The follow up call

The year is 2014. We have developed several technologies that allow us to communicate. Instant messaging and email are just the beginning.

And yet, there are some individuals who persist in following up all communication with an additional communication, particularly with a phone call.

If I had a dollar for every time I received a phone call that started with "I sent you an email but wanted to make sure you had read it," I would request those dollars in coin form and hold them while I punch the caller in the throat.

Here's the deal, people. Just because I haven't answered your email or IM does not mean I didn't receive it. It could be (I know this is surprising to those of you that get six emails a day) that it is currently sitting unread in my pile of 300 as-yet-unread emails in ye olde inbox. The other option is I read it and have not yet formulated a reply. The other option  is that I read it and determined not to reply to you.

Note - none of those options require a phone call. In the first two, I will answer you. In the last, I won't. Your desire to speak to me will not change that fact.

What makes this worse? Usually the people making these calls make them within seconds of sending the electronic communication as if they can't get it through their brain that they are not the number one agenda item to everyone else in the world and if you didn't answer in twenty-four seconds, then something must be wrong with the technology.

And if I don't answer your phone call? You could make it ten times worse by leaving me a voice mail making sure I got your email (here's a hint, perhaps I am just not at my desk at the moment). You're better than that.

Daytime Pajamas

Pajamas (or pyjamas as Wikimedia informed me they are also spelled, though I would never spell them that way) are a comfortable and perfectly acceptable clothing item to wear.

When sleeping.

Of late, there has been a trend of more and more people wearing PJs out and about in public.

I have to admit, I was fine ignoring this trend when it was confined to Wal-Mart shoppers. The easy solution there was to avoid Wal-Mart, which I went ahead and did.

Then I ignored the trend when it was just a teenager thing, mostly confined to girls, because I dismissed it as a stupid teenage fashion trend that is allowed because teenagers have no responsibility.

But nowadays? I see GROWN MEN AND WOMEN wearing pajama pants to the mall.

Nope, nope, nope, and now I'm even retracting my previous ignoring. Pajamas are not acceptable daytime attire and make you look like a stoner, a slob, a complete loser, or all of the above.

Seriously? You could not take the six minutes to change out of the stank-pants that you slept in for the past week without coming out into the world to expose the rest of us to it? I'm going to judge and stereotype you here (because that is what your choice of pants leads me to do) and say that likely your home is not a bastion of cleanliness. That said, it likely means that you already have PANTS lying around your house. You don't even have to go and GET them out of a drawer in order to put them on, you just pick them up off of last night's pizza box and put one leg in and a second leg in and then zip. That simple.

And while I can't say there are quite a few things that I would say the government of Caddo Parish, Louisiana gets right, I have to agree with the law they proposed in 2012 that bans pajama pants in public. That's government working to protect its citizens right there.

The only thing worse than wearing pajama pants in public? Wearing them to work. Pants, people. You're better than that.

Excessive Flip Flop Wearers

By Othertree (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)],
via Wikimedia Commons

OK, I can recognize that flip flops have their place.  That place, by the way, is called the beach. That said, you still won't find me wearing any, most likely, because I'm not a big fan of the way they feel wedged up between my toes, nor do I enjoy the annoying thwack thwack sound they make when I walk. But I am an understanding individual and I get that other people enjoy wearing flip flops at the beach.

Now, before we get all up-in-arms, I am going to say that there are instances where women wear flip flops that I am not qualified to criticize because I know very little about actual fashion. (But don't worry, I will still criticize women's fashion that annoys me in later posts).  But my nuisance with flip flops is really when guys wear them excessively.

What constitutes excessive, you may ask?  Here are scenarios in which you should not wear flip flops:

• At Work - I kid you not, there are guys that wear flip flops to work in a professional environment.  This is at the same office where I have seen people in slacks and sport coats.  So you go from almost-suit-and-tie to almost-homeless in the same dress code.  And let's be honest, nobody wants to hear you thwack thwack your way down the hall in the middle of their conference call or see your hairy feet while they are trying to swallow their lunch at their desk in the forty-eight free seconds they have in their day.  Wear shoes.  Hopefully with socks.
• With Jeans - OK, my assertion that flip flops are only appropriate at the beach may be a bit of a hardcore pendulum swing in the other direction, but if there's one thing we can agree on, it should be that flip flops are a summertime footwear.  And nothing says summer like hot ankle-length denim.
• To the bar - Because it makes you look like a douche.  "But these are my nice flip flops, I payed $45 for them at Urban Outfitters and they're made of organic hemp."  Read what you just said. Douche.
• Doing yardwork or construction - Honestly, you probably deserve to have a toe chopped off by an errant chainsaw blade or something, and I'm not the king of protective gear, but for Pete's sake, when doing yardwork or construction, particularly with power tools, flip flops are inappropriate footwear.
• Exercising - Flip flops are not cross-trainers, basketball shoes, or cleats.
• To a nice dinner - I have to give credit, this is usually accompanied by other inappropriate attire that would appropriately compliment flip flops (read: jean shorts at a five star white tablecloth restaurant), so it is likely that this offender just lives in a certain realm of beach-casual all the time.  Still, don't ruin my dining experience.
• Anywhere except the beach - (or around the pool).

