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Pet Peeves

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There’s a thread in the Trout Nation Forums called “Things you can’t justify being annoyed by,” and when I read it, I felt like I had come home. I get annoyed by so many things that I cannot justify in any way, including but not limited to:

  • People thinking a food is spicy when I do not think it is spicy
  • When people ask for prayers on Facebook and don’t elaborate what people are supposed to be praying for
  • Those photoshopped book ads where someone puts their cover into a picture of a billboard or a bus stop ad to make it look like they actually purchased major advertising and their book is a really big deal

so it was gratifying to read that other people have the same weird feelings about weird things that they can’t explain. But I also have three pet peeves that I feel like I can justify, and I would like to bitch about them now.

The cat double standard. In my life, I have lived in houses with cats more than I have not. Growing up, I had a cat named Panther. When I was high school, we got a second cat named Sherbert. My first live-in boyfriend and I had a cat named Jupiter. A roommate had a cat named Gabrielle. When we met, Mr. Jen had a cat called Smudge, who ate shoelaces out of your shoes and humped everything. And in 2006, I got a kitten I named Her Majesty. So this is a lot of cats, right? A pretty good sample size. All of these cats? Every single one of them? Peed on stuff.

This is the point where I’m sure some of you are going to rush to the comments and say, “My cat has never peed outside of the litterbox!” And I am going to tell you: you’re either lying to protect your a-hole cat, or you just haven’t found the spot your a-hole cat is peeing in yet.

Her Majesty is possibly the worst offender. No matter how clean her litter boxes are–litter boxes, plural, for one cat, in an attempt to correct this issue–she will pee on something. Piece of paper gets dropped on the floor? Better pee on it. Did Mr. Jen leave his work shoes poking just outside the cubby? Buy new shoes, dickhead. Jenny, I noticed you’re doing laundry! While you’re standing literally three feet away, I’ll just squat here in front of the washing machine and pee.

This is the point where I’m sure some of you are going to rush to the comments and say, “If your cat is peeing outside of the litterbox, it means she’s sick!” And I am going to tell you: this cat has been checked for numerous conditions, numerous times, by three different vets. This cat? Is not sick. This cat is an a-hole.

So, back in the day, I stupidly, stupidly turned to people on the internet for help. I joined a forum in which cat owners traded stories and concerns about their cats. There were videos posted of cats grieving for their canine companions who’d passed on, or cats greeting service members returning from deployment. People were telling stories that proved how human cats really are, how they think and feel as complexly as we do, and that, without any doubt, cats were capable of love and devotion to human companions on a scale far greater than any love the universe has ever known.

But the second you say, “My a-hole cat is peeing on stuff, how do I fix it?” suddenly cats have absolutely no emotions. “It’s just an animal! Cats don’t have feelings the way we do, they act on instinct alone! Get out of the dark ages, you cat-hating monster!”

Then I remembered that the internet has a very skewed ratio of dummies to sensible people, and called my friend Bronwyn Green, who at one time had nine cats or something totally berserk like that. And she said, “Sounds like Her Majesty is just an asshole.” But the point of this story is, for some reason people will ascribe human emotions to cats to make them seem like the most wonderful, perfect, easy to care for species in the entire pet kingdom, but are fully willing to paint them as wild idiots whose love of destroying human property with their foul urine is just an instinct nature gave them.

“You totally have to watch this show, even though you don’t like it!” I recommend shows all the time. I mean, I can’t hide that. This is my blog, you already know. But I feel like there is a distinct difference between telling someone that a show is cool and they should give it a shot (as people on Tumblr and Twitter often do for me, and which I appreciate!), and stopping just short of actual physical torture to get someone to like it.

i don't even like harry potter

No television show in the history of the medium has ever embodied this type of annoyance like Firefly. On the surface, I totally understand why people who knew me thought I would like it. It’s Joss Whedon. I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel and Toy Story. And I love Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who, so this was obviously going to be a home run for me, right?

I didn’t like it. Maybe it was because I mistakenly watched Serenity first. It was on HBO or whatever, and I thought that was what people were telling me to watch, so I was like, “Sure, I’ve got a couple hours.” And while I had a good time watching the movie, it wasn’t OH MY GOD THE BEST MOVIE EVER. Then I found out that I’d basically watched the end of the story, and I was like, “Well, guess I don’t need to watch the entire series.”

Lots of people I knew disagreed with me, usually loudly and at parties. It would start out like, “Have you seen Firefly? You would love it.” Then I would say, “You know, I watched Serenity and I can see why people like it, but I’m just not into it.” And they would say, “But you watched it out of order! You have to start from the beginning!” Then I would go, “I don’t have to do anything, I’m a goddamn adult!” and take a swing at them, because like I said, this was usually happening at a party and I was still drinking back then.

Eventually, my brother-from-another-set-of-parents-entirely, Warnement, convinced me to watch the first episode. And you guys, it was soooooo boring. I think I suffered through like three episodes, all of which I found boring and offensive. Magical girl who needs constant male supervision to survive? Check. Joke at the expense of a person of color’s hair? Check. Mish-mash of cultures from Asia, but no Asian people anywhere? Check. I didn’t watch the rest of the series. Surely now that I’d watched some of it, I was off the hook, right?

No. I was not off the hook. I was not off the hook by a long shot. Now the conversations were going like, “Have you seen Firefly? You would love it.” And I’d be like, “You know, I watched some of it, and I just didn’t like it.” And they would be like, “Wait, you only watched some of it? Then how could you tell you didn’t like it?” I would then explain, “It’s boring, and I found some of the stuff pretty racist, colonialist, and misogynistic.” They would demand I elaborate on these points, then give me excuse after excuse as to why I was being too sensitive, why all of those problematic elements were okay, and why I really had to watch the entire show and Serenity all over again, because then I would get it. Then one or two other people in the vicinity would be like, “Are you guys talking about Firefly?” and the cycle would start all over again, until all the Firefly fans would veer off into quoting lines and singing about the man called Jane or something.

These occurrences have sharply declined now that Firefly isn’t shiny and new, and also I stopped going to parties. But it started up again a couple of years ago with Sherlock, a show whose popularity I cannot grasp on any level. I tried to watch it. A friend asked me where I was in the first season, and I was like, “Episode eight, I think.” She goes, “Jen, there are only three episodes in the first season,” and I realized that I was so bored while watching it, it literally had felt like an eight hour binge watch.

Men who take up too much space on airplanes. As I have previously mentioned, I recently travelled to Las Vegas, and since I live in Michigan, I had to get on a plane to go there. I hate flying. I used to think it was about crashing and dying, but for the most part, it’s about having to be around people. Many times, it’s about having to be around male people. On my flight home, the plane was full as fuck. They were asking people if they would take a later flight for three hundred dollars. And of course, nobody wanted to do that. Worse, everyone seemed to have one of those giant, wheeled carry-ons. The flight attendants at the gate asked for volunteers to check their rolling bags, which would be unloaded plane-side upon arrival. Basically, rather than sticking your carry-on in the overhead, they would stick it under the plane, and not charge you the $25.00 bag fee. And of course, nobody wanted to fucking do this.

It took almost an hour to complete the boarding process, because everybody was fighting for space in the overhead bins and we could physically not get on the plane. And the worst offender was a guy I can only describe as a “dude bro,” who had not only a fully expanded rolling carry-on that was clearly larger than the ones allowed in the cabin, but a giant backpack that protruded at least a foot from his back (I don’t know if this genius thought we were hiking to Michigan or what). And guess who refused to check either bag? Guess who also made a snide comment about the fact that a woman in front of him had a much smaller rolling bag she did not want to check?

On the flight to Las Vegas, I overheard a man grumble, “Great, I’ll probably end up next to some bitch who’s three hundred pounds,” to his traveling companion. Then this asshole sat with his leg fully in the aisle for the entire flight, and acted annoyed whenever anyone had to walk to the bathroom or the flight attendants had to bring the drink cart down the aisle.

A few years back, I made a torturous flight to New York next to a guy who set up an entire home office in our row. I was flying first class, so there was a lot of extra room, but the guy put down his tray table and got out his laptop and an accordion folder full of documents that he spread all over his lap. He spent the entire flight with his elbows in my personal space as he worked, and when the in-flight refreshments were served, he put his hot coffee on the corner of my tray table. Excuse me, dude? You didn’t ask if you could put that there, and if anyone is going to spill hot coffee in my lap, it’s going to be me.

Now, I’m not saying that a woman might not do the same thing, but seriously? Why do men take up so goddamn much space in the world? I know there has been a lot of derision over women’s vocal condemnation of “man-spreading” on public transportation, but it’s a symptom of a very real problem, and that problem is that a lot of men seem to truly believe they are entitled to as much space as they can fill, and everyone else just has to deal with it. I can’t imagine living my life that way, just walking around, blithely inconveniencing everyone because I’m simply not thinking of anyone but myself. I bumped into the arm of my own couch yesterday and said, “I’m sorry.” How do you just not care how your body is affecting other people?

So, there you have it. My three biggest pet peeves, which I can totally justify, unlike the spicy food thing, or the fact that I became irrationally angry at woman who repeatedly flip their hair in public. What are your totally justified pet peeves? Share in the comments, and hit the forums to share the annoyances you totally can’t explain.

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201 Comments

  1. AHHHHHHHHH I found out last week that my cat had been peeing on my spare bag for days EVEN THOUGH HIS LITTER TRAY WAS LIKE FIVE SECONDS’ WALK AWAY FROM IT. We thought the smell was coming from the tray! And the bag was under the table where we keep the snake tanks, so then we thought the snakes were just being extra musky SO WHO KNOWS HOW LONG HE’D BEEN PISSING THERE FOR NO REASON?

    I’m never going to get over this, by the way.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • My cat used to hang his butt over the edge of the litter box and poop outside it. So I got one with a lid.

      Then he hung his butt out the door and pooped on the floor anyway.

      My cat was kind of dumb.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        I used to have a cat who loved freshly laundered clothes. Or hated them. I’m not sure which. All I know is that she peed on the ironing pile at least once every couple of weeks. I once got a shiny new faux leather coat and I thought I was the nuts until that fucking cat decided to pee AND shit on it. I never fully managed to get the smell out.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
      • Crystal
        Crystal

        Our cat used to do that. We bought one of those huge clear storage bins that was taller then him to poop in. That stopped it going out on the floor. LOL

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
    • watergirl
      watergirl

      He may be afraid of the snakes. Animals mark where they want to keep others away, he may be trying to scare off the snakes, not understanding tanks of course.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  2. Jemmy
    Jemmy

    Does being annoyed by people who nag at me to drink alcohol after I’ve already said no 3 times very politely count as totally justified?

    I just don’t like alcohol much, I’m Australian and apparently you can’t actually enjoy yourself i you aren’t drinking alcohol. I sear, if I made that much fuss about everyone who tells me they don’t like coffee (I live on coffee), people would be irate at me.

    People have literally shoved jugs of beer in my face for over an hour refusing to accept no for an answer, and when I finally lost my temper and still fairly politely told them to leave me alone, they went and sulked and bitched about me to my mother. The guy was her age group.

    Sorry, that was a little ranty, I’m still super pissed about people being pricks about not drinking alcohol. I don’t tell others they can’t or look down on them, I make a perfect designated driver and I just don’t bother going out any more because people are obnoxious.

    April 13, 2015
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    • ViolettaD
      ViolettaD

      Tell them you’re on allergy meds and you can’t mix.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Laina
        Laina

        Is that true? Can I also use that as an excuse??? (I’m not a drinker, but I do take allergy meds.)

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
    • Right there with you.

      I’m apparently “old and boring” because I don’t get blotto more than once a decade. I don’t like being drunk or the taste of most alcohol and it isn’t a place I want to spend the very few calories I can eat without gaining 10 pounds overnight.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Honey
      Honey

      I get this same thing! I’m not a big alcohol drinker (and don’t drink socially at all) and people just cannot figure it out! I live in the UK, which, SURPRISE, has a big drinking culture. And if you don’t drink, something is wrong with you (at least, that’s been my experience in most cases). People don’g get it when you say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ It can even get belligerent. It’s always nice to hear that someone else shares your pain!

      April 13, 2015
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      • xebi
        xebi

        TOTALLY justified. I hate it even more since people started guessing I was pregnant before I was comfortable telling them, all because they wouldn’t take no for an answer when I turned down alcohol and demanded to know why.

        April 13, 2015
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    • GS
      GS

      You’re so justified to be pissed about that I’d get it if you only went out with a flamethrower, just in case. Also amazing that grown-ass people are too stupid to get that it’s your choice if you drink, what you drink, and when you drink…

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Lieke
      Lieke

      Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times ‘yes.’
      I don’t drink either and people are constantly:
      1. trying to get me to have a drink anyway.
      2. acting like I’ve made a huge life style choice no matter how many times I explain that I simply don’t like the taste of alcohol.
      3. making some obnoxious argument about how alcohol is an acquired taste. I get the principle of that, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be drinking something I find gross to get to that sweet nirvana where I like drinking it. Why? Because I don’t see the point, that’s why.
      4. reacting to me not drinking as if that’s somehow affecting their lives. It’s not. Stop it.

      April 13, 2015
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      • Liz
        Liz

        This seems to be unique to alcohol. I don’t drink soda and I almost never drink coffee or tea, but people never freak out or try to push me when I tell them that. I guess it’s because everyone thinks alcohol = fun and friends so people who don’t drink must = sad, lonely losers? I’d much rather hang out with my cat than with people who think that I can’t have fun or relax without drinking (though it is true that being the only sober person around a bunch of really drunk people is rarely fun). This is not a knock against people who drink. Go for it, just don’t make a big deal out of it if I’d rather have water.

        April 13, 2015
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        • xebi
          xebi

          I do get it with coffee. I’ve never liked the taste of anything even remotely coffee flavoured, yet if I had a pound for every time someone told me it was an acquired taste that I’d appreciate once I’d tried REALLY GOOD coffee, then I’d be able to buy a cappuccino maker to shove up the arse of the next person who tried to convince me they knew more about my tastes than I do.

          Going off on a tangent, I have a phobia of dogs. Fairly straightforward concept. Yet sooooo many dog owners try to convince me I’ll actually love their dog, or try to get me to pet it after I’ve said I’m not comfortable within 5 metres of it, because their dog is somehow magically different from every other dog in the world. It’s always something along the lines of “don’t be silly, he’s the least scary dog ever, he’s never shown any signs of aggression, he’s SO FRIENDLY!!!”

          Firstly, phobias aren’t rational. What’s not scary to you because it won’t harm you might well terrify someone else. Plenty of people have phobias of spiders and harmless bugs or even stuff like cotton wool. Secondly, it’s actually the friendly dogs that are the worst for me because they get in your face and do all the stuff that pushes my buttons.

