A Grumpy Old Man’s Pet Peeves

Every time I refer to myself as a Grumpy Old Man, I make the same joke and today is no exception: I was also a Grumpy Middle-Aged Man and a Grumpy Young Man and a Grumpy Teenager and might have been a Grumpy Toddler; you’d have to ask my mom, but you’ll also have to endure a sales pitch for Jesus if you do, so you might want to skip that.

In any case; I think I should get points for Grumpy Consistency.

My qualifications as a Grumpy Old Man occurred to me yet again when I was reading a library book and got pissed off (more on that in a moment) and decided to share my irritation, because what’s the point of having a blog if you don’t use it to complain and whine and settle personal grudges?

BTW: You might want to skip today’s offering if you’re one of the people I’m going to complain about and come back another day when we’re on the same side and my track record indicates that eventually I’ll complain about everybody and everything, so the wait for us to share a common complaint might not be all that long.

Your call.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you and we’ll start my litany of complaints with…

People who write in library books

I read a lot of library books which might sound impressive until I confess I mostly read for entertainment (I read for information to draw the cartoons and by the time I’m done with that homework, I just want to hear a story), so I’m not exactly reading War and Peace or Gravity’s Rainbow or Remembrance of Way Too Many Things Past which means I can get through a book in a single day if I put my mind to it and plant my ass on the couch and since it’s currently about 5 degrees outside and I just saw a penguin waddle by, that’s what I’ve been doing.

And plowing through so many library books I sometimes come across one where a previous reader decided to do some editing.

Correcting mistakes is irritating enough, but I just read a book where some reader decided to add commas and changed words the reader didn’t like and the final straw was the book’s actual author writing about an operation that might go “south” and the mystery guest editor changed “south” to “sour.”

Which seems to indicate he or she is unfamiliar with the term “go south” – it means: fall in value, deteriorate, or fail – or maybe has a two-by-four shoved all the way up their pedantic ass which will probably be there forever because they also seem extremely anal retentive.

My favorite author of all time is Elmore Leonard and he was famous for his realistic dialogue and often wrote “in the vernacular” which means using informal language that sounds like real people talking and in the book Raylan a character says:

“You can’t live without kidneys.”

And Raylan replies:

“Be hard.”

Raylan says that because he’s a marshal from Kentucky and the last thing I need is a self-appointed book editor changing Raylan’s reply to the formally correct:

“It would be hard.”

Just in case you didn’t know: Elmore Leonard was often unhappy with the movies made from his books, but liked Justified – the series about marshal Raylan Givens starring Timothy Olyphant – and you can borrow those CDs from the Kansas City Public Library and enjoy what Leonard and Olyphant created, unless some overly-fussy library patron figured out how to edit CDs and now Raylan is pansexual and speaks like Basil Rathbone lecturing Dr. Watson and I think that reference is a moving tribute to just how fucking old I am.

So here’s the deal on books you borrow from the library:

If you want to write words in books become an author and if you want to edit words in books become an editor and if you can’t manage either one of those, but still can’t resist editing or changing words, buy your very own copy of the goddamn book and mark it up all you want and leave the rest of us out of it.

And speaking of anal retention, we now move on to Pet Peeve #2.

Having to ask for ketchup at McDonald’s

According to the internet in the twelve months ending on September 30^th, 2022, McDonald’s revenue was over $23 billion, an increase from the 12 months before that which was an increase from the 12 months before that, a string of increasing profits that probably goes all the way back to Piltdown Man asking a Neanderthal visiting the local fire pit’s drive thru if he wanted fries with that.

So you’d think McDonald’s could afford to give you packets of ketchup without you having to ask for them because it’s clearly un-American to eat French fries without ketchup and it sucks to get all the way home before you realize they didn’t give you any. And even when you remember to ask for ketchup they maybe give you three, like they’re handing out something incredibly valuable like gold nuggets or diamonds and make you beg for more.

I’m guessing some executive got a giant bonus for pointing out McDonald’s could make another half-billion if they didn’t give packets of ketchup to all the people who forget to ask for some.

If the McDonald’s ketchup policy is in fact based on saving money, it’s only a matter of time until they realize how much money they could save by not giving you straws for your soft drinks unless you ask for one and if anyone from McDonald’s reads this and implements my “withholding straws” idea I definitely want my share of their bonus.

Or…

A Lifetime Supply of Ketchup packets and if I keep eating McDonald’s Double-Quarter Pounders, that might be a bargain because I’ll probably only live another six months.

And now Pet Peeve #3.

Out of control tipping

During the pandemic shutdown when a lot of restaurants were scuffling, I’d order takeout food and leave a tip because I wanted to help keep my favorite restaurants open, but now that restaurants are full again, they still seem to expect a tip for takeout food which makes me wonder: do they leave a tip when they pick up food from Taco Bell?

If they don’t, then that’s class-based – if you work in a nice restaurant you deserve a tip, but if you don’t, you’re on your own – and here’s more about that even if you don’t want to hear it.

According to the internet, the custom of tipping your server only exists in the United States and Canada, although the same article immediately contradicts itself and says wealthy Americans discovered tipping in the mid-1800s while traveling in Europe and throwing the lower-class serfs a few coins made them feel like aristocrats. Apparently, some Europeans consider tipping offensive because it indicates that you think you’re better than them and need your charity.

And according to some dude named William Scott, in 1916 it was also considered un-American and here’s what he had to say about it:

“Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape. It is a cancer in the breast of democracy.”

According to the following article, tipping was spread by the railroads when the Pullman Company hired newly-liberated Black men as porters and servers and didn’t pay them jack shit and the rest of their salary was supposed to be made up by tips.

If you want to read more about the history of tipping, here you go:

https://www.7shifts.com/blog/history-of-tipping-restaurants

And if you pay with a credit card, now they have the tip built right in and you can choose the percentage you want to leave or choose NO TIP and while the words BECAUSE I’M A CHEAP ASS do not appear on the screen, I think they’re clearly implied.

I think the point to remember is we’re expected to tip because employers don’t want to pay a fair wage and I’m OK with tipping for service, but if all you do is hand me my food, where’s the service?

On the other hand…

If you handed me my food with some ketchup for the fries I just bought, I might change my mind.

So many complaints, so little time

Once I started thinking about my pet peeves, I realized I had a lot of them and I only wrote about the ones I experienced recently, so we haven’t even discussed:

People who stand up at concerts and force everybody else to do the same, banks that want to give you large bills and the businesses who won’t take them, requests for social media reviews from vendors you’ve used, businesses who don’t have anybody to answer the phone so you can’t talk to a real live human, drivers who honk too much in traffic and…

I’m pretty sure I’m just getting started so I may need to do a sequel (which come to think of it, is yet another pet peeve – the lack of creativity in the entertainment industry so we have to endure 10 Fast & Furious movies and if you look at your TV schedule half the shows are some of that CSI crap and the other half are reboots of shows from the eighties) and as long as we’re at it, feel free to leave some of your pet peeves just in case I run out.

And now I have to go to the library and check out some books edited by Miss Manners.