Things I Detest - A Totally Random List

Muzak. You can't call it music.

CHRISTMAS muzak. As if the regular sort isn't bad enough.

Phone salespeople - I hang up on them now.

Religious doorknockers. I sometimes feel like saying to them, "how about we make an agreement - I don't come to your door, pushing my views on you, and you don't come to mine, pushing yours on me. Deal?"

TV shows such as Survivor, The Block or Big Brother, because I don't get the emotional games played, I think it's all BS anyway, and don't give a rodent's posterior who wins. (I must confess to sometimes watching a bit of Masterchef, because the food looks delicious!)

Sitcoms, especially American ones, as they're based on people making idiots of themselves, and I've had way too much of that in my own life.

Cricket. One notch above watching paint dry. Make that half a notch.

Asparagus. Blech.

Stuffed marrow. Ditto. My mother used to cook it for us when I was a kid - until the day I said it looked like cooked snot. Funny, none of the rest of the family wanted to eat it either after that...

Things that are fiddly to open - whether it's a jar of peanut butter or a new packet of tissues or whatever. Not being especially co-ordinated or strong, I just get so damn annoyed with them, I could throw them across a room.

The Briscoes lady. She irritates me, she and all her white, middle-class, oh-so-healthy-looking sisters in ads, who somehow manage to produce big, white-toothed smiles and talk at the same time. They look like ventriloquists' dummies.

How it's always the most irritating songs that stick in your head. Why can't it be one of the nice ones?

Doing dishes. The most boring job on earth.

Music being played - LOUDLY - on people's cellphones in the street. I've blogged about this before, but it still irritates the crap out of me. Get some earphones, people.

Harvey Norman ads - they're always YELLING AT ME ABOUT ALL THE WONDERFUL SAVINGS I'M GOING TO MAKE IF I SHOP AT THEIR STORE HURRY NOW!!! I don't give several rodents' behinds what your specials are, Mr Norman. Just turn down the volume on your ads, because I'm less than impressed.

...and I will probably add to this list at some point. In fact, it's inevitable. Sigh.

Things I Don't Understand - Number Five

Lately, I often find myself walking past young people in the street, or at the supermarket, mall, etc, who have their cellphone turned up loud, playing music, sometimes with earbuds in but often not. The resulting music – which is generally some kind of rap or the latest shallow pop sensation - is tinny, jangly and decidedly irritating. I know they probably don’t care what damage it’s doing to their hearing (young people don’t generally worry about that sort of thing), but I’m mystified as to why they have it playing at all, in those environments. It’s not like you can get the full effect of the music through the tiny speaker of a cellphone. Plus it’s often at least half-drowned out by the clamour of other street or background noise, supermarket or mall muzak, etc, etc. So what’s the point? Is it a sort of subtle adolescent bragging or showing off, advertising that they’ve got a cellphone? (Though pretty much everyone over twelve does, these days.) Are they so addicted to their favourite music they’ve got to have it playing 24/7, no matter what else is going on? Is a trendy thing? Am I turning into an old fogey? Or is it perhaps an NT thing, of wanting/liking noise all the time? I’m puzzled – not to mention overloaded by the aural onslaught.

It’s not that I dislike music, because I certainly don’t. (Well, some anyway. I don’t like rap, or most of those shallow Latest Sensation singers, which I admit doesn’t help. But that’s not my main point.) I simply prefer to listen to it in peace at home, with no other distractions, and through decent sized speakers, so I can get the full effect, and full enjoyment. It’s a private, relaxation thing, not a ‘let’s play rap all day long while we hang out at the mall’ thing.

I can’t help wondering if it’s somehow similar to another NT phenomenon I’ve noticed over the years, and that is people’s holiday habits. In NZ, it’s long been the traditional summer-holiday thing to load up the car and trot off to some beachside campground, squeezing in their tent or caravan or motor home next to dozens of others doing the same thing. Or they rent a holiday home (a “bach”, in Kiwispeak), with only slightly more room, also in some popular seaside place. It’s always mystified me. These are people who live cheek-by-jowl in the cities and main towns, surrounded by crowds every day – so what do they do for their summer break? Go somewhere they are even more cheek-by-jowl with other people!! You’d think they’d want some solitude, some peace and quiet, but no.

It’s not that I don’t understand that NTs don’t receive the full sensory onslaught we do, that they can somehow filter a lot of it out. I also understand that they are generally far more socially-inclined, or at least able to tolerate the constant company of others more easily. But even so… surely they must occasionally want something a bit more restful? Or at least a temporary absence or lessening of noise/people? A beach with no-one else around, a walk down the street with no over-the-top racket, a stroll through the majestic hush of our native forests, with only birdsong for company? Perhaps some do, and I just don’t notice them. Or perhaps it’s just the young people who like the noise and clamour, so their parents take them to these places. But then many parents seem to like these kinds of environments too…

I’m confused. And overwhelmed. And wondering if I’ll ever understand NTs.

Some Pet Peeves of mine

1.) Muzak. This will be no surprise to some of my friends! But truly, going into a supermarket or shopping mall is enough of a sensory-intensive experience, without adding a layer of jangly music to the cacophony. It wouldn’t be so bad if they played decent music, but instead it’s endless re-runs of Abba and Rod Stewart (who I never thought was any good as a singer the first time round), the best they ever seem to manage is the occasional bit of John Denver. And don’t get me even started on Xmas muzak, or the muzak they blast your ears with when you ring some company and they put you on endless hold, only interrupting it now and again to tell you how much they value your custom… If they really valued it, they’d put more people on their phones, but that’s another story.

2.) Religious ‘hawkers’. I mean the people who come to your door and try and ‘sell’ their religion to you. First of all, it’s a sort of invasion of spiritual privacy. I don’t come to their door trying to push what I believe on them, and I object to them coming to my door and trying to push their beliefs on me. Secondly, spirituality is, I believe, a deeply personal, private relationship between you and God. Touting your beliefs door to door like a set of encyclopaedias or Rawleigh’s cleaning products cheapens this relationship, in my view. (Salespeople don’t come to your door selling encyclopaedias anymore do they? Am I showing my age?)

3.) Phone salespeople. Aargh! Why do these people always ring when you are trying to cook dinner! Or eat it. But that’s just part of the irritation. I truly object to being rung out of the blue by someone trying to sell me timeshares in Gold Coast resorts, or get me to contribute to some charity. If I wanted to buy such things (supposing I had the funds), or contribute to that charity, I’d be doing it already, thank you very much. Goodbye. Slam phone down. Grrrr! 

4.) Housework. Whatever man dreamed up the idea that women should do all the housework was as cunning as a weasel. Seriously, there is something about possession of a womb that makes you more capable of cleaning a toilet? And they can send a man to the moon and invent the Internet, but can’t put together a decent robot to do the housework? If men had to do it, that robot would have been invented 300 or even 3000 years ago, trust me.

I’m sure there’s more. But that will do for now. Venting done.