Tag pet peeves

A Day With the Doctor

Heather Christena Schmidt 4 Comments

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Cold and flu season is in full swing (actually, it has been for a little over a month), so naturally this means our annual trek to the doctor when actually sick inevitably occurs. Because we homeschool, we don’t have quite all the health snafus that other families do; however, it still crops up.

This brings up a whole other set of pet peeves that I have, though. Being a hypochondriac, I naturally have a number of issues with matters of health. But then there is an entire other set of things that just drive me absolutely bonkers when it comes to getting sick.

Pet Peeve #1: When People Hang Around You Ill

Fucktards is what I like to call those people. No offense or anything if you are one of those people that is so inconsiderate that you think it is totally OK to go to a party or to work or to pretty much anywhere ill, but it’s not. I understand people who are given a hard time by their employers, but then it’s the employers that are the fucktards because – for real – sickness spreads when people don’t stay home.

When you or your family is sick, they can get other people sick. And who the fuck are you to get people sick against their will?

Say you go to a party and your kid is sick. Say he has the flu (ahem … that is how we got sick over a month ago at this point …). Say there is a senior citizen at this party that has a compromised immune system and a heart problem. You obviously don’t know that he does, but you also don’t know that he doesn’t. He holds your little bag of disease and then the old guy dies of the complications from the flu two weeks later.

The point is that no one knows what health issues others have but them. Which means as a decent human being, someone sick should stay home. It may not be a big deal to you, but it can always kill someone else.

Pet Peeve #2: Patient Care Is Our #1 Priority

Every time I walk into our doctor’s office, I see this sign that says “patient care is our #1 priority.” It’s a wonder my blood pressure readings always come up low, though, for this is the biggest annoyance to me, probably on the entire planet.

If patient care is your #1 priority, then why is it that four weeks ago I was told to go to the emergency room because you couldn’t fit me in for a week? If patient care is your #1 priority, then why is it that no one ever called me back after I phoned four times? If patient care is your #1 priority, then why did you never call in the prescriptions you told me you were calling in the minute you walked out the door?

I recently read an article that reported a study the CDC recently did, which stated that the majority of doctors in America right now are going to visits, not treatment. What that means is that doctors could care less about treating their patients,  and keeping people healthy. What they care about is getting copays.

Pet Peeve #3: Doctor Time

Have you ever been told that it was going to be five or ten minutes, only for it to wind up to be an hour and a half? That’s what happened to us today. Our appointment was at 12:50. I checked in at 12:30. She told me 5 minutes. At 2:15, we were finally taken in.

There were two other people in the waiting room.

A little known fact by you faithful blog followers is that for six years while in college, I was a full-time pharmacy technician. For 40 hours a week, I schlepped drugs, wrote employee schedules, argued with insurance companies, and handled all the other random crap the pharmacy manager didn’t want to handle.

I never once told a patient it would be 5 minutes.

Nothing makes someone that is tired and sick and feeling awful more frustrated than being lied to. I’m sure that enough people at our doctor’s office have been outraged when told it was going to be 30 or more minutes to make these horrible women lie and say it would be 5 when it was clearly going to take longer. That doesn’t make it OK for them to lie in such an egregious fashion.

I suppose I’m just a little turned off right now because we have all been sick for going on four weeks now. We were sick through Christmas. We were sick through New Years. When I called to get in a few weeks ago, I was told “tough shit.” What kind of a society do we live in where we can’t get ahold of our doctors when we need them? What the fuck is the point of even having a doctor, then?

We are one of two days worth of doctor’s appointments down and I am hoping this is the end for the season. Unless, of course, we picked up any other manner of illnesses from the doctor’s office while waiting to be seen, which raises a whole other set of pet peeves altogether.

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I’m Over Pumpkin Patches

Heather Christena Schmidt 7 Comments

 

That’s it! I’m fucking over it. I’m over the pumpkins. I’m over hayrides. I’m over corn mazes and train rides and face painting. I’m over the gourds shoved down my pants to look like I’ve got a huge penis.

