Some pet peeves I felt like sharing

This post was meant to be more light hearted, but some parts get a little preachy. I promise if you make it to the end you get to see a clip of Maggie Smith being adorable. 

Pet Peeve 1: Adult Banter

Just so we're all clear, I am not yet qualifying myself as an adult. I'm also not qualifying every adult as someone who does this. But a startling number of men and women over the age of 40 seem ready to jump off a bridge at the beginning of every conversation. 

When I worked at a pharmacy, I heard the most depressing conversations. They would start, "Jim you old so-and-so how are ya?!"

And the response is invariably something along the lines of:

- "Oh you know, hanging on."

- "Alive."

- "Well I'm doing the best I can with what I've got."

Like they're resigned to say this and it just comes with age. And there's this sanctimonious little nod that comes with it that says, "ah yes. I see you are also a bitter old man with a distaste for anything happy or optimistic. Now lets go terrify that new teenage pharmacy tech who looks like she's about to vomit all over herself."

Maybe I'm just not prepared for adult conversation.

Pet Peeve 2. People (particularly undergrads) who use elaborate sentence structure when normal writing would suffice. There is a time and a place for fancy writing and your Poli Sci 106 class is not it. 

I remember reading people's papers that would say something like "And, regardless of prior prosperity, whomsoever were to allocate funds to the Democratic Party would likely find themselves the subject of much adoration."

We must remember that somewhere there is a poor grad student who is currently taking three days out of their studying to read our crappy papers. Do them a solid. Write like a human being. 

Pet Peeve 2b. Along the same lines, for the love of god don't write in cliches, idioms or phrases if you aren't 100 PERCENT CERTAIN that you know how they're used/spelled. 

I had an arch nemesis that would constantly make this mistake. Guys, I have an arch nemesis. Actually, I have a lot of arch nemeses. It does not take much. The list includes: 

1. My parent's guinea pig, Curby

There's hatred in those eyes

2. The guy that was texting when he was first in the left turn lane and made everyone miss the arrow except him because he wasn't paying attention.

3. Any other Hannah that I meet. Including the one that was my roommate for two years. Still don't trust her. Even though I live text her when I watch new episodes of Downton Abbey. 

4. The idiom/cliche misspeller/misuser

First of all, the cliche user hated me. I believe this is because I wrote a paper about how the Daily Show is a growing source of hard news for people my age, even though it's a comedy show. Which is just straight up fact, ladies and gentlemen. However, he was very conservative. He circled my thesis statement a million times and wrote "NO" on top of it. Things got real after that. Words were said. 

To make a long story short, his paper used the expression "come to virition" by which I assume he meant "come to fruition" so I circled it a million times and wrote "NO." Oh yeah. I was awesome.

Pet Peeve 2c: On second thought, I don't like when people write in idioms or cliches at all so... I'm gonna forget 2b and just stick with no cliches or idioms in writing. 

Pet Peeve 3: Tip jars at coffee houses

What gives you the right to a tip jar over, say, a McDonalds employee? They get paid a lot less and deal with people a lot crazier. Presumably. 

Pet Peeve 4: People who cross the street outside of crosswalks (particularly diagonally through 4-way stops) SLOWLY. 

I understand. Sometimes you just need to get somewhere. And sometimes this is the biggest gap you've gotten in ten minutes and you just need to go for it. 

But if you're going to go for it then you better be hauling ass. Don't walk briskly for two steps then suddenly begin shuffling slowly along while texting and determinedly not looking me in the eye. I KNOW YOU SEE ME. I'M IN A CAR.

Then again, 20 minutes ago I was weeping softly while listening to Barbra Streisand sing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and looking up photos of Maggie Smith as Wendy in Hook. So I'm not certain anyone should be listening to me in the first place. 

Does the woman age BACKWARDS?!?!