Can't BELIEVE this hasn't been covered yet.

Letter to owners of Public Washrooms

Dear Sir

In the interest of public safety and sanity, I humbly offer these suggestions on improving your germ infested, disgusting, nasty, dens of iniquity.

First question. Why do you insist upon transparent toilet paper? Is this the newest craze? "Look Mom, my fingers see my bum!" Awesome. Do you not think that people, other than myself, will just keep swooshing that roll till they get a decent amount to keep different body parts that shouldn't be together apart? It's quite wasteful.

Second question involves the placement of the garbage. If it's across the room from the door, how will I get the paper in after I use it to open the door? You don't seriously expect me to use my HANDS, do you?! This problem would be alleviated if the door was a PUSH out, instead of a pull.

Which brings me to my third question. Why do some of you just have "hand dryers" and not offer any alternative, like paper towel? Combine this with a PULL out, and I am stuck in the den, not able to get out until some unsuspecting person comes in, tripping over my foot as I jam it in the door so I can escape. It's a safety issue that requires immediate attention.

Thank goodness you had the forethought to install the flush handle at proper foot hight. I was putting my hip out trying to flush the old, high back models.

Hope you find these tips helpful.

Signed,

Absolutely Normal Person

Road Rage Part Duh.

I'm waiting for it to happen. The first snowfall of the year is usually when it occurs. It's coming; I know it.

Some idiot will drive along at 4o kms. and hour, with their HAZARD LIGHTS ON!!

Am I the only one who remembers from the drivers training manual that hazard lights are for stopped vehicles? Why drive with them on?!?

'Cause it's so easy to be the car behind, trying to focus on the road, with these obnoxious red lights blinking in your eyes, so that your pupils have no time to adjust. Lovely.

On another note, to the Ford van earlier today: Go ahead, don't signal. Keep me in suspense. It's okay, I like waiting, and guessing which way you're going to go. It's like a game!! Left, no right! No wait, it's STRAIGHT!! 2 points!

Point #3 If you want to drive the speed limit, that's okay. I respect that. Obeying the law, and such. But, to those that drive 5 or 7, or 3 under, you incite my rage. I can't help it. I shake my fist at you as I go flying past. And think nasty thoughts.

Who gave you people a license? MTO needs to clean house.

Used Q-tips that are LEFT AROUND.

That is all.

Peanut butter

Peanut, peanut butter. Jelly. Peanut, peanut butter. Jelly. Sharon, Lois and Bram used to sing

about it.

What bugs me about peanut butter isn't the taste, or the song, or the fact that I buy jars and jars of all-natural peanut butter every week. What bugs me is that no one in my family can lick the peanut butter off of the knife.

This means I end up with dozens of knives smeared with peanut butter. Even after going through the dishwasher, knives are left with evidence that someone had a peanut butter rice cake, and didn't clean up the knife.

I hate that! It bugs me. Harrumph.

Open

You know, I like a clean kitchen. I'll even take a tidy one as long as everything is neatly in it's perspective spots, or piles. One thing I can't stand is open cupboard doors. Doors that are meant to shut away the contents inside, giving the illusion that everything is perfect. When cupboard doors are shut my world is at peace.

Then God created children.

Children who get dishes out or put them in and ALWAYS leave the door open. Always. My blood is coagulating on the top of my brain as I write this. My eyes are going to fry inside my skull. It doesn't matter how many times I gently say, "Shut the cupboard doors." Or *slam* them as I walk by to frighten any unsuspecting person in the vicinity. Everyday, a top or bottom one is left open more than once.

Sometimes it's door wars, where I've just shut the door, turn around, turn back, and it's open again! This happens quite often as well. The problem doesn't stop there. I can't help shutting OTHER peoples cupboard doors. Not just family either! I've shut many a door in a home I was invited to for a party or a bible study, and have been caught in the act a few times too. When the quizzing stare makes me blush, I simply say,

"It bugs me."

It's Not Even Safe. For Multiple Reasons.

Speaking of driving issues:

One of the biggest pet peeves of mine is when people follow too closely behind me.

I always start to wonder why, when there are miles and miles of road, some person has to edge right up to my bumper and stay there? Whether I speed up or slow down is beside the point. They're not there to pass; it makes me think maybe they believe that the closer you are to the car in front of you, the less gas you'll use up. They certainly seem to be grasping that idea with white-knuckled, talon-like fingers.

Here's the thing: if you think I'm driving too slow (which, I don't), pass me. Don't just stick there behind me. I'm saying this for my safety and your own.

It's dangerous! Think about what could happen if a little kitten were to crawl mewling onto the road, and I, being the softhearted person I am, slammed on my brakes? What would happen to us - you, me, the kitten - ? We'd all be hurt in one way or another. The kitten at the least would have painful memories that it was all his fault.

