Day 09 — Pet peeves

This topic is just begging for a rant. Isn't it??

I consider myself pretty even-keeled. I tend to live by the whole "pick your battles" and "don't sweat the small stuff" theology.

I find myself getting worked up in traffic and suffering from road rage isn't something I'd like to see as a daily occurrence in my life. I lived in the monsterplex (read: the DFW area) so I've dealt with morning and afternoon rush hours, bad drivers, lost tourists, and general imbeciles behind the wheel. Not that I'm the perfect driver, I know I tailgate slow drivers a bit. I know I get impatient and weave through traffic. I yell at people who cut me off and don't know how to speed up to merge with highway traffic from a ramp. But it's short-lived. I always remind myself that I don't know their lives...or the reasons behind their poor driving skills. Ha!

Generally I find though, that things I consider pet peeves are incredibly stupid little things. Like when K admonishes me for "leaving things lying around" or "not finishing a job". Pot, kettle. Um, hello? The doors to the cabinet under my kitchen sink have been leaning against the wall now for five weeks since he decided to "fix" them for me. But I digress.

I don't really have a pet peeve, so to speak. It all boils down to inconsiderate behavior. People who are malicious, rude, impolite and the general loss of common courtesy in our society are things that really bug me. I literally "boo" villains in TV shows and movies. Like that old lady in Buttercup's dream from "The Princess Bride."

It's like a bad pantomime or a visit to the Pocket Sandwich Theater.

I guess I want everyone to put their best foot forward, to prove that people are typically "good." I like to pick on people and poke fun, but when the humor is all negative all the time...I start to feel uncomfortable with it. This from the girl with the self-deprecating wit. I don't mind tearing myself down, I just don't like when others do it for me. "It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma...." Name that movie. Now name the real source of the quote. Gotcha!

It just bugs me to see people being plain rude. Or mean. Or evil. I guess that's the real reason I don't like politics. I can't get past all the mud-slinging. The drama. Ugh. I avoid drama like the plague now. I don't understand why people can't just be nice to each other. And mean it.

What's the point of pettiness? Does bringing someone to tears make you feel powerful? It makes me feel awful. I immediately want to correct it.

For example, a few weeks ago I had a "fight" with my son. He parked his car in a lot after hours with the intention of moving it before business hours when it would be towed. Well, his alarm didn't wake him and so when he finally went out to move it, it had been towed. He called me asking for the money to pay the tow charge. I felt like there was a lesson to be learned here and told him he'd have to take the money out of HIS savings account to pay the fees. This led to him getting pissed off. And telling me all about it. And then the stress of everything going on in his life came crashing out of him in an angry and tearful diatribe about how he can't ask us for money. And I'm trying to stick to my guns, why should I pay for his mistake? Ugh. So now I'm in tears.

Other things were definitely in play during this week of trying to find out why he was feeling this way. He calmed down. I calmed down. We re-evaluated his budget and raised his monthly stipend. We also replenished some of his savings which he had been dipping into for stuff that should have been factored into said stipend. But. In the end, I told him that we were not paying for the towing (or the speeding ticket he didn't tell us about that also contributed to his depletion of funds).

All of that said, I'm not claiming to be a saint. I'm as good a sinner as the next guy, but I feel remorse by the bucketloads. And I don't want to be mean just to be mean. If push came to shove, and it has on some occasions in my past, I can be a right B.

Maybe I'm just getting mellow in my old age. I really do strive to treat everyone I come into contact with on a daily basis with courtesy and respect. There's enough war in this world. There's enough strife without me adding to the doom and gloom.

All we need is love. Right??