a line about how this individual – a son, husband, father, friend, teammate, and beloved player – had “struggled in the pro arena.” There was quite a lot of backlash, as typically when someone dies, we don’t mention any failures in the obituary. 

               At any rate, the reporter apologized and we went on to read – and subsequently criticize – other people’s mistakes on social media. 

               The one that drives my husband crazy is when people post that they were “terminated” at work.  Really?  They committed some infraction at work that was so heinous that they deserved to die?!?!  I’m pretty sure not. Probably what the headline meant was the person’s position at the agency was terminated. Perhaps their contract was terminated. But the actual person lived to work somewhere else. At least I hope he or she did!

Recently saw a tweet from a wrestling coach that said “this afternoon I informed my team that I will be stepping as Maryland’s head wrestling coach.” I presumed he meant stepping down. But perhaps not. Maybe he’s high stepping to the next event. Or possibly he meant stepping up, as he got a raise.

Likely the errors described above are related to someone posting quickly or just not thinking it through.  If people are going to use social media, it’s really a good idea to engage some proofreading skill (or a person who does that).

Another good idea is to use spell and grammar check programs before hitting that old “send” button. Otherwise, you get the kind of message that I frequently sent to my son when I’m texting without my glasses.  By the way, posting or texting without proofreading and/or without your reading glasses is probably the gaff I employ most.

Last week, for example, I wanted to tell him I’d been watching for a package. What he received was “I’m ben etching for practice.” He had no clue what I meant, of course, though he’s getting good at figuring out the possibilities. Usually when I text anyone outside my husband or son, I make sure my glasses are on my face. But sometimes, I get in a rush, too. 

               The results are never good.  I texted a lady at church that “not many of our regulars were here” (referring to people who usually attend an event).  Sadly, I did so without my glasses, and what she received was “not many of our regulars were horny.”  Heavens above!  Thank goodness she has a sense of humor.

               Another bad idea is to send messages via audio text.  The computers in your phone are amazing, but they will consistently fail to pick up slurred speech and generate a message correctly.  So while you’re driving and saying into your phone “heading home from store now,” your recipient is more likely to receive “head and holes for story time.”

               I’m a cautionary tale.

For most of my adult life, I’ve not enjoyed a good sleep pattern. I have trouble falling asleep and if I am awakened in the night I often can’t get back to sleep. For a number of years, I’d had anxiety attacks so nighttime television became a good friend. Thankfully I have done a bit better in the last decade -at least the anxiety attacks are very infrequent. But sleep is always a sketchy area for me.

That’s why a ghost and a clock really messed me up this week.

First, let me tell you about our ghost. Our house is quite old – over two hundred years!  My in-laws lived here before we did, and her parents lived here before that.  Apparently, the grandparents believed there was a ghost that prowled the house occasionally.  My mother-in-law swears she saw this ghost come down the staircase on one occasion. But the elders assured us this ghost was quite harmless.

While I’m not necessarily a big believer in ghosts, I did think that a lady woke me up one night by stroking my cheek.  I got up with a start and went into our son’s room (he was about 5 years old at the time).  While he had been fine the evening before, I found him with a very high temperature and we took him to the doctor.

Since then, I figured the ghost – if in fact she exists – was a kind and helpful one.  Not sure about that anymore.

The clock in question was a beautiful wedding gift. When we received it, it chimed every quarter-hour.  While quite lovely, it was also chiming every quarter-hour.  So we put it on the silent setting because…well, chiming every fifteen minutes. It’s been silent for about 35 years now.

Early this week we had a busy day working in the gardens. Exhausted, we fell into bed at about 10:30. My dearest fell, as usual, immediately into sleep.

I lay awake, trying not to toss or turn and thinking relaxing thoughts. We’d been in bed about half an hour when my husband sat straight up, saying “Did you hear that?”

This is unusual behavior for him and freaked me out just a little.  He lay back down, and went to sleep again.  I lay, wide awake, alert, with my heart beating a bit faster.  Just a few minutes later, he sat straight up again and said, “There.  Don’t you hear that?”

Again, I had heard nothing. He got out of bed and took hold of his baseball bat.  Well, okay, now I’m more than a little freaked out.  I got up, as well, and grabbed my own bat. Together, we crept down the stairs, turning on lights and checking every room.

We cleared the house, both upstairs and down, and found nothing amiss. Finally, we put down our bats and crawled back into bed.  Just as I was turning out the light, we heard it. That clock. That blasted clock. It chimed a little tune then rang nine gongs. It was midnight. Yeesh.

Having figured out what the noise was, my courageous hubby was asleep in seconds. I, on the other hand, was a mess.  I got back up, watched Chopped, two episodes of Unsellable Houses, and a Hallmark movie.  When I finally climbed the stairs to go to bed, the clock was chiming twelve gongs.  It was 3.17 a.m.

But it didn’t chime again and hasn’t made a peep since that night. What gives, sweet ghost? Just a little prank? Having some harmless fun?   Here I am telling folks you’re kind and helpful when really, you’re just an attention-seeking brat.