Okay I’ve never done that. But I’m over it all. I’m over pumpkin patches.

Halloween is my indulgence time, but even this indulgence can go too far. For the last week or so we have been to four – count them, four – pumpkin patches. The Californians don’t do the pumpkin patches too well, so we hit up different ones each year for specific attractions.

I’m fucking over it all.

I’m over the prices

Why in the hell do these places think they have a right to gouge people such as they do? Is it because people like me go back every year and pay despite the fact that what they are offering is a clear rip off?

The farm we went to yesterday was by far the worst. It cost $3 a person to get in, which was good compared to the weekend rate of $12. But I couldn’t help but wonder just what in the fuck I was paying for when nothing was open. So we’re paying to get in and I say “oh, well we’re going to want to do the train and the hayride and the petting zoo, so I guess the 20 ticket package as well as our admission.” You’d think that cashier would have told me that the petting zoo, the hayride, and the train were all closed, effectively wasting my money. Actually, nothing that took tickets was open yesterday, requiring us to go back today (and pay another $3 admission) since those tickets were nonrefundable.

I’m over the Farmer John’s Jons

That’s a port-a-potty.

Let me just say this right now: I have never in my entire life used a port-a-potty until today. Never, in my 30 years have I stooped so low to walk into one of those nasty things, with flies flying all around inside of them, looked down into the toilet to see a mound of piss, shit, paper, and used tampons, and then sat down to add my own human waste to the pile.

Fucking gross.

Today on our way, though, I drank too much Diet Coke, not realizing I’d have to pee so quickly. I couldn’t take it any longer and had to break down after 30 years of non-use.

I showered the minute I got home.

I’m over the other patrons

These pumpkin patches are just like Disneyland – everyone is in their own world and getting their own experience, and not giving a shit about who they step on to get it.

I’ve been stepped on, run into, run over, pushed, and trampled over at every single one of the four pumpkin patches we went to. I’ve been cut in front of. I’ve had to explain why other kids got to eat a King Sized candy bar, while I insisted on apples.

And just when I had realized that I had enough today, I turned around to suggest we leave only to see some lady bending over her kid, her entire ass – I shit you not, the entire thing – hanging out of her pants. I don’t want to see that.

And I’m over the older kids that are there to get some. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but the pumpkin patch seems to be somewhere guys like to take girls on dates. Maybe it’s because they could get lost in the corn maze and do it in between the stalks. Maybe it’s because it’s in every single cliche romantic comedy out there.

In California, no one gives a shit if people see you sucking face or dry humping or grabbing your teenage girlfriend’s naughty parts. Last week I saw two people, that were clearly ditching school, dry humping on the cow train. In fact, I tried to take a photograph but the cow train’s operator asked them to leave the patch to (and I quote) “do your nasty business.”

I’m tired of the false advertising

And it seems like they are all falsely advertising what they offer. The first one we went to said “scariest hay ride you will ever take.” Scary because it was so boring? Scary because you took us in a circle around the parking lot? Yes, the thought of the hole in the ozone above this parking lot from all those cars and this superfluous circular hayride is scary. Yes, indeed. But frightening as in Halloween-scary? I don’t think so.

The place we went to today, hoping desperately for a decent hayride, advertised a great hayride too. This one would have been great – it was 20 minutes long, went all around the farm through sunflower fields, tunnels, and corn stalks. There was just one problem.

There was no fucking hay.

So I’m done with pumpkin patches. Are you? I think I’ve spent a little over $100 at this point. We might get a couple more pumpkins and carve them over the weekend, although I’m not sure I want to do that either. We painted two and they rotted within two days. We carved two more yesterday and they are already smelling up the front porch. I still have to finish Halloween costumes, bake Halloween cookies, and figure out just what in the hell we’re doing on Halloween anyway. So until next year…

5 (More) Pet Peeves: Home Edition

Heather Christena Schmidt 24 Comments

We live in an apartment complex of some couple hundred places. There are town homes, condos, and apartments of all sizes. When we moved here – just in November of last year – we really liked it. The rent was affordable. The area was almost too quiet. There are pools, a work out room, and the complex is relatively close to a lot of local stuff.

