Maybe it’s the disgusting weather or the eagerness for Spring Break, but everything seems to be getting on my nerves. Here are a few pet peeves that have really been irking me lately.
Awkward Socialization: It’s always uncomfortable when someone asks, “Hey how are you?” and you respond, “Not much, you?” because you were expecting, “What’s up?” and jumped the question. Sometimes I feel like everyone around me is so good at being friendly and I just word-vomit back at them. For example, someone might execute a perfect greeting, with a reference to my name and everything, and all I can manage is a manic “hey” as a response. In the immediate aftermath, I scold myself for not including their name, which I knew, and would be a little less creepy. The worst is when I am in transit across campus and someone asks me my status. I always end up selfishly taking up our short conversation window by saying, “I’m good” and by the time I shout, “And you!?” they are already a few strides behind me. I sometimes stop, but if the other person just keeps trucking, I look pretty silly. One day I will get it down. I will have a greeting so perfect the recipient might be the one who is tripped up.
The pointless paragraph: It takes a lot of will power to sit down and commit full attention to reading a chapter in a textbook. My mind tends to wander as my eyes scroll down the page, and I can only hope that the sentences I am actually retaining are going to be the lucky concepts I will see on the exam. That is why I cannot stand when I actually read and grasp a paragraph’s information in Chapter 5, only to see the sentence, “This concept will be discussed in detail later as we move on in Chapter 13.” I want to shake the author and ask, “Do you really think I am going to go to that chapter right now and look it up out of my own curiosity?” I just focused on some concept that is undoubtedly going to get harder and you just gave me a taste of it for fun. By the time the book goes back into the main topic of the chapter, I am back to daydreaming.
Priceline: OK, so William Shatner became a TV icon in “Star Trek.” But that doesn’t seem to be the way our generation is going to remember him. When I see Shatner’s face, I envision him karate-chopping the air and that horrible jingle, “PRICE LINE ne-goti-ATOR!” The sheer annoyance of this ad is intolerable enough, let alone the extent to which it is marketed. Watch the television for five minutes and you will see his smirking face trying to con/seduce a hotel receptionist. I tried to watch a news clip the other day and I was not granted permission until I sat through the mandatory Shatner message. Maybe it’s the theatrics of this commercial that irk me, or how the volume of the television seems to increase when the ad starts. Shatner may have been a heartthrob as Kirk, but I do not see the humor in him using a seductive tone to get people to pay less for hotels. I guess the one benefit to the relentless advertisements is that if the Priceline.com van comes to abduct me, I’ll be ready.
