It’s rainy and I’m a bit grouchy (or “grunchy” as the kids say) so today’s a good day to let my inner grinch shine and get some of these pet peeves off my chest. I only have 500 words, so you can bet there will be a part two and part three at some point.
Let’s start with plastic flowers, plants, and fruit. I do not see the point. At all. Not for decoration, not in place of real flowers or fruit, not for any reason whatsoever. The only plastic flowers I can tolerate are when they are taped to pens so you don’t run off with them. That’s clever. Other than that, absolutely not to plastic flowers or plants or fruit. Just… hard no.
Next up we have coffee that has been sitting in the pot and burning into a bitter sludge. This is a very quick way to make me question all of my life choices. For the record, you can find this coffee in the lounge of the oil change place, some hospitals, or when someone says that “it’s no trouble” to make coffee because they “have some already made.” Ice water would be lovely, thank you.
In third place, let’s talk about people saying that “it can’t be done” when what they mean to say is “I don’t want to do it.” Look, I am here for the latter. There’s an entire encyclopedia-length list of things I don’t want to do (create financial statements, any and all housework, take a cruise to absolutely anywhere, etc.) but I concede these things are all doable, I just don’t want to do them. See the difference?
I’m hitting my stride here on ye olde list of pet peeves, so let’s take a minute to discuss pessimism. I’ve been challenged, in recent years, to consider that some pessimists may come with pessimism pre-installed on their hardware and for this reason, I might want to have greater compassion for a condition that isn’t chosen but is, rather, inherited. Food for thought. Also, I concede that the world might need pessimists so we don’t, I don’t know, eat all the poisonous berries or get eaten by lions. All that said, if expecting the worst out of every situation is your jam, we probably can’t be friends. I’m guessing this isn’t too big a deal for you because things don’t work out for you anyway. (That was a joke. Maybe a bad one. Next!)
This last one is a bit niche, but a certain percentage of you will absolutely know where I’m going with this one, and it’s long and involved conversations about home renovations. I’m happy you’re happy and for that reason, I’ll go down this road as long as you need me to, just know I’m the absolute wrong person to talk to about this both because I know nothing about it and (sorry!) I don’t care. Not even a little bit. Sorry you had to find out this way.
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#WritersWrite and I write almost every day. I sometimes share my thoughts publicly in this series called “500 Words or Less” This practice allows me to explore a variety of different topics in a restrained/contained way and learn what resonates with people. I wrote it, not AI. If you share, please give proper credit. © Traci Smith, 2023. All Rights Reserved.