          April 15, 2015
          |Reply
    • watergirl
      watergirl

      I developed a personal rule that if I have to tell you no more than 2 times, I reserve the right to be rude, because at that point, I think you are being rude. I learned this while dieting. No one will try to sabotage you more than friends and family. It is amazing how much people will push food and not take no for an answer. I even ended up telling off a coworker once because they had a birthday and had cake and wanted me to have a piece. There are 125 people in my agency, it was always someone’s birthday and I would never lose weight eating all that cake. She even resorted to telling me it was bad luck.

      Drinking isn’t any different. In fact, people really should be aware of how awful they can be about this. When I was married, my husband was a recovering alcoholic. We went to a party at my coworker’s house. She wouldn’t stop pushing for him to drink. The real kicker was that this woman never had a drink in her life! But she couldn’t handle him not drinking. After about the 5th time of “come on!” I laid into her. I said it is extremely rude to push alcohol on someone who says no. You don’t know if it is interacting with their meds. You don’t know that they aren’t a recovering alcoholic. You don’t know that it may be religious beliefs. Stop pushing!”

      I don’t know why people think that pushing things you don’t want is socially acceptable. It isn’t. I have made it my personal mantra to teach people this. So when someone does push more than two times, I will tell them: “I have told you no two times now. I am sure you think you are being hospitable but you are actually disrespecting me by not respecting my boundaries and personal choices by insisting on pushing something that I have already told you no to you…twice.”

      Feel free to adopt. 🙂

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Spockchick
        Spockchick

        I really like your approach. People are odd. We have a major cake culture at work with a weekly baking rota. I’m not mad on cake (tunnocks candy and Jaffa cakes – yes). Some of the ‘cake cult’ have now restorted to saying I’m not sociable. ‘You should bake to join the people who bake.’ They imply they are the company movers and shakers (more like gossip miners). I said no. What part of that means ‘maybe’?

        April 15, 2015
        |Reply
    • pghbekka
      pghbekka

      YE! It counts – and it’s related to the behavior that mean you MUST like Firefly! To reduce humans to our evolutionary animal instincts, I think it’s something about how we must share things in common in order to bond and continue as a species. I drink alcohol, but not beer, because I don’t like it, and that becomes a battle – “Well, you just haven’t tried the right kind!” “How can you not like beer?” “Maybe you’ll like it this time!” – and etc.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Jemmy
        Jemmy

        Thanks, all. I just came back and checked the comments and I’m so glad I’m not the only one that thinks it is incredibly rude.

        It must be particularly hard for the recovering alcoholics, drinking here is such a given.

        My mother gave me a lecture about respecting other people and being tolerant re people shoving drinks in my face. I told her I’d start showing tolerance to other people’s differences when they started tolerating mine. She said that was fair enough.

        April 14, 2015
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    • Julianne
      Julianne

      If you don’t care about making people uncomfortable, tell them you’re in recovery and maybe it is worth breaking 3 years of sobriety for a cold beer…..

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        Lots of people say that, or tell me to “tell them you’re on meds.” No. I don’t go round lying to people. Why should I violate my principles because someone refuses to respect my boundaries? Also, how will they ever learn how rude they’re being of nobody calls them out?

        April 15, 2015
        |Reply
    • meg
      meg

      I drink a bit, but go directly from tipsy to sick, so I drink lightly or am the designated driver. People usually are pretty chill about that.

      BUT when I do drink, I like wine or hard liquor (scotch, cognac, etc.). I hate beer. It just tastes nasty to me. So many people try to convince me I just haven’t tried the right beer, so please try this kind, you’ll learn you love beer. I hate it all. I’ve probably tried enough to know because these people usually won’t leave me alone til I taste what ever it is that they are drinking…so leave me alone!

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
    • Siobhan
      Siobhan

      I have been driven to out myself as a recovering alcoholic just to get people to shut up about me having a drink. I didn’t really need my boss to know that*, no matter how much I like him, but at a department team-building office he was pushing me to join the wine-tasting SO HARD, that I finally just said “I DON’T DRINK BECAUSE I’M AN ALCOHOLIC.”

      Jim Gaffigan the comedian has a fabulous bit on this, how it’s ONLY ALCOHOL. No one ever says “oh, you don’t eat mayonnaise? Do you have a PROBLEM with mayonnaise?”

      *Still friends with that boss, and I think HE actually learned a big lesson about not pushing that night.

      April 16, 2015
      |Reply
    • Snow
      Snow

      Haha, I always have the same thing happening to me with coffee!
      I just don’t like it. But whenever someone finds out about that, it gets SO annoying! “What? You don’t like coffee? That’s impossible. EVERYBODY likes coffee!” is how it usually begins. Then of course everyone tries to justify why coffee is great as if I attacked their personal life style as coffee drinkers by saying that I don’t like the taste. Of course it goes on to the famous: “Have you even tried REAL coffee? I bet the one you drank was just a weird blend, had no milk, etc.”, and then they try to shove their favorite one in my face.
      One time, someone got so seriously offended by my dislike, he actually shouted at me that I HAVE to like coffee because what am I going to drink otherwise if I ever travel to a country where they only drink coffee?! And that was of course not the only non-sensical totally made-up reason to drink something I don’t like, it’s just the one which stuck in my head the most for being utterly ridiculous.
      Even my mom joined in lately when I went to a family visit: “No coffee? Don’t worry sweetie, it’s normal that children and teenagers don’t like it. But when you get older, you’ll learn to apprechiate the taste!” I’m nearly 30, I’d hardly consider myself a child now. So it’s ‘not normal’ for an adult woman to dislike a certain taste? It’s not an illness to disklike coffee, okay?!

      Sorry, I’m just SO frustrated with this topic by now.

      May 1, 2015
      |Reply
  3. Cats — I have had (between parents’ cats and my own) around 30 cats. Some were assholes who peed on things and some weren’t. Right now, one of my cats mostly won’t pee on things, but every time a new animal comes into the house, he does. He has one spot, though, and I think it’s where the previous inhabitants’ dog peed. Thankfully, I can close the door to that room and it fixes the issue. My other two cats don’t generally pee outside the litter boxes, but there was a short period where one of them thought our bed was a proper place to pee (even while we were sleeping in it). I put a litter box upstairs and she stopped. Small price to pay. But, yeah, some are just assholes. There’s probably a reason behind it, but it could be any one of a million things.

    Firefly — I could not get into that show. I tried. I love all things Joss, but not that. I also don’t like Doctor Who all that much. I’m not a sci-fi person. I do think you need to give it more than one episode for anything because it takes a but to establish characters and history. But if you don’t like it after two or three, you probably aren’t going to like it.

    Airplanes — I have sat next to obese people and had no space issues. But sit next to a super skinny man and somehow, he manages to take up three seats on his own. How do they do that?

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Promise
      Promise

      The two cats I am currently owned by don’t pee in random places, instead they vomit, on the bed (while we’re in it), on the furniture, on the carpet, anywhere except the tiled floor. They’ll vomit on carpet one inch away from the tiled floor.

      We’re currently saving up to replace all the carpet in the house with wood flooring.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • OMG! Both my cats do that too! I swear they never pee outside the litter box (although I know plenty of cats who do), but they will vomit with some spectacular splatter right down the (carpeted) stairs and walk away all smug looking. Sometimes I swear my smallest cat wolfs down his kibble just so he can vomit somewhere really inconvenient, like underneath the couch.

        April 13, 2015
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      • pghbekka
        pghbekka

        THIS! Best Girl LOVES to throw up on clean laundry and in shoes. If she can get clean laundry AND shoes in one go, she’s in heaven.

        April 13, 2015
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      • Crystal
        Crystal

        Our cat throws up because he keeps eating the ribbon that you tie to balloons. He finds my stash, eats it and then either craps it out or throws it up. Drives me nuts.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
    • zeee
      zeee

      FINALLY PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T LIKE FIREFLY. like jenny i watched a few eps and found it boring a little gross. the whole “asian stuff but all white people” squicked me (partly due to my deep-seated issues with being a white-looking asian), and then the rest was just a little “meh”.

      i’ve had cats that pee on stuff and some that don’t, too. i have two now, one who wouldn’t pee outside of the litterbox if you made her, and one who only pees on things if they’re not mine/my husband’s/my kid’s. my guess is that he thinks “oh this isn’t mama’s and dad’s or that yelling small one’s? MINE! *pee*”

      my two also vomit quite a bit. the one who won’t pee outside a litterbox won’t vomit off tile or the tub (thanks?) so awesome, but the other? just wherever. bed, his own water dish, right back on their food dishes, tile, carpet, you, the dog.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  4. So with you on TV shows (and the other two, but I don’t have anecdotes for those)! Years ago I expressed my love for the anime Cowboy Bebop on Facebook and a friend was like “Why watch that when you can watch Firefly?” I had no idea how to answer, so I didn’t.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  5. Flo
    Flo

    The cat thing-oh, I can so relate. I grew up having cats in the house and for the first several years of my marriage we had only cats. Then I got my first dog. Let’s just say that after the cats passed on, we didn’t replace them. NOTHING smells as bad as cat pee, and yes, some cats can be assholes. I owned one.

    I don’t understand why the airlines have those nifty little “will your bag fit” things when they don’t enforce it! Drives me bananas. I darned near got whacked in the head with an oversized bag when some jerk decided he needed to get it out of the overhead mid-flight. I packed for an entire week in Ireland (and New Mexico, and…)in a fully legal sized carry-on bag, why people feel the need to drag their entire lives with them everywhere mystifies me. Perhaps they should make ALL of those people fly on a plane where about all that will fit in the overhead compartments is a lunch bag and you have no choice but to check your crap. I hate flying-not because of the flight itself, but I hate having to deal with the other idiots.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  6. Chris
    Chris

    I’ve had my cat for 16 years. He doesn’t routinely pee wherever he wants. He’s done it in front me every time he’s had a bladder infection. Just walked up as bold as u pls & let loose. Then I knew he was sick & would takw him to the vet. Other than that he only pees outside the litter box if he gets locked in a room with no litter box in it for hours on end. Because he’s a sneaky bastard who’s always ninja stalking after you in rooms & then hiding so you don’t know he followed u this has happened more than I care to think about. We literally now do a cat check before closing any doors. Lol

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • One of my poor cats did that once and ended up spending two full days in a closet because we went out of town. *sigh*

      I’m very careful now before leaving town, but two of my cats run and hide in my walk-in closet ALL THE TIME and spend a few hours in there because I don’t see or hear them. Luckily, they can hold their “movements” for that long.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  7. Tracy
    Tracy

    The spouse isn’t a Firefly fan and my son gets annoyed and goes off on a rant about how he watched maybe 30 seconds of it. We had a friend, who upon learning of this, gasped as if he’d said he liked killing puppies in front of small children. I liked it, but don’t have the rampant “you *have* to like it” that so many do.

    And I’ve had some cats that pee inappropriately and some not. You’ve had a run that do it seems.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  8. Megan M.
    Megan M.

    I hate when people ask me whether I pronounce my name MEG-an or MAY-gun, and when I tell them I don’t care because it’s still my name either way, they insist that I must have a preference and demand that I choose one. This has happened more than once. I literally don’t care which way someone says my name. It’s still the same name. The only alternate pronunciation that I find strange is MEE-gan, but you know what? If I was in a part of the world where that was the dominant pronunciation, I would roll with it.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Laughing Giraffe
      Laughing Giraffe

      Oh man, this. Yes, there’s a difference I can hear; no, I don’t care which one you use. I have students from every corner of the globe and it’s enough of a hassle to get them to call me by my name at all without getting too fussed about pronunciation.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Sonjah
      Sonjah

      Man, this. My name is Sonya. Sewn-yuh. The southern way seems to be sahwn-ya. When asked I usually say that I call myself sewn-yuh, but there are accent differences everywhere and I don’t care. At work my name tag says Psōnya. P as in psychiatrist. One coworker calls me cookie. All through high school i was Sonjah. Unless it’s insulting, I don’t care what name you call me as long as I know it’s my name. People get really worked up about it though.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Zélie
      Zélie

      And on the other side of that coin, when you tell people REPEATEDLY how your name is to be pronounced and they REPEATEDLY pronounce it wrong after all the reminders. How hard is it to pay attention!?

      April 16, 2015
      |Reply
      • mimijones
        mimijones

        Ike? I had to anglicanize my name because hearing it pronounced Tuh-REE-suh is like nails on chalkboard. It’s Teh-deh-sah.

        April 18, 2015
        |Reply
    • Rhiannon
      Rhiannon

      The original Welsh pronunciation of your name is MEG-an, by the way 🙂

      April 17, 2015
      |Reply
  9. Molly
    Molly

    MEN ON PLANES ARE THE WORST. Not literally all of them, blah blah blah, #notallmen, but so many of them think they’re the Most Important Person. And why do people object to gate-checking? Honestly, it’s free, it’s quick, it’s easy–just do it.

    Don’t gate-check valuables, though. Keep the laptop with you.

    And re: cats–I lean the other way (let’s not anthropomorphize them in either direction–they’re not expressing human emotions when they pee on stuff OR when they try to rub their scent onto you, however adorable the latter is), but YES, so many of them pee on things. I love my cats, but when they come to the end of their lives, I’m not sure I’m getting any more. At least when my dog pees in the house, I know exactly what I did wrong: didn’t take her out soon enough, or left her alone too long. The cats? Could be any of a thousand things. There’s no predicting or preventing. I think they just like to mark certain kinds of things (like MY DUVET COVER AND MY NICE LEATHER BOOTS DAMMIT) and if those things are in the house, well …

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Lieke
      Lieke

      I feel like we should use #notallmen all the time. Just to be safe. Seriously. Whatever the discussion is about, #notallmen is a useful tag. Let’s keep whiny men-defenders from doing their favourite thing: defending what doesn’t need defending.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Brian
        Brian

        Not all men are whiny men-defenders!

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
  10. Kayla
    Kayla

    All cats are assholes, they just express it differently. I’ve had three cats over the course of my life, and while none of them have been pee-ers, they’ve all made extra sure to toss their hairballs on the carpet or rug, despite the fact that the wood/tile/linoleum is literally two inches away. My current cat also enjoys sticking her butt in my face at every opportunity, usually while making herself comfortable on my lap. She’s lucky she’s adorable.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • GS
      GS

      Well, she obviously adores you too… “butt-in-face-sticking” means “I like you, I trust you, you are allowed to sniff my butt to find out how I feel right now” in cattese (is that even a word?). No, I am not doing the polite cat thing when one of mine does that 😉

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Kayla
        Kayla

        She’s a ball of love, and likes to groom and play “tag” with me (she’ll attack a toy I’m dragging for her, then run away and want me to chase her, before attacking the toy again). She’s a sweetheart, she’s just also a cat.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
  11. Ilex
    Ilex

    This post reminds me of a quiz I saw last year: http://www.buzzfeed.com/joannaborns/how-much-do-you-hate-people#.xpwOEL9AW

    I’ve been less annoyed by manspreading lately and more annoyed by everyone using their devices on public transportation, which seems to require sticking their elbows out and taking up more space than anyone did back in the days before we all had cell phones and tablets. Grrrr.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • mimijones
      mimijones

      Heh I got 6 out of 65. I’m a people person.
      Actually I’m not, I hate people, but I’m pretty good at mentally shrugging off things like that.

