Annoyances, by Jess

Hello everyone. Time for another episode of things that annoy me.

1) Everyone's kitchen is setup different, and plays by house rules. Here at the Hamilton house, I apparently have to post MY rules. Covering each and every square inch of my walls.
The last time Stephen was home, something kept happening that was driving me mad. You see, kids, in my kitchen, the sink is divided into 2 sections. One side generally contains dirty dishes, the other side is for clean dishes. Doing the dishes is not my favorite chore in the house(Well it was not a favorite chore of mine, that is until I purchased Gain scented dish soap, but that is another story for another time) so I usually will wait to load the dishwasher until I know I have a full load(I have a gift, I can eyeball this). I see no point being in the kitchen constantly washing dishes, so this is my method. Sometimes, my dishwasher is full, and then I still have a couple pots and pans leftover, which I wash by hand. These clean pots/pans/leftover dishes that do not fit in the dishwasher are hand washed by moi and placed into the designated 'clean' part of the sink, which contains my dish strainer.
I think it is pretty easy to tell clean dishes from dirty, so I am constantly baffled that people who shall remain nameless will continuously place dirty dishes in the clean side of the sink. HOW HARD IS THIS? Last week when Stephen was home, I called a family conference in my kitchen, and held a demonstration complete with hand movements, and I spoke reeeeeeeaaaalllllyyyy sllllloooooooowwww to make sure that everyone in this house understands 'the rules'. A little degrading to them? Probably so. But, look people, I've given them all plenty of chances to get this right.
Imagine my surprise when I walk into my kitchen today to find DIRTY dishes on the CLEAN side of the sink, right on top of CLEAN dishes.
"Hey Jess, why don't you dry your clean dishes, and put them away immediately?" you may ask....Well, I'll tell you why. It is my kitchen, that is why. If I want to leave clean dishes on the clean side of my sink for 2 weeks(which is ok, because they are clean and I'm following my own rules) that is my business. How hard is it to just follow the rules?
"Hey Jess, why don't you wash your dishes more than once a day to once every other day?"...I could. But I choose not to.
I will put signs up on each side of the sink on giant poster board written in extra super thick sharpie if I have to. If needs be, I will add in profanities.

On to the next order of business.

2)I am my mother's daughter. The thing I dislike most in the free world is grocery shopping. I would rather lick butter from the tub for nutrition than visit my local BiLo, Food Lion, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, or Wal-Mart/A.K.A. Satan's Superstore ($1 royalty to Jill) Sadly, I have children that would not stoop to such levels, and they need to eat real food, so once or sometimes twice a week(Heaven help me) I must suffer through this disgustingly awful task.
I *try* to get out of the house before 9am so that I am home before I start to get annoyed. When I start to reach that level, my blood pressure rises, and I end up grabbing bare essential items, putting off shopping for another day. It is truly better for myself, my kids, my health, and the well-being of others that my grocery shopping is done early in the day.
Sometimes, I am not so lucky.
Today, it had not occurred to me that we were in need of milk, bread, and oh---I forgot to pull something out of the freezer to prepare for dinner. Since it was 4:30pm, Wal-Mart was absolutely OUT of the question. I would rather saw my own limbs off, by hand, without a numbing agent. The next closest store is Food Lion. The Food Lion of Calhoun, Georgia is usually a lovely store. It is very rare I run into problems in that fine establishment. Mega props to Food Lion on Red Bud Road in Calhoun. The Hamilton's love you.
Well, not today.
Actually my complaint is not with the store itself, so I revoke that last statement. My complaint is with the members of the human race who happened to be shopping at the Food Lion on Red Bud Road in Calhoun this afternoon at approximately 4:45 to 5:45pm.

----a)To the woman in the white Buick. I saw the lovely finger gesture that you gave me when I pulled into the parking space that was rightfully mine. I'm sorry, it goes to the high bidder(that is, the person who is kindly waiting for 2 minutes patiently....not you, woman in the white Buick who came flying into the parking lot doing 55, whipping in and out like you were racing for the checkered flag in the Food Lion 500.) Please don't be stupid. If you had hit my car, because you couldn't park in the spot right on the other side, which was actually one whole parking spot closer that you missed out on for wanting to be a (insert bad word) to me, chances are I might have, well....filed an insurance claim. And that would have annoyed me. I really didn't feel like having to sit on the phone with anyone. Then I would have had to hear my kids whine some more that they are hungry...and so on, and so on. Oh the list of inconveniences you would have caused me today, vulgar white Buick driver. Oh, and PS: You drive a Buick, not a Maserati.

