What Grinds Your Gears? :)

[Dawnatello Turtle Chick]

Originally Posted by Wingnut

I am pissed about winter in general, but people who drive INSANELY fast on black ice/snow covered roads are testing my sanity lately.

If it was sunny and 70 these people wouldn't even approach the speed limit but when the roads freeze over, all of a sudden, they get the need for speed.

But what makes my day is after seeing these idiots fly past me I pass them in a ditch a few miles down the road. Petty I know, but I have a low tolerance for idiots that risk others' safety just to look "cool"...

[blindturtle02]

We've got all sorts of crazy drivers around here. They do tend to be more insane when Winter comes around. Same thing on my end. They just lose all sense and drive fast whether or not the roads are iced over. Then we have drivers who are like that no matter the season. I'm sure this has already been posted, but people who text/talk on phones while driving grind my gears. Now if they've got the speaker phone option and are able to talk while watching the road, cool. Yes there are people in my family who do that. I guess it doesn't grind my gears as much as worry me. Aren't people taking pictures of themselves while driving now too? There's some sort of Internet name for it but can't remember at the moment.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Originally Posted by Wingnut

If it was sunny and 70 these people wouldn't even approach the speed limit but when the roads freeze over, all of a sudden, they get the need for speed.

Maybe they are just insane rally enthusiasts.

You do get some insane people out and about

[Aelia]

When people get right up behind me while chewing on their food really loudly. I don't think it's gross but the repetitive noise drives me nuts.

[BubblyShell22]

I agree about the driving and texting thing, BT. And those pictures you mentioned are called selfies. Mom always puts her phone on speaker phone when she talks to someone and come to think of it, talking with your cell phone to your ear can cause tumors. So we aren't ruling out the possibility that my sis got her tumor from that.

I hate the crazy semi truck drivers who speed really fast. So annoying.

[blindturtle02]

Yeah that's it! Selfies, God. I'm not sure, but haven't people taking those also caused problems in traffic? I could have sworn I saw something about that recently.

Another thing that grinds my gears is what's going on with the TMNT 2012 series. Sounds like DreamWorks has picked up a few writers and such to work on their Angry Birds series. Hope it doesn't effect the future of this show in the slightest. It's probably the best cartoon I've seen on TV these days. Still need to check out Korrah though.

I'd hate to see TMNT get canceled and replaced with a cartoon based on an ap. Granted, there's a place for more comical shows, but I feel they're taking over toondom these days. There should also be a place for animation that lets you speculate inbetween episodes and makes you think. I seriously hope there's nothing to worry about. I guess we're ok so far since Nick is already producing a 3rd season? Sorry if I've offended any Angry Birds fans out there.

[The Fifth Turtle]

People who don't shoot you a thank you wave when you let them in your lane.

[BubblyShell22]

Totally agree, BT, and I can see why Ciro is peeved about it. I also hope it won't affect the show either.

[blindturtle02]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

Totally agree, BT, and I can see why Ciro is peeved about it. I also hope it won't affect the show either.

I love Ciro. He tells it like it is. I mean, he's perfectly respectful of any/everyone but he doesn't put up with bs.

Ga! Friggin cat just yarked up a hairball on the one and only Reese's cup left from a two-pack I bought to snack on! Why?! He just went over to it and let fly. The thing I don't get about cats is why they'll do their business in a litterbox, yet they don't care where they are when they have to toss their cookies. Him purring after the fact really isn't improving my mood either. I think he's ticked because I wouldn't give him raw chicken before I baked it this afternoon. He does stuff like this when he doesn't get his way. We're best buds and all, but he often acts like that college roomy you never wanted. If he could, I'm sure he'd wack me with a wet towel on occasion.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I'm guessing this is the Tonkanese? I feel for you, man. I had an orange tabby who acted like that when he got pissy. I swear he had some Siamese in him, because of his body shape and personality. His name was Mischief, and he MORE than lived up to it. It was primarily because of him that we had a 24-piece set of drinking glasses end up with only four glasses in less than a year. He had a habit of getting up on the counter or table next to them, gently and repeatedly nudging them closer to the edge, then knocking them right over with full force. Staring right at us with a Cheshire grin, all the while. Didn't matter if you yelled at him to get down, either- he'd just keep at it until he smashed it, then take off running to avoid getting in trouble. A little devil if ever there was one.