      April 18, 2015
      |Reply
  12. Tracy
    Tracy

    I had a cat that got really annoyed when I started making a quilt, because it meant I was holding the quilt squares on my lap instead of him. So he peed on the squares.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  13. I am getting my life from this post, Jenny. The TV one is totally me, except not with Firefly but with BBC Sherlock. For a while my Dad would not stfu about the show trying to make me watch it even though I said numerous times I wasn’t interested. He kept making it sound like it was the greatest shit since ever, and I kind of highly doubt that. I already have so many TV shows I need an app to keep track of them all, so getting me to watch a new one is already going to be a hard sell, and coming at me that persistently pretty much has the opposite effect.

    I watched Firefly shortly after it aired and I liked it, but haven’t watched it since, so I’m not sure if I still would. I never knew any rabid stans of it (I was introduced to it by a casual fan) and from the sound of things, I dodged a bullet.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  14. Cats: It’s true. And not only that, when you try to figure out the reason why they “eliminate out of the litter box” it’s always your fault. “How often do you change the box?” “Is it a health issue?” “Is your cat under stress?” And when all else fails try Feliway or cat Prozac. At that point I’m sure it’s not me. It’s totally the cat being a dick.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • GS
      GS

      Honestly? I’m giving out a lot of advice on cat boards, and those ARE, in fact, the most probable reasons for cats not peeing into their litter box (in addition to “not enough litteboxes” or “doesn’t like those close things with the lid” or “litterboxes not in the right place” or “wrong type of litter”). That doesn’t mean it’s your fault your cat is peeing all around the place(except when your cat is in visible and obvious pain, and you don’t go to the vet’s even though you can afford it – then it definitely is your fault and you’re an asshole), only that the current situation and the cat don’t fit very well together. Some of them are, unfortunately, waaaaay more picky than others, where their sanitary situation is concerned, but trying out the standard stuff often solves the problem.

      If it doesn’t, things get complicated because it can be one of about a gazillion things, and sometimes you even do find out what the problem is, and, well, you can’t do a damned thing about it. And if you’ve tried, and if you found nothing, or if you can’t change it, and if you love your cat so much that you’re literally cleaning up after them, then nobody should judge you.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  15. I HATE FIREFLY SO MUCH IT’S OFFENSIVE AND POORLY CONSTRUCTED AND TREATS ITS CHARACTERS HORRIBLY AND ITS FANS WILL KILL YOU FOR POINTING OUT ALL THE DEEPLY PROBLEMATIC CONTENT.

    I’m mostly very annoyed by Sherlock. But I just hate Firefly so much that I had to clog up your blog with capslock.

    (Also I’ve encountered that double standard with dog owners as well.)

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Sonjah
      Sonjah

      Your vitriol had been noted and I will be filling a grievance with the gorram authorities. I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that such anti Firefly (oh holy of holies, creation pure and unblemished, word of our lord Joss) hate will not be tolerated!

      You’re allowed to not like it, but I’m allowed to think you are tragically wrong. 🙂
      I can actually totally understand the Firefly (may it live forever in our hearts, blessed be the name of Joss, his will be done) annoyance, but why hate Sherlock?

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Personally, I find that Sherlock thinks it’s a lot more cleverly written than it is. I’ve seen very little, but in what I did see the “clues” were often things that meant a specific thing because the plot needed them to, not actually because it was the only conclusion that made sense. Plot twists were MEANT to be the results of brilliant thinking but were often actually the results of luck or thinking that, on reflection, was kind of dumb. The whole thing came across to me as having a self-congratulatory tone that I found very grating (and not remotely justified).

        I also happen to agree with critics who point out that placing such big emphasis on Sherlock vs. Moriarty fundamentally takes Sherlock out of the real world, which robs both the stories and the character of a great deal of their potential.

        (Also Cumberbatch is a wet piece of cloth on a stick compared to Jeremy Brett.)

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
        • Rhiannon
          Rhiannon

          Agreed, Jeremy Brett was THE BEST SHERLOCK.

          April 17, 2015
          |Reply
      • Xenophile
        Xenophile

        Sherlock has huge plot holes, is not as smart as it thinks it is, is massively racist, and dear glob, has Moffat ever spoken to an actual, live woman? I love Benedict Cumberbatch as much as the next person but the whole moody genius anti-hero shtick is so tedious. I enjoy Sherlock a lot but can’t watch it more than once.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
  16. Ellie
    Ellie

    THANK YOU for the “watch this show you don’t like” example – ESPECIALLY for using Firefly. When I learned about the Unfortunate Implications of some of the female characters years ago I knew it would be something I’d never be comfortable watching, yet friends went on and on and ON about how great it was. Over time I realized these were the same dudes who were blissfully ignorant of the misogyny thanks to their own privileges, the same people who borderline fetishized the Asian cultures (mis)represented; trying to bring up Whedon’s well-meaning but messed up feminism wasn’t worth the arguments.

    Years later all my friends latched onto The Walking Dead, which I found too boring and grim to enjoy (comic and show alike).

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  17. Carolina West
    Carolina West

    I’m dealing with the cat thing right now. My sister’s kitten pees in my room sometimes and it only ever happens in my room. Even though the litter boxes are literally right next to both our doors. I haven’t had a cat do this since my mom brought me home from the hospital when I was born. Except then it was in my crib and poo was involved.
    We have another cat that scratches at closed doors, usually when we’re all asleep. And he does not stop until you let him in. Of course when you do you have to leave the door open, otherwise a minute later he’s scratching again. Ugh.

    And what about reclining seats on airplanes? Seriously, what idiot thought those were a good idea? Especially since planes are having more and more seats crammed into them every freaking year. Or at least that’s what it’s feeling like.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Kayla
      Kayla

      For the scratching thing, get some pieces of foam board and cover them in strips of double-stick tape, and put them on the doors at cat-level. Cats don’t like the feeling of sticky on their paws, and the scratching will stop. I had to do this last year when mine decided that 5 AM needed to be breakfast time.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Carolina West
        Carolina West

        I’ll have to tell my mom about that. Her door is where all the scratching happens. Also the bathroom door occasionally.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • GS
          GS

          You can also try tinfoil or only just a layer of double sticky stuff, because some cats are, unfortunately, foam fetishists. But the most important thing: ignore, ignore, ignore. Never give in. Only leave the rooms when he stops, even if just for a moment. I know that is hard (I have an ex-screamer myself) and you might have to use earplugs to drown him out, but when he realizes that he doesn’t get a reaction, there is a good chance he will (eventually – may be a few weeks or months) stop.

          Good luck being more stubborn than the most stubborn creature on the planet!

          April 14, 2015
          |Reply
  18. Jenn
    Jenn

    1. When people find out I’ve never seen Star Wars and then harass me about. I’ve never seen the movies. I had plenty of opportunities to, but it never appealed to me and now I don’t want to be the 31-year-old asshole who sees them for the first time and then wants to talk about it. So I just, don’t. But no one can just let that go. They often offer to host a “viewing party” for me to watch them all in succession. No, but thank you. I will totally nerd out on plenty of other topics however. LOTR, anyone?

    2. People commenting on my food that I’m eating. If I bake a huge batch of brownies or make a pot of chili, then yes, please tell me how great I am and that it tastes wonderful. However, if I’m eating a salad, don’t walk by me and remark on how good that salad looks because it’s always delivered with the same tone you’d take with a picky 3 year old. “Num num, doesn’t that look gooooood? Oh I wish I were eating that!” Shut. Up. I especially hate it when people tell me how much sugar or calories are in something I’m eating or, the very worst offenders, offer “healthier ideas” for what I’m eating.

    Look, I have Crohn’s Disease so my food situation is already a dire landmine-filled desert of despair. If I’m eating something, it’s most likely either because my doctor told me to, or I’m already so sick that eating ice cream won’t make anything better but dammit I’ll get some ice cream out of it. I have noticed that the heavier I am the more comments I get on whatever, and if it isn’t comments, it’s a dirty look from people.

    3. People who don’t wait for you to get off the elevator before getting on. It should be legal to full on NFL-style tackle them.

    4. People who get on an elevator, are going to the top floor, but stand directly in front of the doors and are unaware that people need to get by (these are usually men I’ve noticed).

    5. This is stupid but I get annoyed when my sandwiches are assembled “wrong”: it should go (bottom to top) bread, meats, cheeses, lettuce, tomato (other veggies), condiments, bread.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Carolina West
      Carolina West

      I totally get you on the Star Wars thing. Not everyone has to like them.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • xebi
      xebi

      The food thing. Oh my god, the food thing. I have massive social anxiety around eating in public because of how people behave around food, to the point where I’ll usually politely turn down invitations to dine en masse. People stare at what you’re eating, comment on it as you eat so you feel bad if they aren’t eating too; they demand to know exactly what you’re eating and the whole thing makes me feel massively awkward and uncomfortable. Eating is a necessary bodily function that I’d rather be allowed to do in peace. These guys don’t come up when I’m on the toilet and ask about the colour of my pee or the texture of my turds. I’d have a few words to say if they did.

      I used to get snacks when I went to watch my football team but I don’t bother any more because of the sheer number of people who’d make offensive comments because I’d committed the terrible crime of being female while eating. “That looks healthy!” (delivered sarcastically and as if I have any fucking influence over what the burger and hot dog van sells). “Don’t you want to be watching your figure?” (Fuck off, dick). The guy who called me a pig for eating the exact same thing he’d had earlier himself. And my favourite: “Eating AGAIN are we?”, as I was tucking into the first solid food I’d eaten in THREE DAYS.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Kayla
        Kayla

        “Don’t you want to be watching your figure?”

        And you’re not in prison for assault with a deadly? I am impressed at your patience.

        Seriously, what a douchecanoe.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • xebi
          xebi

          I know, right? It’s always delivered with a smirk and overtones of “tch, you women” even though obviously it’s them expressing that opinion not me. Gaaaaah.

          April 13, 2015
          |Reply
      • goddesstio
        goddesstio

        I have Selective Eating Disorder, which is not very well known or understood and doesn’t affect many people overall, and I get comments like, “Why do you eat like that?’ “Just eat it like a normal person” (from my 1st grade teacher, at a class pizza party, because I took the cheese off my pizza. I was so upset and I never went back for seconds like everyone else because I was so ashamed) or even “Don’t you eat any NORMAL foods?” (from my dear wonderful grandmother *sarcasm alert*)

        Lately I was eating a bag of chips for lunch and one of my coworkers, who was new, said “Oh I wish I could eat like that”. I just smiled and nodded but in my head I’m like, “Oh really? You wish trying to eat meat made you at best gag and at worst vomit? You want to eat like a toddler who never grew up? You want to take multivitamins twice a day because you’re afraid you don’t get enough nutrition from your foods? You want to have to repeat a dinner at least once a week because you just eat that few different kinds of meals? You want people to stare and make comments when you eat things in a strange manner, like removing the cheese from pizza or eating only the outer part of the onion ring? That’s what you want out of life?”

        I feel kind of crazy and sad now ._.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • Toffeemama
          Toffeemama

          I’m almost certain that my 6-year-old daughter has Selective Eating Disorder. I try so very hard to make the few foods that she’ll eat available to her, and give her free-range of the pantry, even when she makes a mess.

          I try even harder to not make comments about what she’s eating at the dinner table, because I know that it will only give her more anxiety about food. It’s incredibly hard to keep my mouth shut, and I’m the person who loves her more than anyone. It makes me worry about how others are going to treat her, especially as she gets older. Do you have any advice that you could give me for how to deal with her food issues?

          April 13, 2015
          |Reply
          • She might just be a picky eater. I was and I grew out of it. I used to take the cheese off my pizza and eat it separately. When I was 7, I threw a temper tantrum when my mother said she was making linguine for dinner because it sounded gross and I didn’t know it was just pasta.

            The list of foods I wouldn’t even try at that age is as long as five arms laid out in a row. My daughter was much the same and she grew out of it, too.

            It’s actually pretty normal at that age. I wouldn’t be concerned unless her doctor is.

            April 13, 2015
          • goddesstio
            goddesstio

            My mother tried bribery, rewards, punishment, and withholdings to get me to eat foods, and even if I could get them down, it never “fixed” me. The problem with kids is that there’s some natural pickiness, and some people like me. If she gets upset when you try to make her eat new things, she might just be being a normal kid. But when I was forced to eat things, I would sometimes become physically ill and throw them up, particularly with red meat. That was always the worst.

            Try and get her to taste new things, and if she starts trying more things, encourage it. but if she’s getting physically ill when she tries things, she might have a real problem.

            It’s a really hard, weird line between normal picky child and SED. SED is not common and SED is all in the brain – basically a ridiculous anxiety reaction to certain foods. Texture seems to play a role in it, at least for me – I can eat fried chicken, but not grilled chicken, because it feels “slimy” in my mouth. Find what textures and flavors work for her and try to adjust her diet in that direction, but including or “hiding” new foods. Try having her cook with you as well. I am able to eat certain things I can’t eat on my own – like sour cream – if they’re used to make something I can eat, like cakes/breads.

            April 13, 2015
          • Neurite
            Neurite

            Not so much advice as maybe reassurance… I don’t know much about SED per se, but it’s also possible that your daughter is simply an extremely picky eater, and I suspect my point here applies to both.

            I was an amazingly picky eater from age 3 to 13. So was my husband, around the same age. In both our cases, it would have been simpler to list what we would eat rather than what we wouldn’t.

            In my case, my mom was extremely accommodating – cooking only the foods I would eat for me, allowing me to pick anything out of my food that I found “icky,” explaining to restaurants or friends who were hosting us so I could get “safe” foods (like plain pasta) there, etc.

            My husband’s mom was the opposite – if my he didn’t eat what she made, well, he wasn’t eating dinner that day. And the next day, and the day after, until she’d finished the leftovers and had cooked something new. They were both extremely stubborn, so he sometimes went for frighteningly long periods without eating dinner.

            My mom got all sorts of criticism about being too soft on me, “spoiling” me, “making it worse,” “enabling” my pickiness, etc. My husband’s mom would probably be called cruel or abusive today for trying to fix his issues with her approach.

            And in the end? It made no difference. My husband and I had almost identical outcomes. We both broadened the range of food we will eat significantly starting at puberty, though we’re still noticeably picky as 30-somethings today.

