Ten Things That Drive Me Crazy

Everybody has been doing assignments and lists and whatnot.  I've been in a rather testy mood the last few days, so I thought I would share with everyone this list of things that drive me nuts (or would if I wasn't already nuts...)

• Laundry products that come with an oversized lid to use for measuring the amount you need…then you find out that way down inside the cap, where you can barely see it (and forget seeing it at all if you’re over forty) is the "fill line." So, as the soap company undoubtedly planned, you have been using twice as much of the product as you need, therefore having to buy it twice as often as necessary.
• Those, "Can you hear me now?" Verizon Wireless commercials…since most of the time the answer to that question on MY Verizon phone is, "What? I can’t hear you. Stand still…"
• Customers who walk up to my counter, point at one of my pastries, and ask: "Are those any good?"
• "Full service" gas stations (we don’t have self-service gas here in Oregon) where they make you get out of the car and go into the building to pay for your gas. (Undoubtedly to increase their chances of selling you some of their incredibly overpriced merchandise in the convenience store…)
• When all the crap that my husband stashes on his sun visor in his car pelts down on my head when I pull the visor down to use it…causing me the double traffic challenge of trying to fend off falling pamphlets while being blinded by the sun.
• Hairballs. ‘Nuf said.
• Hairspray, make-up, hand lotion, or some other messy fluid leaking all over everything else in my overnight bag.
• Campground showers (or hotel showers, or ANY showers) that go from scalding to freezing to scalding again, without ever finding a bearable temperature in between.
• Drivers on the winding roads to the coast, who slow downto 35 mph for every curve, hill, and bump in the road on the two-lane, floor the gas pedal to 75 mph the minute the road widens to four lanes to permit cars to pass them…and then literally SLAM on their brakes as soon as the passing lane comes to an end.

And, last but not least, my ULTIMATE pet peeve...  (Drumroll, please.......)

• The forgotten art of the use of the apostrophe in the English language. Apostrophes show possession. They show contraction. They ARE NOT used in the formation of plural words. And of course, the exception that makes the rule---the word "its" as in, "Belonging to it," does NOT have an apostrophe. "It’s" means, "It is…" They taught us this in grade school grammar class… In fact, first through eighth grades USED to be referred to as "grammar school." I'm afraid it's no accident that this term has gone by the wayside...