Curmudgeon’s Corner: Things I Really REALLY Hate

1. Those thin skins on peanuts that get stuck on your tongue and you can’t pick them off but you can still feel them inside your mouth.
2. Chewing gum—anytime, anywhere, in anybody’s mouth (especially people who answer the telephone in an office), on any street, under any table, on anybody’s shoe (especially mine), in anybody’s hair.
3. People who drive around with their car stereo bass volume at the “deafening” level so I can hear it inside my house at 1 a.m. when I’m otherwise alone enjoying a peaceful meditation.
4. Hangnails, especially the little ones that elude nail clippers. How DID Adam and Eve deal with that anyway?
5. People who say “Okay?” at the end of every sentence to be sure you’re following them, as if you were too much of an idiot to understand simple instructions. Close second: People who say, “Oh, uh-huh” at the end of every statement you make in a conversation, as if you somehow need to be occasionally assured that they’re still listening.
6. Slow internet connections.
7. People who friend you on Facebook just to play games.
8. Junk mail. Most of the mail I get is catalogs which go from my hand into the recycle bin. They could stop sending me those things and cut out the middle man, but it practically takes an Act of Congress to get OFF a mailing list you didn't ask to be on in the first place.
9. Interminable legal language of privacy statements that come with dismaying frequency from every company I do business with, leaving me wondering what privacy they’re protecting. One statement at the beginning of a relationship ought to be assurance enough.
10. Colonoscopy prep. Now there’s something to look forward to when you get up in the morning—self-induced diarrhea.