How do you annoy me? Let me count the ways...

Ah...annoyances.

Part of everyday life, huh?

Being a stay-at-home-mom has really rid my life of a lot of the working world annoyances such as traffic, bad drivers, bosses (some, not all), etc.

But every person, no matter what their life situation may be, has SOME annoyances.

So I thought I would expand on 3 of my everyday peeves, annoyances, irritations (you get the picture)...if only to be able to look back on and see if they still bother me in the future.

**DISCLAIMER**

I have no intent of purposefully offending anyone with my post. All opinions are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone related to or associated with me.

Besides, in truth, I cannot cause you to be offended. Only YOU can choose to be offended. Keep that in mind for future incidences also. So if you don't think you can control your ability to not be offended, just hit that back button and go back where you came from. =)

3 THINGS THAT ANNOY ME

1. Let me start with a simple one...bad spelling.

I will be the first one to admit that I am not the world's best speller and for that you can refer to my unsuccessful attempts in city-wide spelling bees and constant usage of spellcheck.

I am a simple girl and don't typically use huge words in my vocabulary, but I try to do my best to make sure when I am typing something out, that I quickly check over it to see if I've misspelled anything. Yes, things slip by every once in a while (like when my mom called me to tell me that I had accidentally typed "whole" in my blog when I meant "hole").

Yeah, so I'm anal about things like that and fixed the mistake instantly.

But here's my real pet peeve...typing "there" when you mean "their", or "loose" when you mean "lose". It can seriously make a person loose there mind!! =P

Do you see how awful that looks...how ignorant?

Now I have full sympathy for those whose first language isn't English, because as I was told many years ago, English is THE HARDEST language to learn...so many exceptions to the rules, so many strangely spelled words and homonyms.

The annoyance comes in when I know that these people were born and raised in this country and have had the same education as others.

Yeah, maybe it's a stupid thing to be bothered by, but I just wish more people would be a little less lazy with their language skills and at least strive to TYPE intelligently.

2. Grocery store sackers

The sackers, baggers, whatever you want to call them...I swear they are out to get my groceries!!

I am seriously wondering if they even train these people anymore.

I have full appreciation for grocery store workers in general, as I did my time for 8 months as a cashier with a large grocery store chain...but please tell me that common sense in our youth these days isn't going the way of the dodo bird.

For example:

Let's see just how many cans I can fit into this micro-thin plastic bag...I mean, all cans go together, right?

or

You really want your sweaty milk jug in a bag? You mean you don't like having to rinse dirt and carpet fuzz off of the jug before placing it in your fridge?

Oh, and my groceries always come home completely violated when the "nothing better to do" sackers gang up on my groceries and 3 of them plus the cashier are tossing things recklessy into bags and no one knows what's going where and you end up with at least 4 bags with only 1 thing in them.

Ugh...I just want to tell them to move and let me do it myself!

Which leads me to THE WORST incident I've ever had with a sacker/cashier.

I was shopping alone and my unresponsive lump of a cashier was just a delight to stare at as she blankly tossed my groceries to the other end of the conveyor belt. But her sacker was even more lovely...especially when she finished sacking my groceries, loaded half of them in the cart and just walked away. So I'm just standing there trying to figure out what has happened and expect my cashier to finish up the job...but what does she do? She turns her back to the groceries and waits for ME to clear the rest of my stuff out of the way so that she can get on to the next customer in line. I should have loudly thanked her for her help as I walked away or as my mom suggested, "raised hell" with the manager, but I just took my things and left. For I'm certain that even if I had raised Beelzebub himself in the middle of H.E.B., it would do nothing to change the lazy minds and attitudes of people like these.

I will not include all grocery store workers in this rant because I have worked with and had some wonderful people help me in the past, but they are becoming a rarity in recent years.

Shall I add better customer service in the world to my prayers?

3. Selling dogs on the side of the road

This one gets me every time.

My first instinct when I see those puppies sitting in their crates just feet from the asphalt is to pull over and take every one of them home.

I am a sucker for puppies and kittens...well most any furry animal actually and I hate to see those babies being pawned by breeders like any other roadside junk such as ceramic pots and lawn statues.

But up to this point, I have never taken home an armful of puppies purely because of the amount of money being requested for these animals.

Then there is annoyance of just how many of these sellers there are around here! On any given weekend when the weather is nice, you are sure to find at least half a dozen types of dogs being sold in a one mile stretch of road near my home.

AKC this...purebred that...it's just nonsense.

How is a purebred animal's life any more valuable than the lives of the beloved mutts that I owned as a child? Not to mention the fact that purebreds typically aren't nearly as hardy as mutts are.

I know that in some cases this is how these breeders make a living...but at what expense? Making more dogs just for profit when our rescue operations and shelters are full of "unwanted" animals? I truly find that cruel and heartless.

Please don't get me wrong, I am definitely no PETA member and don't believe that an animal's life should be placed above a human's.

(Of course, I'll do anything I can to avoid hitting an animal with my car...which in my husband's opinion means that I would have us all killed while trying to not hit a squirrel...which is NOT the case...I had complete control of the car. =P)

But animals do have a purpose...food, work, companionship, etc.

And I could understand the breeding of these dogs if they did a specific job that no other type of animal could do or if there were a shortage of companion dogs...but I'm pretty sure that this is not the case.

I think the phrase that most applies in this case is "Waste not, want not".

Life is a precious thing...most definitely for humans, but also for all of God's creatures.

Anyway, if you have read this far and still don't detest me....thanks.

I know some of the things that bother me may seem trivial, but in reality they are all just symptoms of a bigger problem...one that won't go away...sin.

Laziness, disregard for others, greed, devaluing life...these things have always been there, but seem to be more steadily taking over.

It's part of human nature to do these things...which is why we can't let what "feels natural" guide our lives...or we'll end up a bunch of misspelling, lazy-sacking dog-sellers!

'Til we meet again...