Many of us have similar things that bug us – litter, failing infrastructure, aggressive drivers. Some seem to point to a serious moral bankruptcy and failure of positive core values – competitive conspicuous material consumption; entitlement; food wastage; exploring extra planet habitats when we are ignoring and destroying the current one we have, are but a few. And I love the quote from Maya Angelou’s “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”
So with this in mind I am fully aware that many of my “pet hates” are inconsequential niggles!
- Leaf blowers …. Always and MOST particularly when used on a public street to … to what end….? Apart from heavy usage of frighteningly scarce electricity resources, what on earth is the point of shifting leaves from one house entrance or pavement to another?
Leaf Blower - When people waiting for a lift keep pressing the call button in order to make it arrive more quickly
- When I start reversing into a street parking place and behind my car an over-enthusiastic car guard appears (a ubiquitous South African institution) and starts hopping around signalling wildly in Makarena-like moves, setting off beeping sensors in my car as he “directs” me (as quite a competent reverse parker) in my small car into a space large enough for a pantechnicon with a trailer. I know he is only making a living and I respect that, but would so much prefer if he checked first if I need help!
- Tiny delicate teacups – I am not a sipper …
- Cell phone etiquette is the bane of many in the older generation. But really … do we have to have cell phone conversations on speakers in public spaces? To hear one side of the conversation is usually banal and invasive enough, do we honestly have to hear both sides?
This much more like the realities of travel! - Blunt pencils (in a few years people will be saying “what’s a pencil?”)
- Have you ever noticed how in some movies (where people still carry suitcases rather than pull them on wheels), they swing them effortlessly at their side when in fact the reality is more like the image on the right.
I did warn some of my bugbears are petty and even irrational!