            So the doomsday prophets telling my mom she was making it so much worse by being kind to me and making me comfortable as a child? Wrong. I literally had the same outcome as someone with the harshest possible opposite approach. I just didn’t wind up with a starvation metabolism like my husband, who to this day can gain weight on the tiniest amount of calories.

            Long story just to say: I’m sure some people are telling you you are being “too nice” and “not strict enough” with your daughter. Please don’t let them worry you. Chances are, if your daughter is going to “grow out of it” eventually, she will do so even if you’re being accommodating to her right now. And if she isn’t, chances are it’s not because you were “too nice”.

            April 14, 2015
          • I so agree with Neurite! For me, not eating foods I didn’t like was not about being stubborn. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t mind feeling hungry, but a bad taste in my mouth wasn’t something I could handle to stand, ever.

            But as I said above, both my daughter and I went through that and both grew out of it. My mother would make me buttered noodles or a PB&J sandwich for dinner if she was making something I didn’t like. It was easy and didn’t create a lot of dishes or anything, and I didn’t starve to death. lol

            April 14, 2015
          • Vivi
            Vivi

            Yeah, don’t panic just yet, unless your kid refuses to eat whole food groups (like ALL vegetables). Try working with those that she will eat, and maybe try to raise her curiosity about new things by making them for yourself first and then letting her taste if she wants to. But don’t try to make her taste it – if she doesn’t want to, she probably has a reason, like it smells wrong to her.

            Also remember that kids have a much better sense of smell / taste than adults, and some stuff – like bitter or spicy flavours – actually come from chemicals that are very mildly toxic, same with alcoholic beverages and other things that rely on microbial digestion, like pickled vegetables or fermented dairy products. (I still think wine tastes like rotten grapes and just the smell of beer is nauseating – and no, I don’t care that the alcohol has long cooked out of that white wine sauce. I also can’t eat cheese unless it’s been heated, though oddly yoghurt is fine as long as there’s enough sugar in there to mask the lactic acid.) So it makes evolutionary sense to the body not to find them enjoyable until experience of their harmlessness or the slow dulling of sensory cells with age overrides the instinctual reaction. I personally can also taste if something warmed up is just going off (it’s starting to contain vinegar or alcohol from fermentation), long before my mother notices it, and I can smell and taste mold on bread before the colonies are big enough that you can see them.

            And then there’s some vegetables (like broccoli) that apparently contain bitter chemicals that only a part of humanity can taste, for genetic reasons. I can’t, so I’ve always loved broccoli and spinach, and never understood why most kids don’t.

            Sometimes, a different method of preparation helps. For example, I love bell peppers raw, at least the ripe ones, but the taste and mushy consistency they get once you heat them in any way is revolting to me. And I really dislike brussel sprouts if they were frozen (or worse: canned), but bought fresh, they are fine. (I can’t actually remember what the difference was since my mother always bought them fresh – I just remember I really hated the brussel sprouts in the school-provided lunch, which were probably from a can.) I also never would eat bitter salad vegetables like chicoré or dandelion leaves as a child, so my mother put them in a very sweet fruit salad with oranges, bananas, apples and raisins. Suddenly, the slight bitter contrast fit just perfect. I hate the mouthfeel of bacon or any other pure animal fat (I wouldn’t even eat butter on bread until I was in my 20s – ketchup works just as well to glue salty stuff to the bread), but the taste is fine, so we render the bacon down and only use the grease for flavouring, or we use fried ham instead.

            My parents tried to get me to eat new things because I was so picky, way into my teenage years. Part of their insistence was because our country went through a famine when they were very young, and then had to deal with limited food variability due to economic problems and the Cold War when I was very young, so they found my refusal to appreciate the endless options in the new capitalist economy kind of offensive, I think. (The problem especially came up on vacation, with me refusing foreign cuisine, especially if it was very seafood-based. I actually burst out crying once in a Restaurant in Italy when I was 13.) But they never actually forced anything on me, aside from snide comments of “what the farmer doesn’t know, he doesn’t eat”. It helped that my father developed a number of food allergies in the late 90s, and just didn’t like some foods that I loved (like lentil soup). Then my half-brother married a professional cook who had a personal hatred for a basic things like peas and beans. And so my family gradually accepted that we all have our eating peculiarities. By the time I entered college, my mother had basically given up on cooking stuff I wouldn’t eat (we couldn’t really afford letting things go to waste anymore either). And now I do most of the grocery shopping in our household and I grow some of our own vegetables, so the point has become moot.

            By the way, learning to grow my own vegetables has inspired me to try new things. I hadn’t ever tried squash until 2 years ago, because it’s not a traditional food in my country, but now I really like it. This year, I want to try to grow kale for the first time, after hating it in school lunches (possibly again because of canning), and never actually seeing it fresh in the shop. I’ve heard from other gardeners with kids that the kids will happily eat the vegetables they’ve helped grow themselves, even if they refuse to eat the same kind of vegetable if it was bought from the shop. (Makes me wonder if perhaps small kids can smell all the pesticides and other crap sticking to most commercially grown crops….)

            April 15, 2015
          • Neurite
            Neurite

            Nesting won’t allow me to respond directly to Vivi but:

            “…maybe try to raise her curiosity about new things by making them for yourself first and then letting her taste if she wants to” – yes yes yes!! That’s what worked for me when I eventually was ready to try more things.

            April 15, 2015
        • Luciezilla
          Luciezilla

          Just wanted to say, I don’t think I have selective eating disorder but I am a LIFE-LONG remover of pizza toppings (cheese and anything on it) and I get SO MUCH grief for it but I can’t help it if that’s just how I like it. Don’t look at me funny, I PAID for this pizza.

          Also, I have weird preferences for toppings that leave a nice ‘flavor residue’ if that makes sense (i.e. I hate green peppers, but I enjoy the residual flavor they leave behind after I take them off the pizza).

          So you’re not crazy, or we both are! 🙂

          To Jen: Ugh. Can I confess that one of my pet-peeves is people calling cats “assholes” for a behavior that really…at best is behavioral (stress related, substrate preference/aversion related) or at worst medical (UTI/idiopathic cystitis etc.) 🙁 but is absolutely 100% not motivated by any malicious intent. Also I hate when it is called “inappropriate” urination. It is only inappropriate to the cats owners. :-/ Kitty feels like she has no other options when she wees somewhere that bugs you. Anyway, peace out. I love your blog!

          April 14, 2015
          |Reply
      • Artemis
        Artemis

        I HAAATE when people comment on my food choices, and it causes me so much anxiety.

        I had a roommate who I just avoided ever interacting with in the kitchen for, like, a year. It caused me huge amounts of anxiety to run into her when I was cooking. After she moved out, I realized it was because she had made a bunch of (fairly innocent, but still unwelcome) comments about my food choices.

        One of the things I really really liked in the the Ex is when Sophie starts getting all weird about food because of her mom and doesn’t even realize it. That is 100% something I would do.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
      • Lieke
        Lieke

        Totally not the same thing, but my grandmother always asks me if I’m on a diet if I refuse ANYTHING. It’s as if it’s not possible for me to not hungry or thirsty (or not like the cookies she’s offering). Nope, have to be on a diet.

        Even when I say that I’m not hungry or thirsty, she keeps pushing me to have something. She does this with everyone, by the way. I just have a really low tolerance for people trying to get me to do stuff I have already clearly expressed I have no interest in doing.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
      • Lieke
        Lieke

        Totally not the same thing, but my grandmother always asks me if I’m on a diet if I refuse ANYTHING. It’s as if it’s not possible for me to not be hungry or thirsty (or not like the cookies she’s offering). Nope, have to be on a diet.

        Even when I say that I’m not hungry or thirsty, she keeps pushing me to have something. She does this with everyone, by the way. I just have a really low tolerance for people trying to get me to do stuff I have already clearly expressed I have no interest in doing.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • Lieke
          Lieke

          Aargh, double post. My internet is screwy today.

          April 13, 2015
          |Reply
    • JennyTrout
      JennyTrout

      At this point, not having seen Star Wars is like, an amazing record you probably don’t want to break, anyway.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • XD That is an excellent way to think about it.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
  19. My irrational peeve is when a book is subtitled with the name of the series, when it’s the very first book. “Guy with A Sword: Book 1 of the Stab Everything Saga”. Irrational, no one understands it, but I find it so offputting and I don’t even know why. Maybe because it tells me the book will probably end on some cliffhanger and I’ll have to wait three more years for the next book.

    I don’t mind series subtitled with “A Mr. Weird Detective Story” or some other non-sequential subtitle. I don’t mind if three books later they get retroactively subtitled Stab Everything Saga. But seeing it on a brand-new first book makes me ragey.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Lieke
      Lieke

      Maybe it’s also because almost everything seems to have to be part of a series nowadays? It’s like just writing a single, standalone book is out or something. I’m overstating, of course, but it’s definitely a trend. Especially in YA.

      Not that I mind series. Not at all. If a book is awesome, then I’m glad that I get to read more of it. But it’s still… sort of annoying.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Laina
      Laina

      Hahahahaha, my un-favourite is the “Stab Everything: Book One of the Stab Everything Saga”.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  20. Melodie
    Melodie

    I am so with you on Firefly. I just cannot get into that show and have no interest to. The pilot episode was sooooo boring, I just couldn’t understand what anyone saw in it. The costumes were cool, the concept sounded ok but the actual watching of the show? Nah, too boring and none of the characters grabbed me.

    Guys (not all but a vocal bunch) are really becoming entitled dickheads. More often than not, it’s a guy on the bus that’s taking up two seats, not that he needs the room, just that he either wanted to spread his legs wide, cross his legs at an angle that somehow takes up half of the second seat, or in the worst offenses, treats the side facing triple seat bench as their personal lounge/nap bed. Fuck you, the bus is not your personal nap space, it’s to transport you from a to b. You’re not the only one who is tired and grumpy in the morning either, everyone is but you could at least make 2 people slightly less grumpy by allowing them to sit down, rather than stand their entire commute to work.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Vivi
      Vivi

      I admit I’m guilty of spreading out in public transport. Part of it is that I never learned to sit with my legs crossed like a ‘good girl’ (I’ve always been fat – it’s uncomfortable with thick tighs, and I haven’t worn short skirts since before puberty, so sitting like a man is not a modesty problem.) and that I usually carry around a heavy bag that I don’t want to set down on the spilled beer / dog pee / chewing gum / dirt covered floor, so I put it and my voluminous winter jacket (trains are well-heated and my commute lasts an hour) in the seat beside me. But this spreading out is also helpful when you’re trying to discourage people (read: men) from sitting next to you and starting to bother you. And it keeps my lap free so I can read or start doing my homework – I refuse to spend two hours each day staring into space, especially after an 11 hour lab day that leaves me barely enough time to eat and shower at home if I want to get enough sleep.
      Of course I pack up my things as soon as some woman or elderly person chooses my group of seats to join after every group of seats in the compartment has at least one occupant, as is the usual filling pattern. That’s just basic manners. And most of the time, I travel at rush hour and it’s so full that people are standing anyway, at which point nobody in my country refuses to give up unnecessarily blocked seats. (If they are assholes enough to have parked their bicycle in front of several seats or something, they will be browbeaten by all the standing people around them. Peer pressure and unspoken public transit ettiquette do work sometimes.) Tough of course, in these cases, I can be glad if I don’t spend the entire trip standing, since university students are pretty much last in the triage order of who is in need of getting off their feet. (Children and teenagers usually don’t have the self-awareness to let their elders have a seat first.)

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  21. I’ve pretty much been turned off of Firefly by the fanaticism of its fanbase and by the one clip of it that I saw (some big battle scene–may have been from Serenity) that had me rolling my eyes at how manipulative it was.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Xenophile
      Xenophile

      I can’t talk about anything Whedonverse around Whedon fans. I love some of his work while recognizing how problematic it can be (Firefly, Dr. Horrible, Cabin in the Woods), and can’t stand some of his other works (Dollhouse, Buffy, Serenity, Agents of Shield). I’m happy to nod quietly and wait while other people gush about how much they love Buffy, but if they ask me to join in I’ll say, “Eh, it’s not for me. But how about Dr. Horrible 2, huh? Exciting stuff!” You’d think I set a puppy on fire! When did Joss Whedon become untouchable?

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
  22. Inga
    Inga

    Oh god men on planes, or all humans on planes, or in airports. I always get a window seat because I don’t get up and I don’t want to be bugged by other people getting up. One time I had to change seats and sit in the middle seat, between two dudes, who both spread their legs wide and used the arm rests. In my opinion if you have the misfortune of sitting in the middle you get the arm rests, but I had to sit there with my arms and knees smushed together, fuming, and grumbling, and being too passive to say anything.

    Also people who aren’t ready for the security check, have you never flown, seen a movie, or a TV show before? Take off your goddamn jacket before getting up to the tubs where you put your stuff. Good lord. I get it if you’re a family with children wailing and wriggling, but if you’re a business man you’ve done this before. I can tell I’m getting furious, so I should stop. I hate airports.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  23. Liz
    Liz

    I live with 7 cats, I know we are crazy, and they have around five sandboxes around the house but this one a-hole cat insisted on peeing over our books, so yeah there are cats like that.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • xebi
      xebi

      I think my human friend might actually be a cat in disguise. He used to do stuff like stay really late at my house and fall asleep on the floor of my only bathroom. There was one time when he could easily have made it to the bathroom or puked anywhere else in the world but decided to do it over my parents’ CD collection.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  24. Hi
    Hi

    Re: cats: My parents had a cat that pissed everywhere for years–on beds, carpets, laundry. A few months ago they switched to a new kind of litter for no particular reason and suddenly BAM! The cat never pisses anywhere but the litterbox anymore. Guess he just didn’t like the old kind.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  25. Erica M.
    Erica M.

    My cat is a grade-A asshole. Pees on things for no reason? Check. Hits our other cat simply because she’s mad at me for touching her when she didn’t want to be touched? Check. Looking me straight in the eye and clawing things while I yell at her to stop? Check. When I first rescued her (she was a stray) and brought her home, she was an angel. As soon as she realized she was staying, she started being terrible. But I can’t get rid of her, because when I get mad enough, she’ll come up and start being cuddly and purring loudly. Manipulative little asshole. XD

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • ange
      ange

      My cat waits until I sit down with my breakfast then looks me right in the eye while she takes a huge shit. If I happen to miss the command performance and she decides her litter box isn’t pristine enough she will pee on the floor. These are new developments after years of good behaviour. Gotta love ’em

      April 16, 2015
      |Reply
  26. Artemis
    Artemis

    Years ago, I moved to New York City with my then-boyfriend.