He was also fond of getting into cabinets and drawers to drag things out, open doors, and he once somehow opened a jerky canister (with a screw-top lid, mind you) to get to the full bag of catnip inside- then promptly ATE half the bag! And it was a one-ounce bag, so- yeah. First time I've ever seen a cat actually OD on the stuff. He had gone missing for four hours, and when we found him he was half-passed out under a coffee table, drooling and with glazed eyes, barely able to move because he was so "baked" on the catnip. Funniest thing I'd ever seen- we laughed for almost ten minutes when we saw the "stash" piled next to him! At least we knew why he was missing- too baked to come when we called him....

[blindturtle02]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

I'm guessing this is the Tonkanese? I feel for you, man. I had an orange tabby who acted like that when he got pissy. I swear he had some Siamese in him, because of his body shape and personality. His name was Mischief, and he MORE than lived up to it. It was primarily because of him that we had a 24-piece set of drinking glasses end up with only four glasses in less than a year. He had a habit of getting up on the counter or table next to them, gently and repeatedly nudging them closer to the edge, then knocking them right over with full force. Staring right at us with a Cheshire grin, all the while. Didn't matter if you yelled at him to get down, either- he'd just keep at it until he smashed it, then take off running to avoid getting in trouble. A little devil if ever there was one.

He was also fond of getting into cabinets and drawers to drag things out, open doors, and he once somehow opened a jerky canister (with a screw-top lid, mind you) to get to the full bag of catnip inside- then promptly ATE half the bag! And it was a one-ounce bag, so- yeah. First time I've ever seen a cat actually OD on the stuff. He had gone missing for four hours, and when we found him he was half-passed out under a coffee table, drooling and with glazed eyes, barely able to move because he was so "baked" on the catnip. Funniest thing I'd ever seen- we laughed for almost ten minutes when we saw the "stash" piled next to him! At least we knew why he was missing- too baked to come when we called him....

Yeah, that was the Tonk alright! haha Tony is a whole hell of allot like that. He does the exact same thing with the glasses! Used to piss my future father-in-law off because he'd get up on the mantle and nudge everything close to the edge until someone picked him up and put him in their lap. He still gets around just fine for a 16 year old, but he loves it when people actually carry him to a bed or couch or wherever he wants to nap. When I refuse, he'll casually walk up to wherever my laptop is and begin rubbing on that until he wins. lol I don't think I've ever seen a cat with such a personality in my life! He's very sweet most of the time. But He'll also run into the bathroom and open and slam cabinet doors when he's mad. It seems as if Tonks and Siamese breeds believe themselves to be deities. Well I suppose most cats tend to harbor such beliefs but these breeds even more so. Rather amusing since I want to say cats were actually worshiped in ancient times. They must have eaten that up. haha This one loves cat nip too.

[BubblyShell22]

That's hilarious, Duckie.

BT. sorry to hear about that hairball. That definitely would make me mad.

My mom's client has a cat, and she would steal the client's blood pressure pills and create a little stash for herself along with some toothpicks. Mom and I joked that she's a drug dealer and wants to entice the mice to buy her stuff.

[blindturtle02]

lol, cats and their secret stashes! Tony's late girlfriend Tigerlilly used to steal a bunch of loose change and hide it in a particular bedroom. She also loved unwrapping presents before Christmas morning. I was told she'd get under the tree and paw things open, at least partially so she could see inside. I've heard about cats stealing pills as well. That always cracks me up. Thank goodness they have sense enough not to eat them, at least the ones I've heard about anyway.

[Leo656]

People who are contrary for no reason really piss me off. My wife does this constantly. For what it's worth, she just makes really, really bad decisions. Money, jobs, any given situation, you can guarantee that she'll do the absolute wrong thing, every single time. And that's OK, a lot of people have no common sense, but those kinds of people NEED to defer to someone else on things once it's become crystal clear that their own judgment is lousy. Instead, most of the time these people would rather argue needlessly and insist they're somehow "right" despite all evidence, or just complain in general, anything at all except take someone else's advice. And I just can not stand that.

She's the worst about it, because she's very immature and can't handle any kind of criticism at all, from anyone, to the point where even simple advice becomes an argument, then a tantrum, like she's ten years old or something. You could tell her the sky is blue, and instead of agreeing with you, she'd argue that "at various times of day it's red, yellow and orange", ANYTHING except agree with you. You could come to a fork in the road, and flat-out tell her "The left path will bring you right into a brick wall, so go right," and she will go left and hit the wall on purpose just because "I don't like people telling me what to do!" It's ridiculous, and I cant stand it.

