Pet Peeves

I had an experience in the grocery store the other day that got me thinking about pet peeves. I mentioned this on the last 2politcal podcast. I was in the Giant grocery store which is down the street from me. This woman decided she would write a check.

It is rather rare in this day and age for someone to write a check. Now I still write checks but it’s for bill paying. I haven’t written a check to buy something in a store in years. To get a check approved is much quicker than it once ones. In fact I’d say it doesn’t take that much longer than say someone using a debit or credit card. So what ticked me off about this woman, the fact that she didn’t have her check book out and ready to pay. She had to fish around in her purse and find the check book. Then she had to find some ID to show the cashier. I’m sorry if you know you’re going to pay by check why the hell aren’t you ready.

I’ll continue the theme of peeves in the grocery store. I love it when people are being checked out and they are talking on their cell phone. They pay little if no attention to the cashier. One women in particular seemed annoyed the cashier was asking her questions. One of my favorite sights is to see people try and use the self check out while on the phone. It really isn’t all that easy. But yet they insist on trying to due both.

Everyone once and a while you get someone who has some common sense. There was women recently in the line I was in talking on her phone. It was a fairly long line. But once the cashier was ringing up her stuff she said I have to go I’m up. I was directly behind her and she smiled at me and said I hate it when people are talking on the phone and being cashed out. They never seem to pay attention to what’s going on. I told her that I thought that that was a good idea not to be on the phone when getting checked out. She chimed in best to pay attention to what’s going on. I said you can always call the person back. Exactly she said with a big smile.

In general it seems when people are on their electronic devices they pay less attention to what’s going on around them. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve had to move out of the way because someone is talking or texting on not watching where they are going. I am particularly reminded of this one woman who just about ran into me and then gave me this smirk. As if it was my responsibility to get out of her way as opposed to her responsibility to watch where she was going.

But perhaps my biggest pet peeve these days is people who treat stop lights and stop signs as stopping suggestions. When I light change I rarely step off the curb immediately for fear of being hit by a driver that decides the light doesn’t apply to them.

And those are my pet peeves for the moment.