    I was an experienced public transportation rider, as I hate driving, and I felt like I had to educate my ex about subway etiquette–he took up what seemed to me to be WAY TOO MUCH SPACE.

    Then I realized he did it everywhere, just took up space without giving it a second thought, even if he was blatantly in someone’s way. On the subway, in bars, at the tiny corner grocery store. It drove me crazy. You can’t just go around being in the way all the time!

    I didn’t even really notice until after we broke up that it wasn’t just him, it’s something a ton of men do. It still fills me rage, though.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  27. Vivi
    Vivi

    Huh, I always thought only male, uncastrated cats peed on things (to mark their territory). Admittedly, I only had one cat in my life (who was castrated), but the only time he peed somewhere inconvenient was when he had the urinary tract infection that ended up killing him. We didn’t even have a litter box or a cat flap – he just made himself known when he wanted out in the garden to do his business, just like the dog did. I don’t know if he learned it from the dog, or if he was already used to it when we got him. He was the result of a litter some half-feral cat threw in an acquaintance’s garden, and he stayed with his mother for a bit longer than usual, leading to a half-wild lifestyle, just like my grandmother’s numerous farm cats. It probably also helped that we always fed him outside. He wasn’t much into getting petted (at least not by me – he did eventually grow fond of rolling up in my mother’s lap while she watched TV in the evening) and the only way you could safely carry him was by exploiting the creepy freeze instinct in reaction to a grip on the scruff, but on the other hand, there were also no hair balls, no scratched furniture, and almost no “hunting trophies” on the doorstep. (Though I think that was more due to lack of success or hunting drive – I never actually saw him stalk anything or try to reach bird houses or climb up trees.) Though he did leave a lot of brushed-out, dry clumps of hair on the carpet when he was shedding his winter coat, and turned most indoor wall corners greasy-dirty with rubbing over the years. Still, the only annoying thing he ever did to us humans was a habit of kneading the lap of whoever he was graciously allowing to pet him – with his claws out. But I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that that’s actually an instinctual behaviour designed to encourage milk flow in the mother’s teats (the kitten’s claws wouldn’t be long enough to hurt), and which adult cats sometimes engage in when they feel good.

    I totally get what you mean about Firefly. I watched that show and liked it well enough (though not enough to bother watching Serenity, and I agree with you about the problematic aspects), but I really, really can’t get into Farscape, despite everyone telling me how great it’s supposed to be. I’ve tried to watch the Show 4 times over the last half decade, and while I’m finally managed to finish the first season on this run, I got stuck in the middle of season 2 again after a particularly objectionable Episode (misogynist slurs and rape threats from a supposedly ‘heroic’ character towards his ‘friends’ were involved), and now I’m hanging on the beginning of season 3 due to rampant possessive jealously from another character, who is treated as in the right by the narrative. But even since the beginning, I could never find most of the characters likeable, except maybe Aeryn Sun and Pilot (and the latter is more an exposition source than a character). Everyone else is either outright loathsome most of the time, or annoying as hell, or bland at best / cheerfully genocidal at worst, or written so inconsistently that they seem to have two entirely seperate personalities, only one of which I would like to spend any time with. I want to like this show – it’s got all of the elements I would normally like, and I’m normally not averse to morally complex, rogueish characters – but it’s making it so damn hard for me. Every time I sort of get used to the characters and they’re starting to act like people you could trust and you might want to hang out with for a while, someone does something that I find utterly reprehensible, but which the writers seem to find excusable or no problem at all. It’s really frustrating.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  28. Gate-check your bags! OMG I looooove gate-check. Who wouldn’t? It’s like checking a bag for free. I think of it as the best flying loophole ever. I totally do not get why someone wouldn’t jump at that offer.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • goddesstio
      goddesstio

      Because a lot of us don’t want to have to wait to get our bags out of check, we bring a carry on so that when the flight’s done we can get off and go. Or it’s full of the stuff we want/need on the actual plane. Like it’s great if you want to gate check but personally I feel like it defeats the purpose of a carry on

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
  29. Desolace
    Desolace

    I hate how everyone underestimates my age. I KNOW that people don’t do it to annoy me. I KNOW I look like under 16 (or at least under 18, depends on who I encounter) and they just do their job to check a minor isn’t doing illegal stuff (i’m german so you’re considered an adult with 18) but seriously, I’m in a bad mood everytime that happens. And even worse is when people say “oh, you’ll be happy in a few years!” I’d really be happier if I looked my age 🙁

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Jess
      Jess

      Oh dear lord me too. I’m a 21 year old who looks 14. I can repeat the “You’ll be so happy when you’re 40” WITH the person saying it.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        SAME HERE. So much that I had to use caps. And when you correct people (and I’m not talking about people whose job it is to ask for ID), they simper and go “You should take it as a compliment!” No I fucking won’t. Making an incorrect assumption about me based on my physical appearance is NOT a compliment and just because our fucked up society values youth over old age does not mean I am buying into that bullshit. I’m 33, so as far as I’m concerned I would like to look like and be treated like a 33-year-old, and when I’m 40 I’ll be glad if I look 40, thanks very much.

        This comment thread is making me look like the world’s angriest person 🙂

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • Jessica
          Jessica

          I’m also in my 30’s and still get ID’d for things that are legal at 18. That doesn’t bother me so much, but my co-workers acting like I’m still a kid does. I’m trying to be taken seriously, my job is rather serious, and yet people I work with treat me like I’m fresh out of school. It’s very irritating. I may be particularly sensitive b/c I work in a male-dominated office, and they treat me like the “sweet nice young girl”. I know they mean well, but its not appreciated.

          April 13, 2015
          |Reply
          • xebi
            xebi

            Exactly. That’s completely what I’m trying to say 🙂

            People call me “young lady” all the time and it really annoys me. I stop calling people that when they reach about nine years of age. In fact, I’ve recently decided not to call anyone that at all.

            April 15, 2015
    • Lieke
      Lieke

      Oh, I don’t let people say the ‘you’ll be so happy when I’m forty’ thing to me anymore. I say it before they can and I have perfected the insincere: ‘haha, yeah, I’ll be so happy when I’m forty.’ BAM! Topic closed.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Thea
        Thea

        I am 42 and I was last asked for ID last year. Since then I have been sticking to my regular liquor store, where they should recognize me lol. I don’t really get how people are so impressed, I am usually embarrassed to be judged. They have been progressively more horrified to be so wrong (they are supposed to check if you are 25 or younger, legal age of 19). That is kind of awkward too…

        April 16, 2015
        |Reply
    • Liz
      Liz

      I haven’t gotten those comments recently, but in college it was really annoying because I was becoming (and now am) a high-school teacher. It really messed with my anxiety to hear that I look 16, because what high schooler is going to listen to an adult that looks like they should still be in high school?! When I tried to explain that to people, they still insisted it was a good thing. XP

      Apparently I must finally be looking a little older though. This is my first year teaching high school and one of my students called me “old”. I asked her how old she thought I was and she said 30. Never mind the fact that 30 is NOT old, I’m 23! Everyone else in the class thought she was weird for thinking I was 30, but at least they didn’t say I looked 16.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Carolina West
      Carolina West

      Omg, I get that, too! I’ll be twenty in a couple months and I still get people saying I only look fourteen. One guy even said I looked twelve. It took being bent over a book in a bowling alley for someone to ask if I was in college, which I’m not. The book was also about vampire priests working with humans to find Lucifer, which is just as weird as it sounds!

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • 'ro
        'ro

        That book sounds kinda fascinating. May I ask the title?

        June 4, 2015
        |Reply
  30. My family has pronounced my sister’s name Key Lee since birth, however it is spelled like some have taken to spell Kelly. She gets into fights with Dr offices and total strangers who have to insist that she is pronouncing it incorrectly

    Also hate sending an email and having someone reply and get my name wrong, or they see my name (I chat for a living) and still put a C in it or a Y at the end. Really it’s that hard to look?

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • xebi
      xebi

      I have a really unusual surname so would understand people spelling it incorrectly but when they do it in places like Facebook when it’s right in freaking front of them then I start getting annoyed. Getting someone’s name right is basic manners.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • geekintheglasses
        geekintheglasses

        Omg yes! I have an uncommon spelling of a common name and while it never bothers me when someone spells it wrong on accident, it pisses me off to no end when someone spells it wrong in email or on Facebook. The correct spelling is RIGHT THERE for fucks sake! It’s bad enough I will never be able to find personalized post-it notes and shit, but to have your name misspelled when it’s right fucking there is just so many levels of wrong.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
    • Jemmy
      Jemmy

      I had a primary school teacher that corrected the spelling of my younger brother’s name in something I wrote for class. She then put it in my ‘spelling dictionary’ as a word I needed to practice.

      My mother saw it and made sure to inform her that I knew how to spell my brother’s name just fine.

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        My mum once stormed into my school to complain that my teacher “corrected” my spelling of the word lose (which was correct) to “loose”. I’d forgotten that 😀

        April 15, 2015
        |Reply
    • SandorClegane13
      SandorClegane13

      THIS. My first name is Diana, and people constantly call me Diane and it drives me up a fucking wall. I can understand the mistake if they’ve only heard it spoken (especially over the phone), but if it’s written down or part of an email signature there’s no excuse!

      The funny thing is it’s only Diane that gets me with that ‘nails on a chalkboard’ feeling. Spelling it Dianna or mistaking it for Dina or Dana doesn’t really bother me. I guess I just need to hear the ‘uh’ at the end!

      And I’m always polite in correcting them of course. I’m not the best with names myself, and usually people remember it after a correction or two.

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • xebi
        xebi

        My friend Danielle was saying the other day that she was getting increasingly wound up by the amount of “Daniella” she was receiving!

        April 15, 2015
        |Reply
        • Danielle
          Danielle

          I just get sick of people taking my name, writing it wrong, then calling out for Daniel. So many people don’t know how to spell Danielle

          April 17, 2015
          |Reply
  31. Tim
    Tim

    Brother’s cat “Twinkle” (outdoors, at the kitchen door): “scratch meow scratch meow etc”.
    Brother (opening the door): “come in then luv” (turns back to the sink)
    Twinkle (comes a foot inside the door, lays a mighty cable, goes back outside)
    Twinkle (we assume): “thanks, I were bustin’ for a shit.”

    “We must like the same things because we are like twins, from the same egg” shudder. What a dreary world that would be.

    My own petty and unjustifiable (and I know it) bugbear is people who bring their babies out in public and don’t have the common courtesy to sedate them first with a couple of shots of JD.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • FarFarAway
      FarFarAway

      Ugg… babies. Can’t stand ’em. I’m not really sure why; I guess a multitude of reasons, but I feel like because I’m female, I’m expected to be “All about that [baby]!” (Ha! See what I did there?)
      And I hate having to lie about how cute I’m supposed to think any given baby is. I have become really good at it, though. But I shouldn’t have to be.

      April 15, 2015
      |Reply
      • Helena
        Helena

        I’m not a baby person either and I hate it that everybody expects you to be a baby person if you’re female and acts like there’s something wrong with you if you’re not. I don’t like kids. I don’t want kids. And I HATE HATE HATE when other women tell me “oh, you’ll change your mind” with THAT LOOK, like they know me better than I know me because THEY changed their mind about having children.

        April 16, 2015
        |Reply
  32. Candy Apple
    Candy Apple

    1. My cat is also a jerk. If you piss her off by varying your routine in any way, such as going to bed 20 minutes later than normal, she will barf/pee on something.
    2. “Firefly” is overrated. I couldn’t get past the kerosene lamps on a spaceship.
    3. I think your comments regarding men apply to American men. European men keep themselves to themselves, as it should be.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Not the European men I’ve met at Disneyworld and Niagara Falls …

      But then, I also have noticed plenty of women who don’t know how to keep to themselves or notice that there are, in fact, other people in the world. lol Especially at the grocery store, where men tend to be a little more aware when they’re blocking aisles than women.

      Men make up for this in the checkout line, where they never seem to know what to do.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • ElBandito
      ElBandito

      Uhhh, yeah. I second the notion. I have to commute in London (and I’ve travelled twice to Italy and Portugal this year–mostly by sheer stroke of luck with cheap tickets). There’s a lot of guys who like to spread their legs (or pretend to fall asleep and jam their elbows into your sides). Two months in (through my commuting), I’ve learned to roughly brush their arms (or legs) aside while acting like there’s something in my seat.

      It helps that I look meek so I can sweetly say ‘sorry!’ and get away with all the jostling I had to do. But one other thing I hate (which men and women do) is stand in front of the train doors and not move. Several people like to wait in line for the next train–but they do so while standing in front of a recently-arrived train and block anyone else from trying to get in or out. It’s THE WORST THING ABOUT ENGLISH COMMUTING.

      April 15, 2015
      |Reply
  33. Closely related to the men take up too much space in airplanes-thing, I am developing a pet peeve which is about sooo many men who just won’t stop talking and constantly dominate the conversation. Usually what makes it worse is that not only are they rude, they’re really boring and bragging. My physical therapist can monologue at me for 40 minutes, I don’t even have to say anything. He doesn’t even notice that I am not responding and that I’m really bored by his stories. All my uncles will do the same thing at any family gathering.
    What is really satisfying though is that my dude (who already mostly prefers talking to women over men because he finds their topics of conversation more interesting and always gets derided by his male colleagues for being ‘too feminine’) is really noticing this more and more too. We’ll go on a double date to meet one of his friends’ new girlfriend and he’ll later say all annoyed that we still didn’t get to talk to the girlfriend because his friend was constantly talking and wouldn’t shut up. (Which is then extra satisfying because this friend always bores me to tears with his bragging about the million euro project he is working on at work)

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  34. ali
    ali

    i feel you on the tv pushing, but for me it’s been breaking bad. i’ve seen a few random episodes, and i’m just not interested.

    i live in southern california, so most of my justifiable pet peeves have to do with people driving, and especially driving on the freeway.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Xenophile
      Xenophile

      YES thank you for saying this! I hate Breaking Bad with the fury of a thousand burning suns and my abusive ex whined, pouted, argued and yelled at me everyday to make me watch three seasons of that damn show even though it upsets me. Ok, I get it, white men are insecure about their masculinity; it’s not ground breaking and I don’t fucking CARE.

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
  35. Duuuude I hella feel you on the cat double standard thing. I was reading this article on cat behavior that talked about how your cat may not necessarily like being scratched on that area above the tail that makes them raise their butts. They might just be ticklish. And it got me thinking about how animals, just like humans, must like to be touched but only in particular moods or by particular people. Like how I might like a foot massage from my husband, but it doesn’t mean I want the handyman to come in the middle of the night and massage my feet.

