Pet Peeves

Pet peeves, petty annoyances, irritating displeasures. We all know them, have them, whinge about them. I have a list of them, not that I dwell on them, they just kinda come up. It’s just the stuff that happens on a day-to-day basis and probably most people never even notice some of the things that annoy the hell out of me, just as I possibly never get bugged by stuff that annoys other people.


My top 7:




1.Probably one of the most aggravating peeves of mine is when driving and the person in the car in front of me brakes and then indicates. That shits me. It’s not only dangerous, it’s wrong. Every time someone does it a long list of swear words run out of my mouth while I slam my own brakes on in complete disbelief. “Youfuckingidioticmaniacalimbecile”...or something like that. Sometimes I vary it a bit particularly when driving with my toddler.

 2.Something I am affronted by is people who sit outside of Woolies with their long table and posters and are fundraising. The fundraising does not bother me at all, I know it is vitally necessary. Come around to my place and I’ll make a cup of tea and fork out some dosh or leave a canister on the til and I’ll deposit some coins in there, but when I have just spent $400 on lettuce, toilet paper and sandwich wrap and they are ducking and weaving trying to catch my eye as I attempt to keep my trolley on the straight and narrow and have a small child asking me over and over again, “why can’t I have a strawberry milk Mum, why?, why?”, then the last thing I want to deal with is someone from Surf Lifesavers Queensland, saying,

“Excuse me mam, fancy dropping off some more money for our cause?”

“Not right now”, I say smiling yet obviously flustered because the trolley (we now pay for because idiots knick them) has a mind of its own and is going south while my kid is pulling me north and my hair is in my eyes.

“Just a small donation?”

“Sorry, can’t do it right now,” forced grin.

“Perhaps you’d like to look at a brochure and see the statistics on the good work we do?”

“Not at the moment. I know you do good work.” Grimace.

And all this time my little girls wrist is being yanked behind me while I have one hand now crippled with carpel tunnel on a wild roller coaster trolley and am heading for the down escalator.

“Do you ever go to the beach mam?”

“No, I fucking well do not. Get the bloody tourists to pay up they’re the ones who can’t swim.”

Why can’t they just accept that it is not always possible to stop and do this?

Sometimes I simply take my credit card with me and $1 for the trolley and when they come at me I smile apologetically wave my card at them and say,

“Sorry I only have my credit card today.”

“Well perhaps when you’ve finished with your trolley coin?”

“Step away arsehole.”


3.When I see someone litter in front of me I literally feel my blood boil. It is insane and unnecessary. It is thoughtless and messy. I actually say to people who do this,
“Who is going to pick that up? The litter fairy?”

When I see people do it while I am driving, I want to drive right up to them and get them to roll their window down and shame them. I’m afraid I’m guilty of one of those nanas that says, “where are the cops when you need them?” even if no one else is in the car with me.


4.Jenny Schecter...say no more.


5.When Australian use Americanisms in their speech and spelling. It infuriates me. Why do we Aussies think we mesh if we follow suit? I don’t care if we change some of our words to Australianisms but why American? Flashlight when it is a torch, aluminium (al-yuh-min-ee-uh m) not aluminum (uh-loo-muh-nuh m), trashcan when its rubbish bin, attorney...guess what? We don’t have them here. Bathroom, we actually say loo. It’s a bloody biscuit not a cookie. It is not a hood, it’s a bonnet, peanut paste, not peanut butter, jam not jelly, porridge not oatmeal, dummy not pacifier. Never, ever get fanny mixed up! You could be in real trouble here.

6.Flies. Well there’s one that probably pisses most of us off.


7.The Alanis Morrisette song, ‘Isn’t it ironic?’ rankles me incredibly. What is ironic about it? Isn’t it all just pretty much bad fucking luck or coincidental.
An old man turned ninety-eight


He won the lottery and died the next day – such bad luck, maybe it would have been ironic if he had bought a lottery ticket every Saturday his whole life...


It's a black fly in your Chardonnay – wasn’t that an accident?


It's a death row pardon two minutes too late – again, really bad luck – or fate perhaps or just desserts.


A traffic jam when you're already late- only when there are never ever normally traffic jams maybe.


A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break- a sign from God? Whatever I think she got her adjectives wrong.
You’re singing it now aren’t you?