And now, as my husband feared, I fucking hate it.

Don’t get me wrong, I prefer to live in apartments. For a while we considered buying a condominium, but the thought of being permanently tied to southern California would no doubt upgrade my difficulty finding reason to get out of bed in the morning to an utter inability to do so. I also like the idea of being able to get up and go without having to worry about too much, the sense of community, and some of the amenities as well as the ability to call maintenance for problems without having to deal with the cost and maintenance ourselves.

And still, as my husband feared, I fucking hate it.

I still like the affordable rent and all the stuff we have available to us. And I love the fact that we have had a lot of repairs that would have cost us an arm and a leg; yet, in reality cost us absolutely nothing since maintenance is included in our rent (unless we intentionally break shit). But some other things have happened since November that I don’t like. For one, no one abides by the pet policy (so it would seem), except for us. People are supposed to be allowed indoor cats only, and yet there are cats fucking everywhere. I hate cats with every breath in my body – I’m allergic and their dander and hair dropped on my front porch makes me sneeze and wheeze on a daily basis. Why the hell should I have to deal with that? Worse, as I have mentioned to you faithful blog followers before – one of those cats has completely destroyed my Midnight Jasmine. And don’t even get me started on the fact that they do not allow dogs of any kind and yet every other cotton-picking unit has a dog.

But it goes beyond the pets. Some hillbillies recent moved across the walkway. I can only assume these people are hillbillies because of the fact that I heard one of them say he lost his teeth. I see them come home with KFC and Taco Bell bags on a daily basis. It appears that none of them works, or at least works very little. By my count, there are 8 people living in the two bedroom apartment, with an additional 10 or so constantly coming in and out. They have parties every single fucking night. Every fucking night. They are loud. They are crude. Without a doubt they are hillbillies, and it is obvious that a lot of the neighbors don’t want to take it anymore (six other units have moved out since these people moved in).

Then this morning, we received a notice on our door that there have been recent burglaries in the area. So now our quiet and safe neighborhood is louder than shit until all hours of the night, and to make matters worse: unsafe.

SO I’m in a shitty mood (when am I NOT?). To blow off a little steam, I thought I would share five more of my pet peeves – home style ones. Now that I’ve gotten the neighborly ones off my chest already, my list focuses on my own house.

#5 Leaving recycling trash on the counter

I’m all for saving the planet, but sometimes it annoys the shit out of me. Not only do we produce very little recyclable waste, but we waste so much more in electronic waste as well as the enormous carbon footprint my husband’s car leaves behind. It thus seems almost a little childish to be making such a big deal about one ginger ale can once in a while. Not saying we shouldn’t recycle, just saying let’s keep things in perspective here.

We have no room in our place at all for a recycle can, so it sits out in our covered carport. The only job my husband has around the house is to take out the trash, which would of course include moving any of the recyclable things to the recycle can out by the cars. Annoying as all shit is when that recycling stuff, which my husband makes a federal case over “doing his part” for, is left on the kitchen counter – where I cook food. Trash, human garbage – often covered in bacteria and bits of food – left on the counter. Seriously – one fucking job.

#4 Wasting money “trying new things” that turn out to be crap

Last night we wasted an entire bottle of the crappiest wine I have ever had. Just as with saving the planet, I’m all for trying new things. But at some point, and with certain things, I really think we should stick with our “go-to”s, unless we have money to flush down the toilet.

Or down the drain, in this instance.

My husband convinced me to buy a new bottle of wine at World Market the other day. I was going to get one of my regulars but instead we got this Radio Buzz crap from Spain. When we opened it last night, you could actually smell the alcohol – it was that shitty. A couple sips and I couldn’t take it. Just a few more for my husband and the whole thing was dumped down the drain. I’m so tired of wasting money on stuff like that.

#3 Continuing to pretend like we are horticulturists

Speaking of wasting money, it has become my pet peeve that we must continue this little charade that we are horticulturists. As long as I have known my husband, and as long as we have been living together, we have been unable to keep plants alive. If our own lives depended on it, we would have been dead a long time ago.