----b)I know there are no "official rules", but I'm fairly positive that you are supposed to run your shopping carts parallel to the shopping aisles, NOT perpendicular. I'm speaking to YOU, early 20s girl who was hogging the end of the cereal aisle. I tried to turn around, but I was blocked in by YOU, white haired old lady, whose cart was also stretched out, leaving me completely blocked in. Ok, which one of these 2 people had to be my victim? It is against my religion to be mean to old ladies, and I did not want it to reach that point. So I chose early 20s girl. I was nice, early 20s girl. I stood there, for 2 minutes---I timed it! 2 minutes. You cannot tell me that you didn't see me standing there, that you didn't feel the heat off of my glare begging you to just ...please scoot your cart parallel to the aisle so that me and my beautiful children could get out. You see, we were done picking out our cereal. Because we came to the store knowing exactly what we wanted, so that we could get in and get out. You however, blocked the end of the aisle, along with sweet old lady....what are the odds I would get stuck in an aisle with the 2 people in Calhoun, GA who would not know what kind of cereal they wanted---BOTH of them aisle blockers!!!
I could feel my blood pressure rising. I moved my cart closer to you, early 20s gal, and I saw the look you gave me. I also watched you avert your eyes right back to the same cereal boxes you've been staring at for a good solid 6 minutes, blocking the aisle. Is it really that hard? I was very close to just throwing a box of cereal into your cart and pushing you out of the way my-SELF. I moved my cart even closer, you scoffed at ME, forcefully threw your cart around just barely giving me enough room to get through. I'm sorry, did I miss something? YOU were the one breaking the unofficial rules. I didn't see a crown on your head, so I'm pretty sure you had no reason to do so, other than just being a (insert bad word here).
The old Jess would have been screaming. The F word. I may or may not have under my breath. Early 20s girl, consider yourself lucky. Because you basically ruined the rest of my shopping trip. I was so angry I ended up forgetting that I was all out of coffee creamer, and I did not even raise my voice to you. For once, I wish though, that my children had been misbehaving---just to annoy you for those few minutes.

Seriously!!! How hard is it???? How hard is it to just be courteous to your fellow human beings? Don't block the aisles. Don't try to fight someone in the parking lot over a parking space---is it REALLY worth it? And note to self: Avoid this situation in the future by doing the grocery shopping early in the morning.

You know, my darling husband laughs at me because I say that if I do not have outside of the house errands done before 11am, I consider the day a waste. As you can see, there is a reason I am the early bird.

3) My final complaint of the day is on the subject of 4-way stops. Let it be known, I fully support teenagers/early drivers to have MORE drivers ed. I may also support that adults should have to take refresher courses. People are complete IDIOTS on the road. It is bad enough to deal with seeing people yapping on their cell phones, TEXTING while driving----do not even get me started on that one, people not watching where they are going, etc etc etc.
No that's not enough. We also have to deal with people who do not understand the (what I thought were) understood rules of 4-way stops, which is nothing but a little common sense. How....Hard....Is....It???
I just simply do not have time this evening to give a drivers ed lesson here. First one there gets to proceed through the 4-way stop first. A lot of times when I come up at a 4-way stop, there is a good system going, but there is always that one dill canoe that is going to ruin it for the rest of us. You know what I'm talking about. The person who pretends to go when they clearly know it is NOT their turn, so ya stop, and then they stop(staring at you), and then you start to go, and they start to go/stop/start slamming things around in the car. PAY ATTENTION!!!!!! IT WAS NOT YOUR TURN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then you have the audacity to yell a profanity out of the window at ME? Really? When I took my own rightful turn at the 4 way....Oh, how dare I. Just...how dare I.

And people wonder why I prefer to stay at home.

I think my children think I am a mad woman, they can see me erupting when I am surrounded by examples like such above. But at least I am not some racing through the parking lot fighting over parking spots-aisle blocking-non rule following at 4-way stop doing-thrower of dirty dishes on top of clean dishes do-er..or something.