Pet Peeves

Updated 05/23/2007

Pet Peeve Week

(2^nd week of October)

pet peeve - An English colloquialism: "pet" meaning personal, "peeve" meaning an annoyance or nuisance. A pet peeve is a minor annoyance that can instill extreme frustration in an individual; something about which one frequently complains; a particular personal vexation; something that bugs you, irritates you, or drives you nuts. Typically each person has several pet peeves that aggravate them more than the average person. Another person may not react as negatively or at all to the same circumstance; in fact, often a pet peeve will seem illogical to others. In perfect correlation with human nature, this just makes the pet peeve more annoying.

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Pet peeves are typically of common occurrences and a person may encounter their pet peeve up to several times a day.

Listed below are some of the more common pet peeves. How many and which ones are yours?

Driving

Smoking

Significant other (man)

Significant other (woman)

Mobile phones (cell phones)

Grammar and Punctuation

Computers

Relationships

Driving (top)

Not using a turn signal when making a turn.
Signaling a turn too far ahead of time, then bypassing three or four possible turns.
Not using a turn signal when changing lanes.
Driving in the left hand lane slower than the traffic moving in the right hand lane. (The opposite in England, India, etc.)
Lingering unnecessarily in the (right) exit lane on the highway, not yielding to incoming vehicles.
Not coming to a complete stop at stop signs.
Drivers who make illegal turns at intersections.
Driving in a middle turn lane of a five lane road.
Following too close.
Not driving with headlights on at dusk or at night.
Waiting at a stop light with too much space between them and the car in front of them, or the stop line.
When there are two or more turn lanes, all of the cars stacking in just one of the lanes.
When there are two or more straight through lanes, all of the cars stacking in just one of the lanes.
People leaving their turn signal on too long.
Retreads.
U-turns.
Drivers who don't know how to properly use high beam headlights.
Drivers who speed from behind even if you've exceeded legal speed limit.
Drivers who talk on cell phones, especially when there is legislation forbidding it (New York, Germany, Russia, Japan, UK...)
Drivers who cut in a long line at the last minute for their exit when most drivers wait patiently their turn.
Drivers who throw trash out the window of their vehicle.
Drivers oblivious of speed zones for schools and construction zones.
Drivers that don't stop behind a school bus when it is picking up or dropping off children and the flashing lights are on the bus.
Drivers that want to share the fact that they have a loud radio in their vehicle.
Drivers that double park in a crowded parking lot.
Drivers that use handicapped parking when they shouldn't.
Motorcycle drivers that zoom past you like you were standing still.
Motorcycle drivers that cut between vehicles in high traffic (between lanes).

Smoking (top)

People throwing cigarette butts on the ground.
People throwing cigarette butts out of car windows.
People smoking around the entrance of a no smoking building so non-smokers have to walk through the smoke.
Smoker breath.
Smoke odor on clothes.
Smoke odor in bars/nightclubs/restaurants.
Cigarettes on the ground next to ashtrays.
People who smoke when they have small children.
People who smoke while they are pregnant.
People who smoke while pumping gasoline.
People who smoke while driving.
Increased health insurance rates for non-smokers.
People who object to smoking bans because they think their rights are violated.
People that smoke outside and get ashes all over the clothes of those around them.

Significant other (man) (top)

Leaving the toilet seat up after using the bathroom.
Stinking up the bathroom after a bowel movement and not using the air freshener.
Having a five o'clock shadow/beard/mustache.
Leaving hair messy and uncombed.
Wearing their clothes 2-3 sizes too big and hanging off their body.
Nostril hairs that need to be clipped.
Grabbing or checking themselves.

Significant other (woman) (top)

Leaving cosmetics all over the bathroom sink.
Spending excessive time trying on various outfits in an attempt to achieve fashion perfection.
Hair on the toilet and in the shower.
Hugging with too much make-up, which leaves some make-up on the other person's clothing.
Kissing with lipstick, which leaves lipstick marks on the recipient's face.
Lipstick stain on a glass.
Not eating at a restaurant when you're really hungry.
Girls who act like they are royalty

Workplace (top)

People who gossip more than work.
People who schedule meetings first thing in the morning.
People who use the internet as opposed to working.
People who have a really high salary and don't earn it.
People who have a title such as Director, Vice President, President, CEO, who didn't earn it and don't deserve it.
People who use the work phone more than their home phones for social calls.
People who come in late and leave early.