I’ve done research, I’ve tried all kinds of different things – I just can’t keep them alive. Had a cat not killed my Midnight Jasmine, here, I would have (eventually). I have no idea at this point how much money we have wasted on this little project over the years, but at the very least the most recent destruction of foliage comes to $115 wasted. We bought those in February.

Maybe #4 and #3 would really be combined into one main pet peeve: wasting money stupidly.

#2 Leaving hairs in the sink

This really hacks me off. While laying in bed this morning, I could hear my husband trimming his beard and my blood pressure immediately began to rise because I knew that when I got to the sink it would be full of those little, annoying hairs.

They wouldn’t be so goddamned annoying if they didn’t clog the drain. I know they clog the drain and that my husband hasn’t told the maintenance people yet we need the drain unclogged. I also know that every time the maintenance people come they tell me to stop allowing my husband to try and fix things himself, because it usually makes the problems worse (this last time they said the management will start charging us for repairs because his attempt at fixing the shower door made it more difficult for them to fix, and they can always tell … how embarrassing that was).

So immediately after my husband leaves, I have to get up and wipe all of those disgusting fucking hairs out of the sink so that it doesn’t clog even more. Big annoyance.

#1 Not wiping crumbs off the counter/table

Oh my God faithful blog followers, this is the tip of the iceberg for me. I’m not sure why it makes me so crazy, but whenever anyone in this place leaves crumbs or smudges of shit on the counters or the kitchen table, I go absolutely bonkers. Maybe it’s because I have usually just cleaned only to see that a mess has been made. Maybe it’s because sometimes it’s in the form of leaving a knife with peanut butter on it sitting in the sink – the sink that was cleaned and will now have to be cleaned again. I don’t know, but I usually go ballistic about it. Like I did this morning.

There they are. My five (more) pet peeves. The home edition. Maybe the marriage edition. Maybe I’m just on the rag and pissed off at the world. Or just those hillbillies across the walkway.

Name That Wang

Heather Christena Schmidt 7 Comments

Yes, I did just title this blog post “Name That Wang.” Much to your chagrin though, faithful blog followers, I’m not that much of a pervert to post what you probably all thought I was posting.

Or am I…

Okay, now to the real topic: naming one’s wang or she-cave.

Today I went to Kmart for the first time in over fifteen years and overheard a conversation between a couple in the Family Planning aisle that made me think of this topic. My mother is in town and after having lunch she asked if we could stop by the discount superstore so she could pick up some foot cream for my grandfather; of course, foot fungus being closely related to family planning, we were in the right place at the right time to overhear this horrifying conversation. It went like this:

She: “Ooooh, baby we should try this new K-Y pleasure gel.”

He: “We don’t need that for passion.”

She: “I think we should try it.”

He: “Girl, that stuff’s like fifteen dollars and the Trojans already run me twenty bucks.”

She: “Well … I’m just saying, Cornucopia would be much fuller if Squash used that pleasure gel.”

At this point, I had to walk away, stifling the urge to laugh hysterically and then vomit all over the Dr. Scholl’s display. It’s bad enough that an overwhelming number of people name their body parts, oftentimes sharing that name with others – but to name it something as ridiculous as Cornucopia and Squash? Not only is this blatantly unoriginal, it’s rife with ridicule. Like for example this: that cornucopia’s overflowing with all different kinds of squash, if you know what I’m saying…

Gross.

So after I got home, I decided to Google “names for private parts.” I don’t know why – probably because I have no life and nothing better to do; more likely because I was so disturbed by this couple’s name for their junk. But I wanted to know if maybe it was just me – maybe Cornucopia and Squash are just as common place as referring to them as the actual anatomically correct names?

Well, I’ve got news for you, faithful blog followers – Cornucopia and Squash was nowhere on the list. Either these Family Planning (planning? … more like prevention) shoppers met over Thanksgiving, or they really have no creativity whatsoever. The cream of the crop (so to speak) from the sixteen lists I read through during my Google search?