    So my pet peeve is how people will give project these different human emotions on pets and animals, but won’t respect their space at all. They’ll relentlessly try to attract the animal to pet them, or hold/hug them when they are STRUGGLING TO ESCAPE and obviously don’t want to be held. Maybe your friend’s cat isn’t coming over to be pet by you because it doesn’t KNOW YOU and wouldn’t enjoy being pet by you!! LEAVE IT ALONE, YOU LOOK SO RIDICULOUS AND DESPERATE!

    I also feel you on the TV show thing. My big issue is Game of Thrones. I liked the books okay, but all the rape really got to me so I knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the TV shows. Of course, announcing I don’t want to watch a TV show because of all the rape invites even more uncomfortable conversations, so I try to say that I just don’t like it or don’t want to watch it. People go NUCLEAR. I still haven’t figured out what to say to get them to shut up as fast as possible.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • corina
      corina

      Tell them you’ve read the books and it freaks you out how different the TV show is from the book and start telling them about a super minor detail that nobody cares about (Catelin Stark’s hair is supposed to be auburn, not chestnut!! I mean why don’t they do these things right?!?!?).

      They pretty much leave you be after that.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Amanda
      Amanda

      Ugh. Game of Thrones. I read the first book and I hated. Haaaaaaaaaate. It’s been probably ten years and I still get angry when I think of that book.

      People lose their shit when I say that I hated it/have no interest in the show/don’t intend on reading any more of the books.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • popsie_cool
      popsie_cool

      I was totally thinking about Game of Thrones while reading this blog. I have tried watching it. I understand the appeal, but I just don’t love it like the rest of humanity seems to. I got almost to the end of Season One and just kinda stopped watching. Right now, I’m surrounded by people who are practically wetting their pants in excited anticipation of Season Five, and I’m all ‘meh, whatever’. People look at me like I’m insane!
      “What do you mean…. you DON’T like Game of Thrones?!?!?!”
      I don’t know what else to say. I think it’s over-rated!

      April 15, 2015
      |Reply
  36. watergirl
    watergirl

    Cats are extremely finicky about where they do their business. Sometimes a clean litter box isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to try several types of litter or change the shape of the box itself or the location. Some don’t like to feel exposed or where other cats can attack them. You have to experiment with different kinds of litters, pans, and locations. Cats are so aware of their surroundings that supposedly you can move a pencil two inches on a table top and they will notice.

    Cats are tame, but they are not domesticated like dogs. If you want to know what it is like to pet a tiger, you can pet a house cat, but petting a golden retriever isn’t like petting a wolf. So cats still have a lot of instincts that we not be aware of. There is still a lot about cats that we don’t know and they are still being studied.They also can have more urinary issues than just UTIs. Diet is important for cats. They are desert animals. They get their moisture from wet food. When fed only dry, it can cause issues for them. Cats shouldn’t be drinking a lot of water out of a water bowl.

    Also, if all health issues are ruled out, cats will also urinate out of stress. It may be stress that you are not aware of, such as a tom prowling around outside at night that is upsetting them. A dog constantly barking next door, a snake living in the basement.

    Also, male cats need to be fixed at an early age. If they are not fixed till later, then territory issues and some hormones are still developed and they will mark their territories.

    My cats do not urinate inside. The only time they do is when I don’t clean the litter box enough and that is my fault. But I also let them outside during the day so they may alleviate any tendencies out there.

    As for Firefly:

    “Magical girl who needs constant male supervision to survive? ”
    I think you are seeing misogyny here where there isn’t any. She is one of the most intelligent people in the universe. Therefor the government used her in experiments to create her into a weapon. They messed with her brain so much that she developed a psychosis. So instead of a boy becoming a superhero for a change, getting bit by radioactive spiders,or other science experiments, having their own family travesty drive them, or being born of a god, it is a girl. As for the magical part, from someone who watches Buffy, I find it strange that it is ok for one show but not another.

    “Mish-mash of cultures from Asia, but no Asian people anywhere? Check.”

    The show only ended just after 13 episodes. This might of been explained in a future episode. Just like a planet that was experimented on and people turned into Reivers, whose to say these cultures were not eradicated at the hands of the government? Or because of a war? And if this is a reason, you are going to have to reject most anything that comes out of Hollywood, at their exclusion of Asians.

    As for people still huge carry-ons in the overheads, I have never understood this. First off, it is disrespectful, it takes times and holds people up from sitting. It is also a huge safety violation. If the plane hits severe turbulence, the bags can tumble onto people’s heads. Also, since people insist on packing their whole lives onto a single bag, they really throw safety to the wind and hold people up trying to wrestle them back out of the bin during an emergency evacuation. (I personally feel these bins should be locked in case of such an occurrence so people have no choice but to evacuate quickly).
    I have never found it takes that much longer to get your bag off the carousel. Maybe 15 minutes, tops. People spend that long trying to get their over sized bag into the overhead and back out.

    Assholes like the guy sticking his leg in the aisle and taking up space are trying to show dominance and power where there aren’t any. In a conference room or board meeting, they will also spread their papers and belongings in a wider area to show power and status. But this guy is trying to prove something he doesn’t have. Considering his first statement is to slander a female he hasn’t even met yet, goes to show he is an extremely insecure boy and thinks there are such things as alpha males. By acting annoyed and territorial, he is a narcissist (as in the disorder, not what we think the everyday word means) and is trying to portray something that he doesn’t have. Same with the office guy who took up your whole row. Trying to portray importance that isn’t there. Truly important people, don’t need to advertise it.

    AS for why men do this more? Males are conditioned to compete for status. They only conversate this way, and are taught to compete. Females are encouraged to communicate through intimacy and emotion and to keep quiet and to themselves. A little boy will be taken hunting while a little girl will be taught baking. It is societal conditioning. You can see examples of it all around you once you recognize it. Little boys will be encouraged to speak up at the dinner table, but if a little girl tries to tell a story, she will be talked over. It happens to me all the time as a grown woman. Ever try to but in a conversation with a group of guys and get ignored? That is social conditioning. There is an excellent book that delves into this, it has a pop title but is based in a lot of research. It also isn’t one sided, it just explains the differences and how the conversational styles come about. It is called “You Just Don’t Understand: Conversations Between Men and Women”, by Deborah Tannen.

    My pet peeves. Cell phones. Walking and Talking. Talking while checking out at the grocery store. My favorite is people who can’t even cross a street without texting or talking on their phone. I am so glad that you have so much faith in complete strangers driving 3,000 lb machines that go 100 mph, that you feel perfectly safe with crossing a busy intersection without having to pay attention. Phones being checked or texting or even talking during a movie. TEXTING AND DRIVING, which has proven to be even more unsafe than drinking and driving.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • JennyTrout
      JennyTrout

      “I think you are seeing misogyny here where there isn’t any. She is one of the most intelligent people in the universe. Therefor the government used her in experiments to create her into a weapon. They messed with her brain so much that she developed a psychosis. So instead of a boy becoming a superhero for a change, getting bit by radioactive spiders,or other science experiments, having their own family travesty drive them, or being born of a god, it is a girl. As for the magical part, from someone who watches Buffy, I find it strange that it is ok for one show but not another.”

      Okay, I get that she was tortured and broken, etc., but… she was written that way. She’s not a real life woman who endured those things and whose lived experience can’t be worked around in the context of the story, she’s a character who was built from the ground up by a man who *lives* to write about magical girls who are mentally broken. I’m including Buffy in this, because there are many times that Buffy, the strongest magical girl in the world, needs the help of a man to get through a situation. That’s definitely not all right in my book, which is why I point it out in my recaps.

      I see why Firefly appeals to people, but it’s kind of dodgy to excuse stuff like the blatant colonialism of lifting various elements from a few different Asian cultures and not casting any Asian people with, “Oh, well, they might have had an explanation for it later.” Even if they did come up with an explanation, it would just be an explanation as to why it’s okay for them to appropriate elements of various cultures and mash them together interchangeably, while at the same time not filling any of the roles on the show with anyone from those cultures.

      Basically what I’m saying is, yes, I understand what’s going on the in the story, but that story is written by people in the here and now, who could have removed the problematic stuff in the first place.

      But you sound kind of defensive when you say I have to reject everything from Hollywood. No, I really don’t. I can like something and recognize there are things wrong with it. There’s no other way to consume entertainment, because nearly everything is flawed to pieces due to our cultural blindspots. But the important part is recognizing what is and isn’t wrong with something, and choosing from there to decide whether or not it’s still something I want to consume.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
      • Sonjah
        Sonjah

        The China based culture was explained in the backstory as a result of the US and China becoming superpowers and corporations from those companies combining to control the government or something like that. The culture mishmash doesn’t bother me, but it DOES make the absence of Asians much more conspicuous and problematic. I love the site but I hate that huge misstep.

        April 13, 2015
        |Reply
        • Sonjah
          Sonjah

          Ugh, companies=countries , site=show. So embarrassing.

          April 13, 2015
          |Reply
    • Rhiannon
      Rhiannon

      That is a really interesting explanation for why men do those things, thanks for posting that, I hadn’t quite thought about it before.

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
  37. Jessica
    Jessica

    My cats don’t pee on things, but we hope to move soon, which means uncovering hiding spots, so my confidence in that statement may change. My male cat pooped on the couch for a long time, though, which only stopped when I started putting his food there.

    I totally get you on the Firefly thing, and not only for Firefly, but for Game of Thrones. I do not want to watch a bunch of rape and murder and dragons. I don’t care. It’s not my thing, just leave me alone.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  38. Laina
    Laina

    I relate to like, ALL OF THESE. I kinda just hate people XD

    Here’s a thing to make everyone rage http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com/

    Also the other thing I had – my name is not Liana, Lania, Laino, or Lauren. It’s technically not Laina either, but let’s not get into that. My legal name is unusual, too. Most people haven’t heard of it until they meet me.

    DO NOT BE ANNOYED AT ME WHEN I CORRECT YOU FOR GETTING MY NAME WRONG.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  39. Skippy
    Skippy

    OMFG THE SHOW THING!!!!

    I watched three episodes of Orange Is the New Black before asking facebook: “so is this whole show about White Lady Goes to the Magical Negro Circus?” And I was done.

    I’ve watched a few episodes each of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Wire. I’ve totally failed to even try with The Good Wife, Firefly, The Sopranos, and I don’t even fucking understand Doctor Who as a concept. I watched some Buffy because of the recaps here and realized I needed to be watching it 10-15 years ago, not now. I even kinda dropped out of How To Get Away With Murder for no good reason!

    Basically I am a complete and total TV watching failure and the only shows I’ve seen in their entirety are The West Wing, Scandal, and Sex and the City which is my spouse’s fault. I GIVE UP!

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Xenophile
      Xenophile

      Well, the whole point of OITNB is that Piper is awful and everyone else on the show is more interesting and likable. But yes, its rabid fan base hates it when you point out that despite its queerness, it’s pretty awful when it comes to race and class issues. (I say this as a rabid fan myself.)

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • JennyTrout
        JennyTrout

        OITNB gets celebrated for how *~*~*queer friendly*~*~* it is, but they strenuously avoid using the word “bisexual,” and my teeth grind every time. “She used to be lesbian!” “Sexuality is a spectrum!” “She’s going back to women!”

        HOW ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS WHO ARE ATTRACTED TO AND HAVE SEX WITH PEOPLE OF THE SAME AND OPPOSITE GENDERS ARE JUST FUCKING BISEXUAL?!

        But god forbid you point that out to a non-bi queer fan, because then it turns into the fucking erasure olympics.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
        • Skippy
          Skippy

          Ugh that too – I spent too much of those first few episodes going “bisexuals EXIST” to want to keep slogging on.

          April 15, 2015
          |Reply
  40. Bethany
    Bethany

    1) Cats are assholes
    2) I enjoyed Firefly, but there are plenty of other shows I’m not into and people don’t get it. I guess they tie their identity into what they like and then if you don’t like it, it’s as if you don’t like them or something.
    3) OMG I once flew from LA to Detroit next to a guy who got out his laptop, jutted his elbows out as far as they could go, and proceeded to spend the entire flight with his elbow literally IN my side. I was so shocked I didn’t even say anything, I just kept thinking, uhh, you have to know you are actually jamming your arm into me. Right?? And of course I’ve sat in between guys who had to spreadeagle their limbs as if he who takes up the most space wins. So obnoxious.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  41. Cherry
    Cherry

    I know what you mean about the Firefly thing, except mine is with music.

    People are so convinced I should LOVE Bikini Kill. They sound like a lot of the music I listen to and have a really good feminist message and by all rights I probably should like them. I just don’t. And everyone seems to think that if I just listen to a different song, I will, even though I’ve listened to 2 full albums without changing my mind.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  42. This55
    This55

    EVERYTHING HERE IS CORRECT.

    I can’t relate to the plane thing (cause I don’t do planes that often so have less exp), so I’m with the masses about men on trains.

    First off, no public transit seats are big enough for human adults. So you’ll always be a little smooshed. Still, I would so rather sit next to a larger lady than a skinny dude.

    At this point, I PREP myself. As soon as I see a dude making his way over I shove my back into the seat and lock my arms to my sides. I check the line of the seat beforehand and know I am not encroaching into the next seat’s airspace. Yet still…YET STILL that skinny dude will FIGHT ME for MY OWN arm space. Basic train etiquette, if someone sits down before you, YOU put your arms forward or backward depending on them. YOU DO NOT SLOWLY SHOVE THEM OUT OF THEIR SLOT.

    And they love to be so bitchy about it too. One time I was facing this younger guy, so I could clearly see his disgusted/terrified reaction when a large woman entered the train and looked for a spot. There was one next to him, but she was with someone so I wasn’t surprised that she decided to stand near the doors with her companion. This guy had to be in his thirties…but he was carrying on like a fucking 12-year old. OH NOES! A FAT LADY MIGHT SIT NEXT YOU! Walk a fucking mile in my shoes, asshole. That fat lady might sit next to you but at least she won’t try to put her hand on your thigh likes 50 old dudes have done to me.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • ange
      ange

      Omg you’ve reminded me of an experience in my early 20s. I was at a band show and the drummer is a cousin of mine. They were pretty popular at the time and I’d never met the cousin so made sure to get up the front nice and early to watch the show. A group of about 7 guys took exception to a woman daring to get the barrier (before they even got there!) so they banded together to try and shove me out. I got so furious I locked my arms in and held tight against their constant shoving and actual HITTING that they eventually gave up. I got cracked ribs for my trouble, for daring to watch a show.

      April 16, 2015
      |Reply
  43. Laughing Giraffe
    Laughing Giraffe

    I’m Canadian, so it’s probably unsurprising that two of my biggest pet peeves are variations on queueing.
    Escalators: Stand right, walk left. This is marginally less annoying when there is a choice between stairs and escalators, but when I’m in the mall and I’m in a rush, seriously, get out of my way.
    The bus: Don’t stand in front of the doors if you’re not getting off, if the bus is full and there are empty seats, sit in one, and for the love of all the gods in the universe, MOVE BACK. I do not understand people who will see that a giant line of fresh passengers is getting on and refuse to move to the back of the bus, as if the two short steps up are Mount frigging Everest.

