Do You Need New Ways To Be Annoying?
I’ve sometimes wondered if the person who is driving me crazy is only that way in a specific setting (the one I’m in at the time) or if he or she is always that way. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I don’t consider the idea that I might be annoying as well. Highly improbable!
My friend Jeff Adams wrote a post last month about annoying airplane travelers. I could relate to all of his descriptions–especially the passengers who hold up everyone else while stuffing their over-sized bags into the overhead bins. Then it’s slam, slam, SLAM, while they try to close the door.
My neighbor, Larry Homenick, has a list of annoyances he encounters at casinos. (I don’t go to those places, so I’m taking his word on these). They include the Button Pounder, the Slot Machine Expert, the Slot Machine Hog, the Over-Your-Shoulder Starer, and the Childishly Excited. (Oh my gosh. Oh my GOSH! OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! I won two dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Last week I was checking out at an Office Max and the guy in front of me was so preoccupied talking on his cell phone, he couldn’t respond to anything the sales clerk was asking–the sales clerk was visibly annoyed and so were those of us standing and waiting. We all have stories like that nowadays. They are as common as the annoyances of having someone scrolling through email while you’re teaching or conversing; talking on the phone loudly, as though others want to hear or won’t notice, or forwarding silly emails or urban legends to you and fifty others.
There are traffic annoyances; personal habits that are annoying; repetitious words and phrases that were charming, witty or interesting the first thousand times the person said them, but aren’t anymore; inside jargon; annoying children, annoying sounds (whistling, humming, snorting, etc.) and a myriad of other things. (And saying we should overlook those things is annoying too. It’s always easier to tell someone to ignore an annoyance than it is to ignore the thing that annoys you.)
More ways to be annoying: In case you don’t have enough ways to be annoying, I’ll give you an excerpt from the list you may have already seen. I haven’t found out the correct attribution–the source listed by some sites hasn’t proven to be correct. Very annoying!
- Learn Morse Code and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of “Beeeeep, Bip, Bip, Beep, Bip, Beeeep…”
- Specify that your drive-through order is “to go.”
- Sniffle incessantly. (Note: Or cough, pick your noise, scratch your arm, neck or face, etc.)
- Insist on keeping your windshield wipers running in all weather conditions to keep them “tuned up.”
- Reply to everything someone says with, “That’s what YOU think.”
- Follow a few paces behind someone spraying everything they touch with Lysol.
- Finish all your sentences with the words, “in accordance with prophecy.”
- ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
- Repeat everything someone says, in the form of a question. (Note: That’s why “active listening” techniques can be annoying.)
- Demand that everyone address you as “Conquistador”. (Note: I knew a guy who wanted me to call him Tarzan, but it might not be the same concept.)
- Stand over someones shoulder mumbling as they read. (Note: That’s still not as bad as standing behind a stranger and watching while they play a slot machine.)
- Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-worker’s minds. (Note: Like Mike O’Neill and Art Hutchison used to do to Gary Gosage with “Sh-boom, sh-boom. Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, sh-boom, sh-boom…”)
I saw a sign the other day that undoubtedly is appropriate for all of us:
Sh-boom, sh-boom. Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, sh-boom, sh-boom……