Her Princess and His Pokey

Her Taco Belle and His Fire Sauce (I don’t know… is Fire Sauce supposed to mean sperm or what? …)

Her Prune and His Peanut (… this makes me sad.)

Her Venus and His Penisaurus Rex

Her Pot-Pot-belly and His Tallywacker (WTF)

Her Beefcake and His Tater Tot (WTF to the 2nd power)

And in one of the online forums I found a couple of these, someone so eloquently pointed out that: I have used Cooter, hooha, and yahoo!!!  Sort of depends on the occasion. Way to keep it classy for the occasion, lady…

One article I read (an actual article) stated that most sex researchers believe the nicknames people give to their wangs and she-caves reflect cultural attitudes about men and women and their roles in relationships. I don’t know if I buy all that. I mean – Taco Belle and Fire Sauce? Cornucopia and Squash? I think these nicknames reflect nothing more than what I’ve been saying all along – words cannot describe how truly weird people are.

The Five Types of Interruptors

Heather Christena Schmidt 60 Comments

Time for another Pet Peeve … this one is really high up on my list, I would say about #3.  This Pet Peeve, though, is a real blood pressure buster for me.  It’s nothing compared to the “space between exclamatory sentence and exclamation point”-thing; and gossipers ‘aint got nothing on it either.  What could be so bad, you ask?  People who excessively interrupt.

I’m not referring to people that accidentally walk into a room while you are putting the moves on your girlfriend in hopes that she will finally put out.  I’m also not talking about a person who has to stop a conversation for a bathroom break or to let their wife know they’re going to be home late.  Nope, I’m just talking about people who in the course of conversation cannot stop themselves from cutting in with their own, random bullshit.

In my mind, there are five major types of interruptors.  With the exception of the first, they are all enough to make me need a blood pressure cuff to make sure I’m not about to stroke out; although, each have their own subtle nuances to the craft of being an arrogant asshole.

#1  The occasional, harmless interrupter.  This person doesn’t actually realize that they are interrupting, and if they do they usually stop and apologize for it.  This happens to me once in a while and it’s usually when I have been around people that interrupt a lot – I just get used to feeling like I need to get my word in before someone else talks me out of the room.  While interruptions of all kinds are pretty damn annoying, this one is probably the least abominable.

#2  On the lower end of the annoyance spectrum, there is also the person who just plain interrupts.  This person was very likely raised in a barn, or a family of uneducated and impolite hillbillies, because they really believe it is just an Okay thing to do.  Very likely, there is nothing behind their interruptions except for the fact that they have absolutely no manners or common sense.  I don’t have much to say about these people except for the fact that they need to get some formal training in social etiquette.

#3  The corporate executive who always has to cut you off to take a phone call.  This interruptor may or may not actually be a corporate executive, but they sure as hell think they are.  While I get that sometimes people do have important phone calls to take, nothing is more annoying than getting that “one second” finger held up in your face while a phone call is taken.  Every time this has happened to me, the phone call could have waited, reminding me of how little importance I and our conversation was to the interruptor.  The thing these interruptors can never seem to grasp is that just because you have a cell phone does not mean you always have to answer it.

#4  That asshole who is clearly not paying attention to you and then interrupts you.  This person is horrible on two levels:  first, they are not paying attention to you; second, they then interrupt you.  You can always tell this is happening because prior to interrupting you to talk about their own bull shit, they’ll periodically go “uh huh” .. “yeah,” while looking at something else (like a cell phone or television).  This is particularly frustrating simply because an interruption, alone, says that what you have to say is not important, but to precede that by clearly not paying attention – well, I have to ask why are we talking if I am that uninteresting to you?

#5  The worst of all interrupters is that complete douche that not only interrupts you, but often finishes your sentences and/or pays absolutely no attention to what you have to say the entire time while finishing what you have to say.  This is so goddamned annoying:  when people interrupt me and then finish my sentence for me.  The other day I was talking to someone about our plans in a few weeks and he kept interrupting me and finishing my sentence.  By the end of the fifteen minutes of this back and forth process rife with frustration, our plans were no more set in stone than they had been before the conversation even began – simply because he kept interrupting me and finishing my sentences with the opposite of what I was actually saying.  To this interruptor, it is not only a matter of “why are we talking if I am that uninteresting to you?,” but also a matter of “if you already know the answer, why the fuck did you ask?”

