What Really Grinds My Gears

We've all got our pet hates, things that grind our gears for inexplicable reasons. Things that make us wince, squirm and struggle not to correct. They're usually really simple little things that have absolutely no detrimental effect on our well-being or happiness but yet they they grate like nails on a chalkboard. We know we shouldn't let them bother us but they do and these are mine:

Expresso

I don't even drink coffee so I have no idea why this causes me such pain but every time I hear someone say "expresso" I want to strangle them and scream at them that "IT'S ESPRESSO, NOT EXPRESSO, THERE'S NO X YOU BLOODY MORON". I know I'm not alone in my hatred of mispronunciations, my best friend quit a job once because one of her co-workers pronounced mayonnaise as 'maronnaise' and she just couldn't deal with it any more. Perhaps it's a blessing that I don't like coffee so I don't run the risk of encountering these imbeciles on a regular basis inside coffee shops. 

Dr. Who

I love Doctor Who and it really, really, really grinds my gears when I see it written as Dr Who. It offends me for so many reasons. Firstly, the show is called Doctor Who - it's not called Dr Who. Secondly, it implies his surname is Who. To explain - if I was a doctor I would be Dr Meehan because that's my surname so calling him Dr Who makes his surname Who. Which it isn't. Thirdly, he introduces himself as The Doctor and it's a running theme in that people then say "Doctor? Doctor Who?" because his name isn't Doctor Who and writing it as Dr Who makes it look that way, to me at least. Again, I know I'm not alone in this as it's a common cause for complaint amongst fans of the show. Shouldn't we worry about more important things? We probably should but it won't stop us being irritated by this.

Prom

Proms themselves don't upset me but the way the word is treated like a proper noun does. It's the word 'the' being missing from most sentences involving proms that gets me. People say "It's prom this weekend" or "I don't have a date for prom". I feel like it should be "It's THE prom this weekend" and "I don't have a date for THE prom". If we were going shopping, we wouldn't say "I'm going to shops", we'd say "I'm going to THE shops". A proper noun refers to a unique entity eg a country, person or city. Proms are not unique entities, they're events. We don't say "I'm going to cinema tonight" or "I'm going to concert" we say THE cinema and THE concert. I'm raging just writing this. I hope I've explained it properly because I have to move on before I throw myself and the laptop out the window.

Best/Cutest/Greatest in the WORLD

I feel a bit hypocritical about this one because I've got a photo of Monty in a Facebook album that I've written "the cutest little doggy in the whole wide world" on. To be fair I uploaded that picture before this became a pet hate of mine as it's something that has developed over the past 18 months. But I sure do hate it now. It's such a lame and lazy compliment. It's something people say when they lack any sort of creativity to say something nice about the person they're talking about. Obviously getting a card from your 6 year old kid proclaiming you to be the best parent in the world is a pretty special thing. Getting a card from your 30 year old offspring with the same message is a bit less special. It's such a boring, stealth brag - especially when parents battle it out with other parents on photos of their kids. And don't get me started on "I really do have the best boyfriend/girlfriend in the world" followed by something utterly mundane like "they've hoovered the lounge" or "they've bought me some Malteasers". The fact you can't think of something a bit more creative or nice to say pretty much negates your claim.

That's Tom with a capital T

I've had to save this for last because this is The One. Such a blight on my existence that it makes me want to scream every time I hear it. When someone gives you their email address and they tell you it's all in lower case or that the first initial has to be a capital letter. I have tried my very best to rise above it and to not let it bother me but every attempt has failed. Miserably. It's an unhappy coincidence that for the past 10 years I've been working in offices so I hear this a lot more than any person should ever have to and sometimes it's taken real effort not to correct people. I've had colleagues who, despite me patiently explaining it to them and sending them an email to JoHnSmItH@PrEtEnD.CoM, still insist on specifying that it all has to be lower case. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? IT'S 2013 FOR GOODNESS SAKE! WHY ARE THEY ALLOWED OUT OF THE HOUSE LET ALONE BEING ALLOWED TO USE A COMPUTER?? I've got an eye twitch just from thinking about it. AAAAAARRRRGH!

