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Marcie "Mom" Glanzer's Column
Thursday, April 7, 2005
That Just Gets My Goat
I am an easygoing person...calm and hard to ruffle. But every now and then I am
irritated by something and so I thought I 'd share a few of these pet peeves
with you.
1. Commercials are often the source of irritation for me. Especially ones that
try to make you think they are going up to someone on the street and getting a
spontaneous reaction to a product, but you know these are really actors who are
reading a script. One that comes to mind is a new one advertising Clorox Bleach.
The narrator brings a jug into a laundramat and proceeds to stun innocent
customers with baggies filled with the equivalent of human sweat and skin
dander. If you use Clorox, you will be rid of such nasty things. They might have
fooled me, but I recognize a red-haired woman in the commercial as one I have
recently seen trying to get me to take out a mortgage on another commercial. Why
not just find people on the street? Were they afraid people wouldn't be
impressed with Clorox? Another one is for Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. A little
girl says "It tastes good" (tastes is pronounced tastuz) in the hope that we'll
say "Oh, isn't she cute!", but I think that kid is too old to talk like that so
I'm not falling for it.
2. I'm sorry to mention commercials again, but another thing that I don't like
is when they use subliminal advertising to sway a person. For instance, a woman
may have a headache and out the window you can see storm clouds and wind and
hail, maybe a tornado coming at her. But when she takes the Tylenol, suddenly
the sun is shining and her kids are playing happily and her husband walks in
with a bouquet of flowers. It's a bunch of crap and I won't buy their product,
just because they think I'm that gullible.
3. One more about TV, then I promise I'll be done. I get really angry when a
show I've been waiting to see for weeks is on (maybe the season finale of
Survivor, or Desperate Housewives) and they interrupt programming and go to a
special news report. The exciting special news music plays for 45 seconds while
they make you wait to see if an asteroid is heading towards earth, only to find
out that President Bush has arrived back at the White House after spending the
weekend at Camp David. When they come back to the show, it's over. Much
swearing.
4. On to something besides television. I don't claim to be a rocket scientist,
but I do appreciate good grammar. I am not a grammar snob, however, and don't
get too shook up over the incorrect usage of "who" or "whom". But please don't
say "I seen a pretty bird today" or I may strangle you. You didn't seen a bird,
you saw a bird. You have seen a bird, you had seen a bird, but you did NOT seen
a bird. I can't tell you how many people around me say this and I grit my teeth,
but someday I may lose it. Maybe on one of those days when I have a headache and
storm clouds are outside my window, and I can't find my Tylenol.
5. Some of you who know me, know that I drive for a living. I am a rural mail
carrier and drive miles and miles each day. Therefore, I have a pet peeve or two
about driving. My first is a no-brainer. I hate it when people don't stop at a
stop sign. Out here in the middle of nowhere, people, usually farmers, are so
used to there being no traffic, that they zip right through stop signs, like
there is never a chance someone could be coming. I have had many close calls and
had I not been aware of these intersections, would have been dead long ago.
6. I may as well continue with another driving gripe. It is when I am driving
along at 65 MPH and someone comes up to a corner. They seem to be a bit
indecisive as to whether they should wait for me to go by, or pull out. At the
last minute, they decide to pull out right in front of me and then go a top
speed of about 50. Invariably that's when there is a hill or another vehicle
coming from the other direction, and I can't pass. Maybe this only happens out
here by Carpenter, but I doubt it.
7. I hate to do this to you, but one more TV related gripe, then I'll quit. It
has to do with commercials where the announcer yells at you. I mean shouts his
message, instead of calmly explaining the product and sharing all the wonderful
aspects of it. Right away I think of the guy with the Kaboom crap. Billie
something. He practically has a heart attack over getting a stain of his undies
using his OXY 10. The other that comes to mind is the Amazing Lasko, who has
made millions of dollars and will tell you how too, if you'll just send him
$6000. He wears a stupid ass jacket covered with question marks, like that's
going to sell his book? OK, I'm done.
8. My last pet peeve is my own stupidity. I do alot of stupid things, and the
stupidest is that I tell others what stupid thing I did. For instance (and here
I am, telling the world!) one time I was looking on Ebay for a toy box for my
granddaughter, Peyton. I thought it would be just the thing to have out in the
hallway upstairs to store her toys in. I was looking specifically for a Little
Tykes toybox and found them all to be too expensive. All of a sudden I found one
that was selling for $4.00, and the best part was they only wanted $4.95 for
shipping. And it was a Buy it Now item!!!! What luck! I quickly hit the Buy it
Now button and patted myself on the back for my slick dealings...obviously this
idiot who listed it had no idea what shipping costs were really going to be, but
she was stuck now, since she had advertised it that way. I couldn't help
grinning as I went back to take one more look at my purchase. It was then that I
realized it was a toybox made for a dollhouse! The stupid thing was only 3"
long! Thankfully, the seller had a good sense of humor and let me back out of
the sale, but I did learn to read them more thoroughly in the future.
Well, that's it for this installment. I could probably go on forever, but that's
another pet peeve of mine...when people make me listen to their pet peeves!
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