    My non-queueing related pet peeve is this interaction:
    “Can I buy you a drink?”
    “No thanks.”
    “OMG whyyyyy are you such an uptight bitch I’m not hitting on you I’m just trying to be nice *assorted man-painy carrying on*”
    AAAAARGH.
    These dudes, by the way, get bonus Asshole Points for then claiming that women are gold-diggers out to get whatever they can out of men.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • This55
      This55

      Ah yes – the standers! Is it because it’s getting warmer out and everyone is making a half-assed attempt to be ‘healthy’ by standing instead of sitting? Those people are making it more crowded by not just sitting down!!

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
  44. corina
    corina

    I HATE people who are constantly interrupting others when they talk

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  45. Laine
    Laine

    My airport-related pet peeve is how goddamn close everyone wants to stand at the baggage claim. I just want to grab a megaphone and scream at everyone: “Standing closer will not make your bags come out faster! If you would all just stand back a few feet we would all be able to see our bags and have plenty of room to maneuver them off the carousel.” Instead I silently fume and take an unreasonable amount of pleasure in throwing elbows and rudely yelling “excuse me” when I manage to catch a glimpse of my suitcase through the tiny sliver of space between baggage claim assholes.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  46. Liz
    Liz

    I have SO MANY justifiable pet peeves that I haven’t seen mentioned already (sorry if they were mentioned and I missed them):

    1) People who don’t recycle even though there is a recycling bin RIGHT THERE. If you were to follow me around in college you would constantly see me reaching into the trash and pulling out cans and bottles to drop into the recycling bin that was either RIGHT NEXT TO IT or a few feet away. I obviously don’t expect other people to dig through trash to find recycling (although I don’t “dig” so much as grab what was on top), but GOSH DARN IT THE BIN WAS RIGHT THERE WHY DID YOU THROW IT AWAY??? It would be one thing if there was no recycling bin nearby, but they were all over campus! I’m not even a very good environmentalist on most things, but if there is obviously a recycling bin close by and people still put their paper/glass/plastic in the trash I get super pissed. Not pissed enough to tell off total strangers though, that’s too scary for me.

    2) Just like the alcohol thing (I feel you, I don’t drink either), I get really annoyed when people don’t listen to me when I tell them I don’t date and will probably never get married or have biological children. It’s always “oh well you never know” and “you just haven’t met the right person yet”. I’m 23, and I’ve been saying this since before puberty, but some people (mostly family) STILL insist on telling me I could change my mind. I know I can change my mind, it’s not like I think I CAN’T even get married. I’ve never been on a date/had sex and I’ve never wanted to go on a date/have sex. I’m actually asexual, though I don’t tell most of my family that because OH NO SEX/OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. I’m not sure I will ever get over my dad having the gall to ask me if my ADHD and anxiety medications made me asexual (even if they did, so what? I clearly don’t have a problem with it). Thankfully he’s never mentioned it again. As I’ve gotten older I’ve become a little more open to a non-sexual romantic relationship, but I’m still not actively looking for anyone to date. Honestly I have to give a lot of credit to Jenny Trout and her 50 Shades recaps/writing about erotica for making me less squeamish about sex, because before I always thought people wanting to have sex was super gross but now I understand that just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean I should think less of those who do (this applies to A LOT of things, not just sex).

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
    • Sonjah
      Sonjah

      I wish I wasn’t on my tablet, so I could posts a picture of my old university classroom. Above the small waste bin “recycle cans in the hall, you lazy scum!” was scrawled on the wall. It was there for years, and I hope still is.

      April 13, 2015
      |Reply
    • Laina
      Laina

      *asexual wave* (Demi leaning grey, but, meh, it’s a spectrum, let’s call an… ace an ace – that is funny in my head!)

      You ever notice how much it angers people that you read erotica/porn/romance when you’re asexual? It’s not REALLY for us, obviously 😛

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • Liz
        Liz

        Well I know it’s a spectrum (one I obviously don’t know well because I had to google “demi” and “grey” – thanks AVENwiki!), but when I use the term asexual I’m usually referring to not being sexually attracted to other people, not having no sexual feelings ever.

        Even if someone has no sexual feelings whatsoever, thinking that it’s weird for them to read porn is like thinking its weird to read about people with different jobs than you: I personally do not want to do what you do for a living, but it sure is interesting when you write about it! I’ve never heard anyone say it was weird for asexuals to read romance specifically; I hope no one said that to you! Asexual =/= aromantic, though some people are both. I can get why people who don’t know much about asexuality might think of it as odd, but to get angry? Reminds me of certain internet harassment campaigns…>_>

        Personally I find it way more fun to read/watch other people like Jenny read/watch porn and erotica than do it myself, especially the awful/weird stuff like 50 Shades and much of fanfiction.net.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
        • Laina
          Laina

          The “technical” definition of asexual is lack of sexual attraction, but I kinda love all the different terms and words there are out there for people. EVERYONE GETS SOMETHING TO DESCRIBE THEMSELVES, NO ONE FEELS LEFT OUT! Spectrums are awesome! I also lean demi/grey for romantic orientation, too.

          And man does it make some people angry when you say that some people don’t have sex and that’s okay. I actually picked up a little internet stalker for about a week for saying that! Another time, I got snarked at in a conversation about sex in romance for saying that not every relationship has sex involved and pointing out that, hey, maybe we could use a little more inclusive language besides saying things like “sex is a part of an adult relationship” (because ew). Boiled down to “asexual people don’t read romance so we don’t need to do that, don’t be silly!!”

          And you know. If I did everything I read (or wrote) about, there’d be a lot more murder going on.

          April 14, 2015
          |Reply
          • Vivi
            Vivi

            Heh, yeah, that’s one of the things I love about the asexual / aromantic community. So many labels – labels for everyone, new labels every few months – but the community still is inclusive and quick to point out that as long as you’re anywhere on the spectrum, you’re welcome. I think it comes from being excluded by most of the rest of the LGTBQ+ community, either actively out of spite and refusal to help, or because the LGB people feel like having less visibility privilege than heterosexual people gives them a right to casually erase people in even less publically visible marginalised groups like asexuals or intersex people (for example by claiming it’s too much work to add an A or I or even just a Q or + to the acronym in any given text to signal that other groups than just the main LGTB do exist).

            I know plenty of asexual people who read (or even write) erotica, and not just for the romance. Some can get aroused from empathy for well-written characters and their sensations / emotions, in the way they can’t get just from looking at bodies; and even asexual people can have kinks. Asexuality just means no attraction to any person regardless of gender or sex, after all, it doesn’t necessarily mean no sex drive. And if the idea of fantasising about actual people or about yourself having sex feels really wrong to you, then some vicarious exploration in fiction can help getting in the right headspace to scratch the hormonal itch, or just to relax enough to be able to sleep.

            And as for romance: Hell, I’m aromantic, and I like to read some well-written romance once in a while. I just get pissed off that, very few authors like Terry Pratchett and Arthur Conan Doyle excluded, it seems to be a requirement that every damn character must fall in love, and seemingly every show needs a will-they-won’t-they subplot. (I was SO pissed off when they paired off Myka and Pete in the end of Warehouse 13, for example, a show that had sucessfully avoided hooking any of the regular characters up with each other for several seasons and that wrote the mentioned characters more like siblings who were actually horrified at the thought of having sex with each other.)

            April 15, 2015
    • Aletheia
      Aletheia

      “I’m actually asexual, though I don’t tell most of my family that because OH NO SEX/OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. ”

      Or some variation of “you don’t have to make things up to hide that you play for the other team” or “it’s okay, you can just say you’re into girls, you know.” (First of all, fuck you, family members. Secondly, if I was lesbian, I’d say it; I see nothing wrong with being one, because there is nothing wrong with it. I’m not, though, so I don’t, because using labels that aren’t mine to use – especially labels for groups that are treated badly, even if doing so would make life easier – really, really squicks me out. :/ )

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
    • Vivi
      Vivi

      I feel you on the allosexual prejudice that everyone wants sex. I’m not out to my family (I don’t want to be sent to therapy for this – and even if I don’t specifically mention my orientation, if they still haven’t figured out that it’s not going to happen after 20 years of my never mentioning any romantic interest, it’s their own fault) but I get this attitude from the LGTB community all the time. Or sex-positive feminists who are all “sex is a basic human need”. So I’m inhuman, am I? Thanks…

      Aro-ace high-fives and hugs, if you want them.

      April 15, 2015
      |Reply
  47. Alicia
    Alicia

    My cat always uses the box, but she is INCAPABLE of covering her poop.

    Oh, she scratches. At the sides of the box, the floor in front of the box, the top of the cover … but the actual litter? To actually cover it? No. No, she will not.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  48. Amber
    Amber

    My cat isn’t allowed… pretty much anywhere, honestly, but especially anywhere I usually go, because if something smells like me he will pee on it. He’s destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of clothes, books, toys and jackets. He is SUCH an asshole! :<

    If you're interested in a wacky sci-fi show that you might actually like, try Red Dwarf. Or Lexx (which started kinda lame, got really good, then went straight to hell for a long season, then got really good again, so that one really depends on your tolerance levels). There is some craaazy bonkers shit in both those shows that's really entertaining to watch. But i'm not going to shove them down your throat. 😉

    I'm currently having that problem with Game of Thrones. I pick up books, movies and shows for one majorly important reason: to enjoy myself. How the hell does anyone enjoy themselves watching a show where everyone you're convinced to care about is brutally slaughtered?! No. No. No. A thousand times no. Same deal with Mad Men and Walking Dead (I hate zombies so much).

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  49. Alison
    Alison

    I liked Firefly at the time but I don’t have any desire to watch it again, and I am a Whedon fan who has seen every episode of Buffy a million times.

    I also couldn’t get into Sherlock. I love Doctor Who but Sherlock is just boring to me. Another show about white dudes being clever and solving crimes, yawn.

    I like to go grocery shopping at night when it’s less crowded but it is also when all the clueless single dudes are shopping. They wander around slowly with their basket (they never have a cart), looking sort of lost. Then they stand in front of the shelves, managing to block the entire display for minutes at a time, trying to figure out what they want. Twice in one visit I had to stop my cart abruptly to avoid running over guys who just walk in front of me without looking.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  50. Thegoddessjenn
    Thegoddessjenn

    Looooong time lurker, but have never commented. Had to chime in and say that I totally get where you’re coming from regarding Firefly. I have fought the same battles with not liking Game of Thrones. It didn’t appeal to me, but everyone kept insisting that I needed to try it. So, I read some of the books. (The first four, I think). I have zero desire to read more. I find them ass-crampingly dull and squicky at the same time. When I inform people that I have given up on the series, the horror people express is ridiculous. Usually the only way I get people to shut up about it is by telling them that the books triggered my PTSD. I shouldn’t have to tell them that though. A simple, “I don’t enjoy them” should be enough.

    April 13, 2015
    |Reply
  51. I’ve found that whenever people use absolutes (best, worst, ect.), my knee-jerk reaction is to automatically come up with some factoid or bit that represents the exact opposite opinion. Even if I don’t know a whole lot about that actual issue.

    Also, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone one the internet ever dislike Firefly or Sherlocke. I’ve watched neither because I don’t really like watching TV (or movies, for that matter). I think I’ve avoided being pushed and prodded to watch pretty much any TV show or movie because I avoid the topics out of habit, and my roommates got pretty used to me.

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
  52. Britney
    Britney

    1.) My cat pees outside the box under 2 conditions– the box is dirty or there is some shade of fabric (the bathmat, a towel, or any sort of laundry) on the floor. Her big problem is shitting on the floor. She only shits in the box when I start to think that there may be something wrong, just to prove she can; she just CHOOSES not to. Yeah, she’s an asshole, but she’s 14, so she’s sort of earned it.

    2.) I HATE Firefly. I hate it. When I first watched half the first episode (and fell asleep… at 5 pm after a big cup of coffee) and was bored and didn’t like it, it was sort of an unpleasant dislike. The fucking fanbase just ruined it for me. Same thing happened with Sherlock (which I really liked for a while until I realized the bullshit queerbaiting, the rampant misogyny, and horrific orientalism coupled with shitty writing. Only Moffat, amiright?) The fans can really ruin something for me.

    3.) Agreedo on this one. Completely. Thankfully, I am a crazy bitch who will honest to god yell at them until they put their shit up out of pure fear.

    April 14, 2015
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  53. Plastraa
    Plastraa

    My 2 cats have been litter box compliant all their days on earth. But, I am not a cat apologist because I understand the second they hear me say that they very well may start peeing all around the countryside just because they are assholes.

    About you apologizing to your couch, that made me laugh in recognition!

    I saw a video about how women seem to apologize for existing on earth. So since then I have been making a conscious effort not to apologize for every f*ing thing I do. I take politeness to a ridiculous level. . In a store walk by someone…sorry. Sit next to someone on a bus stop bench…sorry. Stand close to someone in line at the theater…sorry. And etc.

    Now I’m trying to say excuse me if it’s necessary and say nothing if it’s not. It’s so difficult.

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
    • Alison
      Alison

      One time I was at a restaurant and I went to open the bathroom door and there was another women on her way out so we had to go around each other. She said “sorry” but like you, I try to only apologize when it’s actually warranted, so I just gave a polite smile and said nothing. On my way out of the bathroom, the same thing happened, only I was the one on the other side of the door, and this other woman also said “sorry.” Saying sorry is like social lubricant in Canada and it’s a hard habit to break.

      April 14, 2015
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      • Plastraa
        Plastraa

        It is so difficult. It feels impolite to not apologize for my use of space on planet Earth. 😛

        April 15, 2015
        |Reply
  54. I use to have to take public transport (read buses) for a year. To go into the next county for my job. I DESPISED every second of it. Because first off, our public transport out here sucks balls (and now they’re doing ad campaigns to get people to use public transport and I’m laughing going well if it didn’t take an hour or more to get from one end of my city to the other and the buses actually ran remotely close to on time–cause I get it, wheelchairs cause buses to be late and I’m ok with that but there’s no reason a bus should be an hour and a half late–also my city is only like 10 miles across and I can get across the city in 10 minutes or less on side streets in my car and could do that doing all the stops the buses do in 15 maybe 30 minutes the drivers don’t need 4 5-15 minute smoke breaks every few stops). And second off, there was almost always the one asshole guy who would sit next to me (on an empty bus no less) and invade my space enough that I was crammed up against the window because he couldn’t manage to sit his skinny ass (and it was always skinny guys too) in one seat. And who also couldn’t take “leave me the fuck alone” as leave me the fuck alone and couldn’t understand why I wanted to read and listen to my music before work. Because obviously their charming personality and lack of boundaries/personal space/consent was something I was missing out…not (I also got at least one guy permanently kicked off that particular route because of him sexually harassing me…it helps being the nice, polite, patient one who the bus drivers all love and adore). But people who take up more space than they should on public transport annoy the hell out of me.

