Pet Peeves

I was thinking about pet peeves as I was doing the dishes yesterday. Not that doing the dishes is a pet peeve—though it’s also not on my list of favorite activities to do—but that one of my pet peeves is having the dishes piled up in the sink. I understand the reasons why my household of adults don’t just wash their own dishes or rinse them and load them into the dishwasher, or even stack them nicely on the counter until the dishwasher is emptied. They usually all have valid reasons. But it’s as though that first dirty dish set in the otherwise empty sink invites others to join and soon you can’t stick a cup under the faucet to get a drink. If left long enough, the countertops must be used to place additional dirty dishes on, or when that space is taken, they can be found in bedrooms, or other living spaces. It’s a good thing we don’t have more dishes than we do. And when there are no clean dishes to be found instead of just doing the dishes, they just go out to eat, until I have time to do all the dishes myself. I could write a page-long tirade surrounding the dishes, but instead, let’s move on to, leaving the cupboard doors open.

There are actually people who install cupboards with glass in the doors…on purpose. The only way I would ever do that in my kitchen is if I had enough cupboards for all my kitchen needs to be hidden behind, and still had a left-over cupboard where I could put cool, or beautiful items to display, of which I have neither enough space, nor anything I would consider display worthy. So, I have no desire for cupboard doors to be left open to show off things I will get out when needed but don’t want people to see in the meantime. And it doesn’t feel too great to accidentally hit your head on the bottom of an unnoticed open cupboard door. So, if you’re ever at my house, just don’t do it.

One of my biggest ORIGINAL pet peeves—I say that because I have been bugged by this one the longest—is leaving the toilet seat up. I don’t want to see the water, or anything that was left in it or is now growing there. I also don’t want things like cell phones, contacts, clothes, or—heaven forbid—toothbrushes to accidently fall or be dropped into the filthy dirty water, even if the toilet has recently been cleaned (in my opinion the water is never clean).

 There has also been another pet peeve added to my list in the past few years. It’s the obsession so many people have with their cell phones. I’ll probably write a separate post on that one alone.

I decided to do an experiment to discover how long it would take me to do each of my household chores (making my bed, cleaning the bathroom, unloading the dishwasher, loading the dishwasher, etc.) Knowing that it only takes twenty minutes to clean the bathroom or three minutes to make the bed can make doing chores not feel so overwhelming. It was years ago when I did this so I can’t remember the exact time it took for each job. I really ought to do this activity again though to see if in my older age I’ve gotten slower, or if maybe I’ve learned shortcuts or faster ways to accomplish the tasks, because another pet peeve I have is living in a messy house, which fits right along with what we’ll call my pet, pet peeve, or the pet peeves I have related to pets.

Dog hair everywhere, dirt and mud being tracked into the house, barking, water being spilled onto the floor causing me to step in wet spots, hoping that the wet is really water, holes being dug in the yard and the garden being dug up or eaten (by the dogs, not us), as well as the occasional accident in the house, not to mention having to clean up after them in the yard. I know that all these things are just part of dog ownership, so I shouldn’t expect it to be any different. But they are still more stress and work for me than they are a joy. They don’t fill an emotional need for me the way dogs, or other pets do for so many people, including people in my family; the ones the dogs actually belong to.

As I age, I think I either get more particular about the way I like things to be done, or I swing to the opposite side where I just don’t have the energy to care enough to battle to have things my way, and I definitely don’t want to harm relationships over pet peeves. But I think we all have pet peeves—things that can really frustrate or annoy us. How we handle them so that they aren’t destructive to us, or our relationships is key. So, what are your pet peeves, and how do you handle them?

Once I loaded and then started the dishwasher yesterday, as often happens, I dirtied another dish, but instead of spending the thirty seconds to wash, rinse, dry, and put it away, I set it in the otherwise empty sink.