I mean, I get it. Nobody likes admitting that they can't make their own decisions. But statistically, and science will back me up on this, most people are flat-out Functionally Retarded, and absolutely need someone else telling them what to do, or else they're going to be failures at life. And yet, these are the people who most insist that they are right, and their rallying cry is always "Don't tell me what to do!" Well, then make better decisions OR learn to take someone's advice instead of throwing a tantrum over it.

I constantly, constantly defer to people who know better than me about all kinds of things. There's no shame in it. People who push back and refuse to listen to someone smarter than themselves are simply willing themselves into failure, and I see no logic in that.

[Jester]

Man, most of the time you make this woman sound like the worst human ever...why did you marry her in the first place?

[Leo656]

It's weird. In brief moments she CAN be friggin' horrible and a nightmare to deal with. It's not entirely her fault, her parents really screwed her up horribly before I even got to her, her older sister too. It was like their parents had some insane bet going as to how badly they could completely f*ck up their kids, and they did a fantastic job. Her Dad's been a lifelong drunk and her mom believes there's a handful of pills for any problem life can give you, and they both tend to "converse" through screaming and cursing, so that accounts for a great deal of her stubborn, willful BS behavior. And I do try hard to remember that it's not entirely her fault, because God knows my parents went well out of their way to f*ck me up, too.

When she's "normal" she's fine. We literally have everything in common and that's really rare in life, and I absolutely have no patience for other people anymore and am way too old to go through all this again with anyone else, so honestly, I'd rather just deal with the bullsh*t and work it out. It's not ALL the time. But it shouldn't be ANY time, is my problem. It's always such simple little nonsense, but she follows her parents lead and goes right to b*tching and screaming instead of trying to fix whatever the problem is. And again, that's all she was ever taught, so it's not all her fault. But it does me no favors.

I'unno, I've said before many times, I don't think relationships work and I don't think people should get involved with them. But that's not very realistic. I'unno, I used to really try and not vent so much about it, but I got sick of her trashing me on FB to the whole world, so now I just vent when I feel like.

Believe me, dude, if you knew ANY of my exes, you'd know my wife is probably still among the top percentile of all chicks, flaws and all. I fully cop to being a total chauvanist, because women are f*cking insane, and since 95% of my family is female, along with most of the people I deal with daily in general, I can say that with some degree of certainty. Sounds weird, but even at her worst, I look at other chicks compared to her, and somehow, I still feel like I got off light. Kind of a "best of the worst" situation, I know, but eh. At the very least she'll never ask me to watch "Twilight". I take solace in small victories.

And we're kind of common law "married". Not only does an actual wedding cost money we don't have, I kind of don't believe anyone should ever get married, since, statistically, it doesn't work, and getting out of it once you're in it can literally ruin lives just because of how the laws work. At least with things being the way they are, either of us could just leave if it ever got *that* bad. And even when the subject of breaking it off has come up, we both realize that wouldn't solve anything, we'd each just have a whole new set of bigger problems to deal with and one less person helping deal with them.

I think that's where most people truly are, relationship-wise: Kind of wishing they never got in so deep, kind of realizing that getting out would only make everything worse. At the very least if it does come to an end, it won't cripple me financially, since we never bothered to sign some stupid piece of paper that holds no real meaning other than ceremonial.

[BubblyShell22]

I get where you're coming from, Leo. My sis is like that with not listening no matter how hard you try to steer her in the right direction. Every time I've given her advice, she just ignored me and went her own way then made me feel like I was a piece of sh*t for trying to lead her right. We haven't had the best relationship because of this, and it hurts me that she's like this with me, especially now considering what's going on with her. I've always wanted to get back to how close we used to be, but she pushes me away each time. Then again, when we talk on the phone, she'll hang up if she can't agree with me and gets mad about it. Though if she moves down here, we'll be able to talk without a phone in the way, and maybe she can see my perspective on things.

I also hear you on marriage, and that's why I won't do it myself. I'll take a common law marriage, thank you very much. My sis got married to a guy who totally doesn't care about her and what ticks me off is she defends him no matter what instead of seeing that he's a jerk. Just so sad sometimes. I just want to smack her to knock some sense into her.

[Leo656]

Yeah, people make no sense. It's always the people you absolutely SHOULD listen to, the ones who only want to make your life easier, that you'll die before admitting they were right. When you're a kid, it's your parents. When you're a young adult, it might be your boss. When you're older, it's your spouse.