    Also Stephen King fans. Not the ones who mind their own business. But the fanatical ones. Almost every time I start asking for book recommendations I have to add in the addendum of NO STEPHEN KING BOOKS. And almost every single time I get at least 5 recommendations for his books. His writing makes my eyes feel like they’re bleeding. I don’t care how good you think he is. I CAN’T STAND his writing. I’ve read a few of his books. I own almost all of his works in audio format(the only way I can “read” him). Even when I specifically ask for sci fi or fantasy I always get SK and it’s like…but he doesn’t write those genres……WTF? and it always winds up in a long drawn out “but whyyyyyyyy” similar to Jenny with Firefly fans (which I am a Firefly fan but if you say you’ve tried it and it’s not your thing I’ll respect that).

    And people who are convinced that I just need to find a good man to settle down with and all my problems will magically disappear. Or I just need to go to a bunch of parties and enjoy myself. Never mind the fact of anxiety about parties and guys are what started A LOT of my current problems so dating isn’t going to help……….

    And also people who think ALL therapists of ALL flavours (psychiatry, general therapy, counselours, etc) are just crack pots and charging too much to do nothing (though I’ve had two therapists who are like that kind of). It’s like just cause you had a bad experience doesn’t mean you can typecast ALL therapists as such. Likewise for any kind of doctor (specialists and GP).

    And fundamentalist/fanatical religious (or anti religion) people. STOP SHOVING YOUR BELIEFS IN MY FACE AND METAPHORICALLY DOWN MY THROAT. If someone says they’re not interested that’s your cue to say “ok” and walk away.

    I could go on but it’s 2 am and I’m going to bed.

    April 14, 2015
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  55. caflac
    caflac

    Two things:

    1) You are SO RIGHT about the cats. I have had two cats in my adult life and one of them peed all over the show and she was ABSOLUTELY FINE. She peed in the kitchen sink, she peed on the stove, and she LOOOOOOOOOOOVED to pee on shoes and towels. The other cat did NOT pee everywhere because he was too busy shitting everywhere. He was also fine, just too lazy to walk to the litter box. Cats are dicks.

    2) Firefly is a thing I love very much but you are so right about how problematic it is. I still can’t believe that Simon & River are supposed to be Chinese. How fucking lazy and racist can you get, Joss? Eugh.

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
    • Jemmy
      Jemmy

      huh..Simon and River are supposed to be Chinese? For real?

      Wow, that’s really crappy.

      April 14, 2015
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    • Helena
      Helena

      My cat favors the coffee pot. Bastard.

      April 16, 2015
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    • Sophie
      Sophie

      River and Simon aren’t meant to be Chinese, they just have a Chinese surname. People do have surnames that don’t match their ethnicity, it just means that they have an (usually male) ancestor of that ethnicity. My brother’s best friend is blue eyed, blond, and fair skinned but his surname is On, his great grandfather was Chinese. In the case of River and Simon it’s probably to show that they are from the Central worlds which originally had more Chinese settlers.

      The fact that there are no Chinese people in a solar system that is controlled by a Chino-America alliance is problematic, and most fans do acknowledge that. In one of the essay books there is an essay addressing this problem. One explanation I’ve seen is that only the central worlds are controlled by the Alliance, and those worlds had the majority of the Chinese settlers. The crew of Serenity don’t go to these worlds much due to the type of work they do, and after they pick up the Tams they have fugitives so they avoid them more. However that explaination would only really work if we had seen lots of Chinese extras in the episodes Shindig and Ariel.

      I apologise if this posts twice or more but it kept not showing up.

      April 18, 2015
      |Reply
  56. Candy Apple
    Candy Apple

    I found a cat who is not an asshole! This is actually one of the better things I’ve seen in a long time. The incredible nursing cat: http://imgur.com/gallery/P3K8Z

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
  57. Crystal
    Crystal

    Your FireFly is my husband’s Walking Dead. He can’t understand why my cousin, daughter, and I love it so much. I tell him all the time to sit down and watch it with us, but he tells me he saw 1 episode and he didn’t like it. I tell him he has to watch more, but he tells me no. I guess it is time to back off. LOL.

    April 14, 2015
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  58. Ange
    Ange

    Think my biggest one at the moment is with people at work (one in particular) who insist on referring to trans people by their gender of birth, not their actual gender. Drives me nuts – especially when they say things like “well how am I supposed to know if they’re a man or a woman” or “if they have a beard then they’re a man” (this specific one was in relation to someone who performed on last year’s Eurovision). I keep trying to explain that if a person tells you they’re a woman/man, then you refer to them that way, but apparently this is a very confusing concept…. The irony here is that they have actually had at least one trans employee in our department before I started, so you would think they would know by now.

    Also, someone at work who keeps taking his shoes off and picking bits off his feet in the staffroom – NO NO NO NO NO.

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
    • GS
      GS

      I may be nitpicking here, but Conchita is not trans, but describing herself as a drag queen and an “alter ego” of Tom Neuwirth (and I adore her and had a field day after she won the contest, what with the right-wing, conservative bastards grating on my nerves since the day I started following politics bending over backwards to praise her and how awesome she is!). Doesn’t make your coworkers’ behaviour less respectless, though. I mean, how fucking hard it is to understand that everyone has the right to decide who they are, what to call themselves, and what they want others to call them?

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
      • Neurite
        Neurite

        Yup about Conchita – here’s actually a nice link of her talking about the fact that she is a drag queen, not trans, and acknowledging the difference and the problems of confusing/conflating the two, and expressing respect for trans people and their struggles.

        None of that in any way excuses the transphobic coworker, of course – he may have been accidentally right in this one isolated case, but for alllll the wrong reasons, and Ange is still 100% correct in telling him off for disrespecting people’s genders based on BS reasoning. “If they have a beard then they’re a man”?! That’s nonsense on so many levels. Heck, even some cis women have beards. And so do some trans women. Doesn’t make them any less women.

        Ange, go you for trying to talk some sense into your coworker, even if he’s too dense/prejudiced to listen.

        April 14, 2015
        |Reply
      • Alison
        Alison

        Yeah, it’s like, “Nice to meet you, Mike.” “Actually, I go by my middle name, Josh.” “Oh, ok, sorry Josh.”

        It’s not any harder than that, people! We do it all the time. “Then she said-” “Actually, it’s he, not she.” “Oh, ok, sorry, then HE said…”

        April 14, 2015
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        • xebi
          xebi

          I tried to tell my mother this and she was like “yeah I know some people become men or become women but this woman has not become a man so she is still a woman.” I spent so long trying to explain that being trans does not equate to physical surgery and that he is a man regardless of what his physical body looks like to you but I might as well have been addressing a brick wall 🙁

          I really really hate the phrase “she used to be a man” “he used to be a woman.” No they didn’t. They just used to look like one to you.

          April 15, 2015
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    • khan
      khan

      what the crap nonono just no
      to both the misgendering and the picking feet

      August 30, 2015
      |Reply
  59. Rebecca
    Rebecca

    My mother would really like me to like Outlander. I will eventually watch/read Outlander because it’s easier than making my mother unhappy. I may even like it. But DAMN.

    April 14, 2015
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    • Candy Apple
      Candy Apple

      Outlander is actually my guilty pleasure. The TV series is extremely well done. I know that’s small comfort if you’re not into the story, but at least the show is not utter crap.

      April 14, 2015
      |Reply
  60. eselle28
    eselle28

    Ugh, people who can’t accept that you aren’t into their favorite TV show are the worst. I actually do like Firefly, though I see its flaws as well. The show that I keep getting pushed at me is The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Apparently finding some of the racial portrayals uncomfortable, not caring about any of the characters, and not finding it to be very funny are minor quibbles that watching a few more episodes and hearing a testimonial from a person of color who doesn’t find it offensive will easily fix. Thing is, there are already a ton of shows on that I do like, so it seems to make more sense to just watch shows I like and let other people watch shows they like.

    April 14, 2015
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  61. Stormy
    Stormy

    I can’t tell if this is a rational pet peeve or not, but my somewhat offbeat annoyance is Iron Chef America. Specifically, how they dub over Morimoto as he presents his dishes or gives interviews. Yes, he has a pronounced accent, but he’s lived in America for decades. His English is perfectly serviceable. I think that it might be a shout-out/throw-back to the original Iron Chef, but it’s annoying to me because you can hear under the dub that he’s speaking English. I can understand him just fine; maybe other people have a harder time? The only time I find him hard to understand is when he’s running around cooking and using an excited mishmash of English and Japanese together; then, they either subtitle him or don’t bother with it.

    Side note: I really want to hang out with Morimoto. He seems like an awesome dude.

    So yes. There’s my peeve. WHY ARE THEY DUBBING OVER MORIMOTO?

    April 14, 2015
    |Reply
    • khan
      khan

      Rational peeve.

      August 30, 2015
      |Reply
  62. Angelee
    Angelee

    I have one cat who pisses and the other who doesn’t. No really, she doesn’t. And it’s not because she’s a Good Cat. It’s because my two cats hate each other, and so the one pisses and the other WOULDN’T BE CAUGHT DEAD doing something like that because CLEARLY SHE IS THE SUPERIOR BEING or some shit.

    April 15, 2015
    |Reply
  63. Thank you for this. I always had a problem with one cat who peed, and it got worse when I moved in with my boyfriend and his mother-in-law. I searched all over the internet for tricks and tips to make it stop (his mother wanted me to get rid of the cat) and all said he must be sick. No, he’s just a jerk and really liked peeing on the mother-in-law’s stuff. When he gets a crazy amount of love, no pee, but if I end up having a few busy days, pee. Thank you for saying, you know what, he’s just a cat and he’s a jerk.
    The cat is a vomit monster, but that’s easy to clean up.

    April 15, 2015
    |Reply
  64. I enjoyed Firefly when I saw it, but I recognize the issues with it and don’t think it’s the BEST SHOW EVER OMG. I fucking hate the fanbase, but I fucking hate most Whedon fanbases because people tend to put him on a pedestal and HE TOTES INVENTED FEMINISM DIDN’T YOU KNOW????? I enjoy a lot of things he does, but heavens forfend I point out any of the problems with them or say they’re not the best things ever, omgwtfbbq.

    And I swear to gods if one more person tells me Firefly is a “sex positive future because Inara is so respected!” I’mma punch something. Drinking game: drink every time some dude calls her a whore or slut-shames her (mostly Mal); die halfway through the show.

    April 15, 2015
    |Reply
  65. Cathy
    Cathy

    My friends cat is a a-hole; he will walk into the room, look at her, squat and pee. She says he’s an a-hole. They put him on anti-depresents because the vet said he was anxious. My cat has always been pretty good with his litterbox, but now he is nearly 15, he misses occasionly. He does tend to vomit on my hubby’s things, especially when he is pissed off about something he did! And dont tell me cats dont have emotions and feelings; of course they do!

    April 16, 2015
    |Reply
  66. Cathy
    Cathy

    My friends cat is a a-hole; he will walk into the room, look at her, squat and pee. She says he’s an a-hole. They put him on anti-depresents because the vet said he was anxious. My cat has always been pretty good with his litterbox, but now he is nearly 15, he misses occasionly. He does tend to vomit on my hubby’s things, especially when he is pissed off about something he did! And dont tell me cats dont have emotions and feelings; of course they do! Duh!

    April 16, 2015
    |Reply
  67. Lilly Adzler
    Lilly Adzler

    I am asexual and I get tired of people bugging me to get married and have kids. Now that I’m in my 30s, people tell me I’m getting “too old” to attract men for much longer so I need to marry RIGHT NOW or I will be forever alone and miserable.

    April 16, 2015
    |Reply
  68. the-greatest-dragon
    the-greatest-dragon

    I actually did have a cat who never peed on anything, but I learned that it’s rare. I think it’s weird that people tolerate it. If a cat pees on stuff, that’s a deal breaker for me.

    April 17, 2015
    |Reply
  69. Melissa F.
    Melissa F.

    I am so tired of everyone slobbing Whedon’s knob. Yes, I have enjoyed some of what he has done. But as you have pointed out with the Buffy rewatch, his shit’s not as feminist as people like to think. And he is the only person I know of in modern times to use the word “quim” which is so gross to me. I’d actually rather be called a cunt, because at least that feels honest – calling a woman a mewling quim is like “I’m a sexist, but I’m CLASSY. Look at my vocabulary; I’m not just some idiot.” It’s a verbal fedora.

    And Serenity pissed me off to all hell. Firefly was cancelled early, so fans fought to bring it back and have more. And when against all odds, he gets to make a movie and revisit the property, he solves no mysteries, opens new ones, and kills two beloved characters. It’s a slap in the face to fans, but no one will admit it because the Emperor’s new clothes are so fucking amazing. Fuck him in the ear.

    April 19, 2015
    |Reply
    • khan
      khan

      No. Just no. You’re being unnecessarily dicky. Screw you.

      August 30, 2015
      |Reply
  70. BB
    BB

    Not sure if it counts as unjustifiable but, I am forever bothered by people pronouncing Shih Tzu ‘shit zoo’ or ‘shit sue’. I know little dogs are shits sometimes, but that’s not how you pronounce it.
    I know not everyone knows Chinese(which is what the name is, it means ‘Lion son’ as they were bred/styled to resemble the Lion dog statues), but like, if you’re going to own a dog shouldn’t you at least take a few minutes to learn how to pronounce the breed’s name? I mean, it took me like, 30 seconds to google ‘shih tzu pronunciation’ and the first result gave me exactly what I was looking for. So there’s really no excuse.

    For the record, the proper pronunciation seems to be ‘Sheed-zoo’, with stressing on the first part of the name, ‘she’. The d-z sounds roll together when said properly.

    May 3, 2015
    |Reply
    • khan
      khan

      There’s literally no way to describe that sound using English letters, if you’re talking Mandarin Chinese (which, by the way, is the actual language; ‘Chinese’ is not a language the same way ‘Indian’ is not a language). You sort of close your teeth and curl your tongue a bit. But your description is close enough that most Asians wouldn’t mind.

      August 30, 2015
      |Reply
    • khan
      khan

      But I’d say that it’s not unjustifiable; I’m on your side.

      August 30, 2015
      |Reply
  71. khan
    khan

    I was with you until you mentioned Sherlock, upon which FUCK YOU.
    Also, it’s not like not being an adult means you have to do things people tell you. Otherwise you’re gonna have some serious issues when your kids grow up.

    August 30, 2015
    |Reply

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