So those are my top 5 pet hates. I realise they're silly and unimportant and I know there are much bigger things I could spend my energy on but I can't help it, these things get me every time. If you've got something that inexplicably causes you to see the red mist, I'd love to hear what it is! Perhaps it's something I'm guilty of doing in which case - sorry! 

Now, here's some dachshund puppies. Everything is right with the world again.

The Significance of Being Insignificant

Every now and again, no matter how happy you are with your life, you'll experience a short period of time where everything seems to go against you. We've all heard people say that they're having 'the day from hell', a 'bad week' or that 'they've been having a tough time lately'. 

I have a lovely life, usually, and I often can't believe how lucky I am but the past couple of weeks have been rather stressful. We bought our first home a month ago (yay) but we've been having some difficulties with a nearby house being horrible neighbours, work has been incredibly busy and the upstairs flat had a slow leak which lasted almost a full two weeks and caused a lot of damage to our living room. The insurance policy was still in the name of the seller of both ours and the upstairs flat so we weren't able to get it sorted because calling in our own plumber would have invalidated the policy. The upshot is that we, along with the upstairs flat, have to pay hundreds of pounds to a plumber as well as the £300 policy excess but we will eventually be refunded the plumber's fee. Because of this I had to cancel a trip to Manchester for a birthday party as I simply didn't have the money. My reaction to stress is to eat so with all of this going on I'd put on a few pounds. It's fair to say I was feeling very sorry for myself. And then I got the news that an old friend had been murdered.

I won't say it put things into perspective because my mind doesn't work like that. I can't stand this totally bizarre notion that you're never allowed to moan or be upset about anything because someone somewhere has it worse than you. I do believe that you should pick who you moan to and be considerate when sounding off. I know how frustrating it was when I was on dialysis to hear friends complain about trivial things like breaking a nail or forgetting a tv show was on. But if on the basis that somebody out there is suffering more than you so you can't possibly be sad then surely by that reasoning you can never be happy because someone is no doubt in a better situation than you. 

It did however make me think of a personal revelation I had several years ago and no doubt anyone reading this has had this thought at some stage too. One of my close friends had gone into labour at 3.30am and I drove her mum and sister to the hospital. I was on my way home at 5am and although the hospital was on the other side of town I saw barely any other cars on my entire journey. All I could think about was that everyone was asleep but my friend was having a baby. As the whole town appeared to sleep a new life was coming into the world and they had no idea it was happening. I had work that day and it seemed hilarious at the time that in 4 hours I would be at my desk which may as well have been a million miles away. I got to thinking about all the times I'd been doing the laundry or napping and what might have been happening at those exact moments all around the world. Births, deaths, marriages, wars, scientific breakthroughs, great sadness and great happiness. All things I would never know anything about. I'd thought about things like that before but it really hit me that time because I knew something so momentous was happening back at the hospital. 

From then on I've looked at people differently. It's almost as though every person is in the starring role in a film about their life. They're the main character, the one that would be nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars. Their inner circle are the supporting cast and then there's a whole bunch of extras to set the scene. But they also are a supporting actor in the film about another persons life or an extra in the life of someone they pass at the supermarket. We are all at once at the same time both significant and insignificant. It's beautiful and somehow tragic too. 

I've since found out that The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrow had a name for this and it's called "sonder". A definition:

The realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

While I had been going through some personal stresses my friend had been murdered. The tributes that flow in from all the people, whether supporting actors or extras, are like the end credits to the film of his life. Each of those people now have one less character in their own films. Once less friend, one less customer, one less person to walk past in the street. But somewhere, on the other side of the world perhaps, someone is in a state of excited awe that something so wonderful is happening to them right now in this very moment. And you will never know about it.