It's always a really simple equation, too: "If you do absolutely everything this person tells you to do, without question or complaint, your life will be very much simpler. If you argue, you will have never-ending frustration and misery." And 99 times out of 100, people will go with "Well, f*ck THAT, nobody tells ME what to do!"

In relationships, it's even harder, because the person giving the advice/criticism is inevitably labelled "Controlling". Which sounds so horrible. At least until you accept the fact that really, some people need to be controlled. Sounds awful. BUT, Life is absolutely full of ugly little truths like that.

[Dawnatello Turtle Chick]

While this doesn't "grind my gears" it is a total bummer. My younger sister was going to get married at the end of May of this year and since my folks are broker than we are I've been trying to help out any way I can (providing canopies for the outdoor wedding that I use for the flea market, finding different things to decorate with, etc.) and she just seemed progressively less happy each time I saw her until recently she just seems depressed. I've seen her and her fiance arguing on multiple occasions recently (but never before) and she asked me if it's normal for couples to argue just before the wedding (yeah! It's stressful, lol). She hasn't seemed excited about the wedding for the last couple months either.

Sidenote- her fiance is kind of a tool. He always knows everything, but is often flat out wrong. He has voiced that he believes women are inferior and belong in the kitchen. He is openly racist (and my sister is half black.... still not sure he knows?). Plus he couldn't even get and hold down a job on his own (the last place he worked just kept cutting his hours to like 4 a week so he would finally quit), she had to get him a job at the same place she works at. He is not the kind of guy I would pick for her. That's not even mentioning that my sister is gorgeous and has never gone without a boyfriend for more than a week or so. He is a little beer bellied and has slightly less desirable features- but all her previous boyfriends looked like models. We all kinda scratched our heads when she brought him home... Not that she can't be interested in a less attractive person, just that she never has... One thing about her is she doesn't like to make decisions, she likes to just have them made for her and she doesn't communicate well. He will gladly tell her what to do and think all day long. I think that's what she liked best about him. Needless to say none of us really thought he was the right guy (and we wanted to punch him half the time) and were hoping the relationship wouldn't last long.

Fast forward to this week. Apparently she cheated on him (which she has never done before) and then felt really confused and went to talk to a girlfriend about it and the friend's jerk-wad boyfriend shows up just as the fiance shows up and tells him about it. Not his place, she screwed up, but dude, not your freaking place. So the fiance left that night and drove to the opposite end of the state. My sister is freaking out and wants him back. My mom & I went to visit her to be supportive and we both really think she was having reservations about marrying him (which she admits she was) and was subconsciously trying to sabotage the relationship. I definitely think she screwed up by cheating, but I am afraid she'll screw up more if she talks him into taking her back. But then it will be worse since she talked him into taking her back but she still doesn't feel that she should marry him. I 100% believe he is a mistake and not just a settling mistake but a huge mistake. I feel kinda bad saying this, but I really hope he doesn't take her back. She deserves so much better. But we don't want to say that yet because she is still convinced that he is great. My heart goes out to her and I hope she sees she has much better long term options!

[blindturtle02]

I agree Leo and Bubbly, people who won't listen tend to grind my gears too. I've learned over the past 5-7 years or so to listen to the people who matter the most to me. Ya never know how long you have with them. It's like everyone in my family has had some form of cancer over the past few years. Mom, two uncles, my bh's late mom. So I've certainly learned to value advice even more than I already do, and that was actually allot to begin with. I guess all you can do is be there for a loved one even when he/she isn't wanting to listen. Especially if it's a spouse or a sibling. You two sound like you're doing all you can. I really don't get why your sis would keep that tomber to herself, Bubbly. Did her husband put her up to that? I'm not really sure what he hoped to accomplish by that.

Leo, as long as her parents aren't still trying to run your lives, sounds like you've got something good there. Were her parents like uber control freaks? If so, it makes sense as to why she won't listen to anyone. She probably doesn't want anyone to even appear to be telling her what to do again. I wonder if she's in a different place when you guys are having a tif? If her parents were as messed up as you say, most of her is probably reliving that stuff during arguments. Maybe she doesn't necessarily mean to lash out at you. I don't know and won't pretend to know about your spouse's situation, but what if she's not mad at you at all? She could just have trust issues. Has she ever stood up to her folks? Sounds like they're the ones she should be angry at. As long as you're treating her better than they did, well that's about all you can do.