Do you really want to put that kind of mental stress on a kitten? What kind of monster are you?

Dumb Drivers

I can't stand it when I'm cruising along a great big stretch of country road, minding my own business, and someone pulls out in front of me and cuts me off.

More than 90% of the time, I am the ONLY car on the road. They didn't have to cut me off in order to make their turn within a decent time period, they just couldn't wait the two and a half seconds it would have taken for me to get by them.

Why do stupid people have this seemingly irresistible compulsion to cut the other car off just so they can be first in line? It's not like they're going to get a prize! As if some race car fairy will *POOF* out of the sky, and give them a shiny gold metal because they beat that other car into town by .0001 seconds! Yay!

Gotta be Firsters aren't as bad as the GBF's who Then Turn Off. You know, the drivers that cut you off, drive about 200 metres, then slow down to a crawl and turn either right or left.
They HAD to turn in front of you, causing you to slam on your brakes and pee a little, just to turn again twenty seconds later.

I don't flip the bird often, because it's rude and my Mommy told me not to, but if I ever do it, it's because of THOSE GUYS!!!! I hate them! Seriously, hatred. It's black and tastes kinda coppery in my mouth.

I have lots more to share about dumb drivers, but I think this will suffice for now.

It's really hard to narrow it down....

... because SO MANY things bug me!

I hate lyrics that are grammatically challenged. It ruins otherwise perfectly good songs for me.

Such as Deborah Cox's popular song, "Beautiful You Are".

"Don't ever let nobody bring you down Girl, Don't ever let nobody tear your world apart, Look in the mirror and see who you are, how Beautiful you are!"

I want to take a magical red pen and mark the whole freaking song up.

"Do not ever let anyone bring you down, Girl. Do not ever let anyone tear your world apart. Look in the mirror and see your reflection, you are beautiful."

I just can't listen to it anymore. It has a great beat, Deborah Cox has a lovely voice, but the lyrics drive me crazy. It's not good to be borderline spastic when you're behind the wheel of a tonne of steel hurtling down the highway at 100 kilometers per hour.

Serenity is indicative of good mental focus.

Artists of the world, hear me! DO NOT keep producing songs that have garbage grammar. Please! You are driving me crazy.

Shopping Bugs Me!

I go shopping on a regular basis. This is dictated to me by a chorus of hungry voices clamouring, "What's to eat?" Because literally half of the people with whiny, hungry voices are TALLER than me (no, wait...sigh...only one of them is shorter now), I am compelled to head out of the confines of my warm and cozy house, to go grocery shopping.

It's not the picking veggies and fruit that I dread. It's not the comparison shopping, the getting of the best deal, the piling high of the grocery cart (or carts!)... it's the checkout.

I hate checking out.

It bugs me that even though I obviously have twice as many groceries as the next guy, they rush me through in record time, pushing the button on the conveyor belt so that the groceries hit me and get in my space as I'm trying to put noodles with noodles and meat with meat.

It's the OCD.

I have to pack it a certain way. If I don't, it drives me crazy.

And the checkout girl does all that she can to thwart me in my objectives.

So, I hate shopping.

It's "etc", not "ect".

See title.

But more elaborately, "etc" is a short-form of "et cetera" which is Latin. It means "and the rest", "and so on", "and so forth"...etc.

Latin was the official language of the Romans. Have you ever heard of them? They were a small nation that conquered a small part of the world...no biggie, really*.

Still, the English language has adopted some of their Latin phrases. Et cetera is one of those.

I think it would be a lot more difficult to say "ec tetera". Besides, I don't know what that would mean. For all I know it could mean something about nose hairs. (Actually, I'm almost positive it's not even in the language. Five approving claps for anyone who proves me wrong.)

I like this movie.

*That's not really true. It was a biggie. One of the biggest biggies in the history of the world.

I've Wanted To Mention This For Quite Some Time.

I was once more reminded of a particular pet peeve today as I was listening to the radio.

Imagine the scenario:

A tired, young, gorgeous, witty, and extremely talented woman is driving home. She thinks the weather outside is tolerable, but not exactly "nice" - cloudy, with that rain that isn't quite rain. She turns the radio on to overpower the sound of the incredibly loud Ford van engine. And it hits.

BAM, right in the eardrums.

Nasal singing, with words left unfinished.

You know, it sits there and niggles at me from the moment I hear it.

If you're going to work hard enough to have a song that gets played on the radio, why can't you take the time to complete your sentences instead of letting them trail off in some sort of whining mumble-breath? I mean, seriously? Are you serious?