If you are a friend or family member of me, it is very possible that I am referring to you in this post, simply because so many of you do these things all the time.  To you:  please stop.  There are even a few of you that fall under #s 4 and 5, which begs I ask myself the question:  why the hell am I hanging around you?  I’m not suggesting that we all go out and tell the interruptors of the world that they are stark-raving douche bags – that would be uncouth.  I’m simply suggesting that we all consider whether we are doing one of these five interruptions and mend our ways.

Is that true?

Heather Christena Schmidt 2 Comments

Just this week, I have had the great fortune of adding another pet peeve to my master list of peeves, a list that seems to be ever-growing by the day.  The top peeves, of course, are matters of grammar.  You all, faithful blog followers, know that I cannot stand text lingo (wat up wit u lol); just as you know I have come close to completely melting down over the use of fake words like ‘good’er’ and ‘funner.’  And we all remember that post long ago and far away on Art is of Words when I had the equivalent of a digital aneurysm over the new trend in putting spaces between an exclamatory sentence and its exclamation point(s) (OMG I am sooooo excited !!!).

But I have other pet peeves besides grammar and punctuation.  The grocery store lady is one of them; another, still, is when people take too long to return a text message, or worse – ignore it.  But some of these are lower on the list, because yes, lovely readers, I do prioritize my list by just how annoying the particular peeve in question is.  Well, I have added a new one and it’s a doozy, so it’ll be ranking pretty high up there with the exclamations and the OMGs.

At dinner a few nights ago, I was confronted with a situation that I realized I have been confronted with quite a few times in the past, without realizing it of course.  We were at dinner with a group of my husband’s family and friends, and every time I said something, one person in particular felt that it was necessary to verify what I said with either my husband or someone else in their “circle.”  I said something about the Internet, and this person said to my husband “is that true?”  I said something about a mutual friend we all had, and this person said to one of the other friends “is that true?”  I think it happened three times during the course of the evening that night, and upon thinking about it more realized that I am second-guessed to death every single time we are around this person in particular.

This made me think for a while – am I seen as a liar?  Do people see me as not a trustworthy source of information, even over mundane things?  Were other people being second-guessed as well?  I felt so second-guessed after this particular dinner that I began to second-guess myself, so asked around.  To my surprise (and relief), I found that a lot of my friends encounter people like this – people that have to verify everything that you say in front of you with someone they trust more, even on the most minor of issues.  An old high school friend of mine told me she has a co-worker that is constantly second-guessing everyone in the office; one of my friends even said that he broke up with a girlfriend of eight months because the girl’s dad did it so often.  So what’s the deal?

After even further second-guessing, I realized that I could not – for the life of me – figure out why people do this.  Why they have to “is that true?” someone they may have known for years, decades even, is completely unreasonable to me.  Not only does it just not make sense, because generally you associate with people you believe and trust, but it is just so rude.  Second-guessing someone you consider more than just an acquaintance – be it a co-worker, friend, or relative – is like turning to a nurse and asking if the doctor is right in saying you have bronchitis.  It’s illogical, rude, inconsiderate, and really says more than it is probably even intended to.  But then, I can’t figure it out.  Is it that these people have trust issues?  Or is it more deeply rooted, sort of like a subconscious need to establish just whose side you are on, even for information?

As with most questions I ask myself, I still have no answer for this one.  Perhaps that is why it ranks so high up on my master list of pet peeves:  the very fact that it happens is bad enough, but not knowing why is enough to make that funky blue vein pop out of my forehead.  To that person that always, inevitably, does this – the person at my family and friend dinner, the person at my friend’s office, my friend’s ex-girlfriend’s dad, and all you other second-guessers out there – we have all updated our lists accordingly.  And let me tell you, once you’ve reached the status of an entry on the pet peeve list, you hear about it.