Pet Peeves

Life is annoying, isn’t it? I mean there are good parts to it; sleeping, eating, drinking, orgasming. These things are great but unfornutately there’s other things in life you have to deal with and some of these things are very annoying. There are BIG things that can definitely get to you, but today I want to discuss the small annoyances. I want to discuss Pet Peeves.

(Before I get started I wanted to make this declaration. I realize that I have my own Pet Peeves and I also realize that everyone else in the world has their own. What may annoy me may not affect another person and vice versa. I will probably come off as entitled and pompous in this post, which is likely to happen when you spend an entire post complaining about minute problems. I don’t want you to think that I don’t have any self-awareness of my own habits that irritates other people. Basically what I’m getting at is that I’m about to complain a lot about nothing so just deal with it)

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines Pet Peeves as:

Pet peeve -  n.  1)(pronounced pet pee-ve) When a pet urinates and the resulting fluid looks like a “V” on the ground. There are also pet pee-a, pet pee-be...all the way to pee-ze. The pee-ve for some reason became the most common among household pets. Scientists hypothesize it might be a viral campaign started by dachshunds.

2) (pronounced pet peeve) When you pet gets really mad at you (ex. “Don’t try giving Fido a bone. He looks really pet peeved off right now.”)

These definitions are great and all but it’s the next one that I want to cover.

3) something that bothers or annoys the bejesus out of you.

Everyone has their own pet peeves. It could be someone whistling, the sound of someone clipping their fingernails, or someone murdering you. There are small things in life that will just drive you nuts. For me, among many things that bother me, there’s one that stand above the rest. It’s saying “God Bless You.” I HATE IT! HATE IT! HATE IT! HAAAAATTTTEEEE IT! This seems like a dumb thing to let get to me so much, but I actually have good reason to hate this phrase.

At college I lived with my friend DINOSAUR for years (Note: Dinosaur isn’t his actual name. When I asked him what he’d like to be called he said “Well it says Dinosaur on the back of my shirt from Kofte Night. No one has ever called him Dinosaur and now really isn’t the time to get into that story). From sophomore year until Graduation we were always roommates. He’s a terrific guy, a great friend, but god damn does he sneeze. He sneezes all the time! The average person probably sneezes 2-3 times in succession. Maybe just one sneeze, maybe more. Not Adam, I mean Not Dinosaur. He’d sneeze at least 10 times. It was never ending! At first I’d say “Bless You” over and over. Then I’d say it less, but even that became annoying. I’d wait for a pause in the sneezing, thinking it was over and just as the words began “God Ble...”

SNEEZE!

SNEEZE!

SNEEZE!

What the fuck! This was becoming insane. Not only was I bothered with the sneezes, but I was also getting annoyed with Adam, DAMN IT I mean Dinosaur. Every sneeze was a joke at my expense, a knife in my chest. So I stopped saying Bless You to Adam. There was no point to it anymore.

Over time I stopped saying it to other people. Why did it matter if someone sneezed one time or ten? I just felt that saying “God Bless You,” was me apologizing for someone else’s actions. Why should I do ANYTHING in response to someone else sneezing? It makes no sense.

I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. When someone sneezes more than 3 times it starts to bother people. “Alright already!” “Jesus. Enough with the sneezes!” Why do you get so annoyed? I think it’s because 1) The sneeze is an annoying sound

BUT REALLY 2) It’s because of a broken social contract. After the 2^nd sneeze you probably said Bless You, but the sneezes didn’t stop. So you feel like this person just completely disregarded your Bless You and said “Fuck off, I’m going to keep sneezing because I’m an asshole and that’s how I roll.” (There’s got to be medical papers on this.)

History of Sneezing Replies

I’d say that most people know the history of how “God Bless You” came about. The most well known story is that people believe a sneeze was the soul trying to escape and saying “God Bless You” would keep it from flying away. Also, it was said during the Black Plague since sneezing was one of the first symptoms of getting sick, so “God Bless You” was said as polite way of saying “Stay the fuck away from me you walking dead ass.” I have no problem with people in history believing this because it was 1,000 YEARS AGO! Does anyone today still believe this crap? Even the most devout Catholic couldn’t think his soul was leaving his body from sneezing.  If anyone does believe this insane thought I have some questions:

1)   If you sneeze and no one is around to say “God Bless You,” do you just lose your soul? Can you “God Bless You,” to yourself to save it?

