Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Andy Rooney would be proud



People who don’t know me really well would be surprised – because of my outwardly laid-back personality -- that there are things that really annoy me.

Seriously. I can be annoyed.

It’s time for another list.

--It seems that during every televised golf shot in PGA tournaments that some idiot will scream into the field mike: “GET IN THE HOLE!” In case you didn’t know, this is a line uttered by Bill Murray in “Caddyshack,” one of the greatest all-time golf movies and certainly was funny in the context of the film. It is not funny or amusing when you hear it screamed during the U.S. Open, the British Open or any other golf tournament. If they were my golf tournaments, I would ban the phrase and eject any fan using it. Why? Because it’s so darn annoying.

--Facebook users can annoy me especially when he/she replaces his/her profile picture with that of a dog/cat. I mean, come on. I know people love their pets and treat them better -- in some cases -- than their human counterparts, which -- in some cases -- is understandable. But let’s be honest. Your pet is much more important to you than to me. I know this because I’ve seen people walk their pets in Chicago and they go to great extremes to avoid having to interact with someone else’s dog. People are like that. They only care about their own dog/cat.

--Connie Schultz, who is a great columnist and who is married to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, annoys me because she posts more pictures of her dog, Franklin, on Facebook than any other Facebook pet owner does of his/her dog. And last I counted there was something like a gazillion Facebook users.
--People who think I don’t like dogs annoy me.

--In this day and age of GPS devices, I am annoyed by cab drivers who ask me for directions.

--Servers who want to wow you with their memory ability by not writing down the order annoy me when they bring the wrong stuff.

--Lousy tippers annoy me especially when I happen to be with them. This doesn’t happen very often.

--I annoy me when I realize later that I didn’t tip enough. I lose sleep over such things.

--Motorists who won’t let me in their lane when clearly it wasn’t my fault that there’s an accident 500 feet ahead in my lane really annoy me.

--People texting and driving really annoy me. I can live with the cell phone talkers, but the texters… get ‘em outta here.

--Reporters who shove a microphone in front of a grieving family member or friend and then ask some version of “How do you feel?” really, really annoy me.

--People who dress inappropriately for the occasion annoy me and, yes, I’m even talking about those meaningless little visits to a certain big box store. Oh my goodness.

--Uninformed people annoy me. Those include people who unknowingly reveal in the course of conversation that they will vote the way they will because they are, in fact, racists. People who read this column in whatever form obviously are exempted from the annoyance. My readers would never do that.

--People who wear their politics and/or religion on their sleeve annoy me. I’m not talking about those people who might display a bumper sticker on their car. I’m talking about the “in your face” type of people who think they’re right and you’re stupid. Certainly I could write endorsement editorials for either Obama or Romney and be darn convincing if I say so myself. Please keep an open mind.

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