What's more annoying than people wearing flip flops?  People who call them thongs. Thongs are underwear, people.  You're better than that.

Potato Chip Bag Destroyers

By Badagnani [CC-BY-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

It is only fair that I acknowledge that the initial inspiration for this blog was what I would call an "improper handling of packaging" incident, in which someone displayed an inability to properly open a packaged food item.  That incident became the lighthouse which my ship of annoyance attempted to sail away from, though I kept running into lighthouses, like I was in the middle of a constellation.  So, without paying any more particular attention to that incident, I will talk about this equally annoying packaging destruction.

Let me acknowledge one thing first: potato chip packages are sometimes annoying to open.  The bag of Kettle chips with this post is amazingly neatly opened, with some chips nicely arranged in a bowl.  But let's not kid ourselves, Kettle chips are perhaps one of the more annoying bags to open - whether it is the industrial-strength glue they use to seal the bags shut or the fact that the "tear here" notch is vertical, encouraging you to tear down the bag instead of across.  Both are nonsensical.  This photographer managed to get a perfectly opened bag (I'm guessing scissors were heavily involved) and even serve chips in a personal-sized bowl, like anyone ever takes their portion control of potato chips that seriously (because if they did, that would be seriously annoying).

Only slightly more annoying than the potato chip bags themselves are people that open them improperly. You know who I am talking about and it is not the person who accidentally rips the bag more than they intended or in a different direction than they planned.  No, that person is just incapable of following their true intentions.  I am talking about the person that willfully destroys the bag entirely because they think this is the right thing to do.

I've seen it only on occasion with a full-size bag, but bag destroyers almost universally will mutilate the single serving potato chip bags.  For the most part, there are two methods - for illustrative purposes, let's call it the crazy method and the insane psycho crazy method:

• The Crazy Method - This individual methodically (like a serial killer) separates the bag at the top, bottom, and back seams, creating a flattened version of the bag that once was, usually shiny-inside facing up, and eats the chips off of it.
• The Insane Psych Crazy Method - To hell with seams.  They were meant to hold back the type of animalistic violent opening that this person craves.  The bag is ripped completely asunder by pulling at the top until it tears down each side, creating a long rectangular flattened surface, connected still by the bottom seam.  It gives the opener some sick joy like ripping an alligator's head apart by prying its jaws open until they snap.  Seriously, they are demented.

Why does this annoy me so much?  Well, I don't have to tell you why.  Many many of my annoyances have no rhyme or reason to them, so I won't pretend to justify each.  This one, though, has a couple of base reasons I can identify:

• Practicality - Once the bag has been destroyed, then what?  You certainly won't be storing that last handful of chips in there to stash away.  The bag is now a flat "plate" which is never going to keep the chips from going stale.  Not to mention losing the portability of being able to relocate with your bag of chips.
• Gluttony - OK, so your answer is "I'm going to eat them all" and that's why you destroy the bag.  Still seems excessive.
• Civility - Humans invented seams and "Tear Here" indicators on packages (though sometimes humans, aka the Kettle Chip producers, get the direction of those indicators wrong) to create some level of civil interaction with our food.  We are not lions ripping raw flesh from the inside of a downed gazelle. We are humans and we eat our fried potato root slices from a bag that was manufactured and heat-pressed together for our convenience, so that we can buy them from a convenience store and eat them in the car on the way to lunch.

So stop mutilating the bags, readers. You're better than that.

Welcome

By The McClouds from Chicago 'burbs, USA
(New welcome mat from my parents) [CC-BY-SA-2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

OK, let's start with some truth.  There is something you do that annoys me.

Now that I have said it, you may wonder, "What could it be?  I can change, I promise!"  But the truth is, you can't really change.  And even if you could, I would find something else you do equally annoying.  Because, as it may be, I could very possibly be the most easily annoyed person on the planet.

Call it ego, call it arrogance, call it misanthropic misadventures, whatever, there is something about me that constantly gets annoyed with little things that others do.  Equally notable is the fact that the people that do these things are (for the most part) not annoyed by them.  Hence they do them.

Now let's not jump to conclusions - I am certainly sure that something that I do annoys me.  So I am not hypocritical or anything, I am just universal in my determination that people are a nuisance, including myself. So I had this little idea that I would start up a blog to just post periodically about who or what is annoying me today.  Somehow, you have found it.  So welcome aboard and feel free to be annoyed.