Television (top)

Breaking into a television program to give a thunderstorm warning.
Wasting five seconds at the beginning of the break to tell you that the program is being interrupted for a weather advisory.
Wasting five seconds at the end of the break to tell you that you will now be returned to the original programming.
After each commercial break, announcing a content warning before a program resumes.
Dubbing or deleting content of a tv movie to make it more "family friendly".
Frequent Emergency Broadcast System tests
Commercials that are so irritating they cause extreme, uncontrollable anger and the desire to strangle someone.

Customer service (top)

Cashier that does not know how to use the register.
Cashier that does not know that the $2 bill is legal.
People who do not understand the concepts of "dozen" and "half-dozen"
Customer service representatives who fail to carefully read your question and e-mail you the answer to a different question
Customer service representatives who call you daily to ask the same questions as if they are telemarketers.
Customer service representatives with accents that you can't understand, and who are impatient with you trying to understand their broken english.
Customer service automated call routing system that asks for your account information, passwords, mother's maiden name, etc...only to be asked for that information again when you reach a live person.

Telemarketing (top)

Calling during dinner.
Recorded messages.
Surveys.
Sales pitches for things you don't need. (i.e. Vinyl siding when you live in an apartment)
Any telemarketer call.
Telemarketers that just hang up when you yell at them.
Calls that are a recorded message telling you to "Please hold for an important message."
Telling a 13 year old that they've been preaproved for a credit card.

Neighbors (top)

Mowing their lawn too early.
Mowing their lawn too late.
Not mowing their lawn often enough.
Mowing their lawn too short.
Letting their dog bark outside.
Letting their dog run loose.
Letting their dog defecate in your yard.
Letting their dog mark your property as its territory.
Leaving their junk outside.
Parking vehicles on the grass.
Parking in front of your house when their house has no car in front.
Not parking in their garage because they have too much stuff stored in the garage.
Storing a motor home at their house.
Storing a boat at their house.
Parking anything that blocks the sidewalk.
Not maintaining their house or property.
Cutting down trees and limbs that previously blocked the view of their poorly maintained property or that of another neighbor's.
Draining their pool so chlorine gets on your property.
Playing music too loud.
Having too many parties.
Revving the engine of their Harley-Davidson.
Revving the engine of their Hot Rod.
Not respecting property lines.
Leaving holiday decorations out too long.
Putting holiday decorations out too early.
Not using curtains or blinds.
Staring at you when you are outside.
Staring at you when you are inside.
Being in a rock band that practices loudly at all hours.
Telling you what you should do on your property.

Mobile phones (cell phones) (top)

Everything about them.
People who talk too loudly on the phone.
People who talk about things that should be kept private when other people are around.
People who use a hands-free headset in public, which makes it look as if they are talking to themselves.
People who consistently have to be using it, either by text messaging or talking.

Grammar and Punctuation (top)

People who use "whom" as a fancy form of "who" without regard to the fact that it's an object and not a subject.
People who leave a space between the end of their sentence and one or more exclamation marks !!!
People who say "is you" as opposed to "are you" when asking a question.
People who ask a question, but have actually made a statement ie. "Everything's in the bag?"
People who cannot pronounce a word properly, but continue to use the word.
People who type and don't use any commas or periods so their paragraph ends up being a big run-on sentence.
People who say "I did good," instead of "I did well."
People who type the word "you" like "u," "are," like "r," to like "2," "before" as "b4," and so on.
People who spell words incorrectly, such as "receive" as "recieve" or "weird" as "wierd."

Computers (top)

Getting chainmails
Smears on the monitor
When Windows XP indicates that any system restore may be undone but it turns out that the restore having been done from safe mode, it didn't back it up first.
People who "broke," "lost," or can't "download" the Internet.
Users who think they're being tech savvy by always pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL when they get in trouble because they saw someone else doing it.
People who don't know how to type and "poke" the keys.
Chatspeak/Netspeak
Internet Explorer and people who use it.
People who think using the computer is "difficult" when confronted with a pop-up message of any sort.
Forum users that make frequent typos and won't take 5 seconds to paste it into a word processor and do a spell check.

Relationships (top)

People who always complain about being cold.
People who are picky about food.
People who walk slow.
People who cannot decide on what to eat.
People who refer to themselves in the third person.
People who penny pinch to the extreme.
People who whine after losing $20 or less at a casino.
People who try too hard to be different.

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