2)   Is there a time limit from when you sneeze to when someone can bless you and save your soul? If so, how long? A sneeze can be clocked in at 70mph. That soul is booking it when it leaves the body, I couldn’t imagine it staying close for long.

3)   If you sneeze and no one says “God Bless You” and you just let your soul fly away, wouldn’t that mean that you’d never sneeze again? You only get one soul. You might say “Well the soul eventually comes back.” Well then why the hell are we ever saying “Bless You” to begin with!

4)   Regarding question 3, if you at the time when you’re waiting for the soul to come back and happen to die, what happens?

5)   Finally, does the soul hate pepper, dust, and pollen?

Like I said, I don’t actually think anyone believes this anymore but I wish they did. I’d have so many schemes to make money off of these jack wagons. Like what, you ask? Well here’s a few off the top of my head.

Edible Tissues – After you sneeze your soul into a Kleenex, you can just put it right back in your body by eating it.

Anti-Soul Escaping Mask – It’s a helmet that’s similar to what an astronaut would wear, with special lining that makes it impossible for a soul to break through.

Selling People’s Souls – When people sneeze and their soul escapes, I’d run up and grab it before there was a “Bless You” to be heard. Forget the NYSE. This is our new basis of the economy.

My pet peeve isn’t based SOULY (get it?) on “God Bless You.” I don’t want you to think I’m anti-religion. No. I’m anti-ANYTHING said after a sneeze! Gesundheit, Alhamdulillah, bud zdorov, or even bai sui. To me, it doesn’t matter how you phrase it, it still annoys me. Why do we say anything? We don’t say anything else for other body functions. No one says “Bless You” after a burp unless they think they are being funny (which they aren’t). You might get an “Excuse YOU!” from some sassy woman who looks at themselves as the sassy girl in the office but everyone just sees her as the annoying bitch.

What really pisses me off are the schmo-hawks that get mad if you don’t say “Bless You” after THEY sneeze. Here is an example from such an even with my mother.

Mom: (sneezes)

Me: (No reaction)

Mom: BLESS ME! GEEZ!

Me: What’s your problem?

Mom: I’ll tell you what my problem is!.....

What the hell?! Did a fight just start between me and my mother because of a sneeze? A SNEEZE?! I don’t always treat my mother well and I’m often rude to her, but in this situation the only think I did was not recognize the fact that she had just sneezed. This argument happens a lot with my mom. You could argue that it’s my mother and obviously it doesn’t do any harm in saying “God Bless You” so I might as well make her happy and just say it. You might even take my mother’s side and say that I’m rude since I know that my mom wants me to say “God Bless You” but I refuse to. But I won’t. I just won’t. It’s a sneeze not a stab wound. My mother isn’t the only person who gets annoyed like this. It’s pretty common. What did this person do to force me to have to draw my attention to their actions? It’s not even like a sneeze does anything. A burp sometimes smells and if you’re good at it, you can burp words for fun. A fart definitely smells. But a sneeze is just a sudden loud sound that doesn’t do anything to anyone around you so let’s stop drawing attention to it by saying “Bless You.”

I’m almost done here. I’m obviously getting into a rant and unless I stop myself, I’ll go on forever like this. Even if you didn’t understand all my points I think it’s obvious to you that I just don’t like responding to sneezes. Fortunately I have a solution to solve this!

“Excuse me.” That’s it! “Excuse Me.” After you sneeze you just say “Excuse Me” and move on with your life. 2 words. Doesn’t take much to do people.

I think we covered a lot here today. I have other pet peeves (people using brb and not being right back) and I know that everyone has their own things too.  I just hope that now you have some awareness of how you should act around sneezers from now on.

Fun Fact: In Japan there is no reply to a sneeze. They believe that when you sneeze, someone is taking about you behind your back.