Behind My Door: What are yours?

I’ve never met any human being who doesn’t have them. They cause people to start drinking or biting their nails.

I’m talking PET PEEVES.

I’ve kept a long list of my own peeves. Allow me to share ten of them:

Peeve #1:   Twice last week I burst into tears while attempting to open a jar of pickles. This is a form of torture! Today, even a gorilla can’t loosen covers and caps.  In the end, I gratefully hugged my mechanic for his help.

Peeve #2:   Rings and bells.  Have you noticed that rings and bells are more prevalent on TV these days?  The problem is they’re not MY rings and bells.  They are embedded in commercials.  Why is that a pet peeve?  Simple. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve shot out of my recliner to answer a phone, or sprinted to the front door to answer the bell, only to find no one is there. I wonder, how can they justify “embedding” a doorbell in a hemorrhoid pitch?

Peeve #3:   Serious Hair Preoccupation.  Long hair is popular right now.  I guess that allows women to mess with their hair every three seconds. Surely you’ve noticed. If they’re not pushing it back behind their ears, they’re caressing a hunk of it that is draped over a shoulder and down to their navels. This became a pet peeve for me the day a friend and I were enjoying lunch at a local eatery. Near us was a young woman flipping her auburn hair in all directions.  Before I could say, “What the heck!”  a strand floated through the air and landed in my pea soup.  (As an aside, personally I feel today’s hair styles look scary. They create an image of a woman ejected from the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Peeve #4:   Frequent nausea and retching.  It’s gotten worse since “Dr. Pimple Popper” and “My Feet are Killing me” programs hit the airwaves. (I apologize that I can’t complete this paragraph. I need to find a pail.)

Peeve #5:    Daily commercials that instruct young viewers to avoid being like their parents.  I go straight up when I hear that!  Some thanks for a woman who raised three sons, learned to make an actual birthday cake and invested TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE STRIVING TO KEEP THOSE THREE SONS OUT OF PRISON

Peeve #6:   When someone points at my head and asks, “Is that a wig?” This generally happens in front of a group of curious onlookers.

Peeve #7:  Waitresses who send me back to my childhood:  “Would you like a hot dog, Sweetie?”  Or, here’s your hot chocolate, Honey.”  After all of that, I expect to be given a sucker.

Peeve #8:  This peeve takes me back to nausea and retching:  While out for a fun yuletide dinner, we were “gifted” with Yolanda, a waitress who had 5 pounds of metal in her mouth, much of it in her tongue.  Without hesitation, my husband ran home for the pail. Following that dinner, I learned I had lost 7 pounds.  Piercing is an amazing diet aid!

Peeve #9    Overuse of the word “like.”  Example: “So I went to the store and like I found a pretty dress in like a soft shade of blue. Then, like, I ran into my boyfriend and like told him I was going, like, to buy new shoes.”    (KILL ME NOW.)

Peeve #10:  Talking scales.  I don’t want to reveal too much here, but I will admit that when I weighed myself yesterday, it said, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Those are just ten of my pet peeves. I have a bushel of them, but I worry that if I share more, you’ll have to get your own pail. 

For more than 30 years, Fort Atkinson’s Sandra (Sandi) Bernhardt has enjoyed humorous public speaking in Wisconsin and beyond. During her career, she served as a human resources director, as well as a customer service consultant for a healthcare company. Active in the community, Sandy is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the mother of three grown sons.