Pet peeves

First, a disclaimer: I don't really get peeved and angry about things, even some things I would consider my pet peeves. If you do something or are associated with any of these things, it won't affect our friendship. So here goes.

Number one: bad and inconsiderate drivers. I consider myself a pretty good driver. I'm sure I've bugged a couple people now and then, so this is probably a huge hypocrisy on my part, but I hate when people don't know how to drive. Driving slow in the fast lane, tailgating when I'm going five over the speed limit, not knowing who has the right of way, etc. This is probably the one that gets me the most riled up. It makes me call strangers names. Which I'm going to have to stop doing if I want Mikey to be a nice little kid.

Number two: incorrect usage of words and bad grammar in general. This one deserves a qualifier of its own. I don't get all up in arms over this. This is more something that I notice easily rather than a pet peeve. My own dear wife even says "supos-EB-ly," rather than the correct pronunciation of "supos-ED-ly," (on purpose, she'd like me to clarify) but I don't really care. Other people to whom I am close (I can't very well use dangling participles in a post about grammar, can I) say "OM-pen" rather than "O-pen," and so on. I notice when that happens, but it doesn't bug me. If I got all upset every time someone said "Feb-YOU-ary" rather than "Feb-RU-ary," I could make myself pretty miserable. I also like the American rule when it comes to periods and quotations (as opposed to my friend, Bonny), hate the non-word "irregardless," and don't understand how some people can speak so I understand, but write in a completely non-coherent way. But again, it's not a huge bother to me. I say "mou-en" instead of "moun-tain" most the time, I'm not a great speller (thank goodness for spell check), and I've been known to say "anyways." I also have greater leniency for misspellings and non-use of capital letters in chat windows, facebook, and the Internet in general. But there it is.

Number three: I have a little bit of OCD. I don't systematically lick our kitchen cabinets or anything, but I like things the way they're supposed to be. For example, in our bathroom, Hayley and I have brown towels with two decorative stripes of different texture at the ends. We also have these more-tan-than-brown towels that have one thick stripe of different texture at the end. It bugs me a little when we don't have the same towels. Which is right now. I've got the thick stripe, she has the two stripes. I'll be fine and we'll both use our towels, but if I'm the one that puts towels away, I'll try to make sure they are put in the linen closet in sets so it doesn't happen again soon. Hayley notices other things, but I can't think of them right now. Again, this is not a huge problem. I don't often put my clothes right in the hamper, I only do quick spot cleanings of the kitchen after I cook, and my work desk is a little more than cluttered right now. It's just certain things.

That's all I can think of right now. But another tendency I have is to go into way too much detail, so maybe three is all I need to share. I'm pretty sure I'm going to write about all the suggestions from my "Taking suggestions" blog post, so if you have more, feel free to post them there.