This one is totally appropriate due to everyone’s jet lag over the time change. I hate waking up. I know, I know, you’re all saying, “No one likes to wake up.” I’m more than just the normal morning groggy. I’m not even alive until 10 a.m. Anyone who went to high school with me probably remembers me sleeping through the first two classes of the day. I don’t need no stinkin’ algebra 2, I need a nap!!

I’m also a gigantic liar when I first wake up. Go ahead, ask me questions and I will totally lie. When I lived at home my parents would wake me up on Sunday for church and then ask, “Do you have to work today?” In my sleepy haze I would say, “no”. But I worked every Sunday and every Sunday they would get mad at me for lying. I took a neuroanatomy class in college where we discussed sleeping disorders, one of them included something called “Sleep drunkenness”. That’s me. In addition to my lying fury, I also wake up on a regular basis and have no idea where I’m at, what day it is or what’s going on. It’s a good thing I don’t drink, otherwise this could escalate into something hilariously frightening.

According to my mom this is the story of my life, wake up and be super grumpy for at least an hour. Some people are morning people, I am not some people. I would prefer to work second shift (I actually kind of enjoyed the 1-9 or 2-10 shifts) because it allows me to wake up on my own and that tends to decrease the grumpy level by about 3%. Also, I’m 25 years old and cannot wake up with an alarm, my husband wakes me up in the morning. It’s true, I’m totally pathetic.

One of these I’ve blogged about before, and the other one just goes hand in hand with it, so since I’m already like 14 days behind I’m giving you a 2 for the price of 1 deal. Savor it.

I can’t stand it when my groceries are bagged improperly. Sadly, it might be the one thing I’m truly passionate about in this life. I mean, I arrange my groceries on the belt the way that I want them bagged. All those drool babies need to do is follow my pre-made template! However this seems to be an effort in futility, because I always end up standing in the parking lot, in the rain, removing Kaboom! bathroom cleaner from the same bag with grapes. I also end up shaking my fist at the building. A few weeks ago I got stuck with some kid who wanted to ask me 20 questions about my life. So after about the third questions I said, “I’m also really anal retentive about how you bag my groceries, just in case you wanted to know.” Mr. 16 year old Smarty Pants says, “I didn’t.” Now, while I should’ve been taken aback by such boldness I was rather impressed. Sometimes I like when I get what I deserve. THEN halfway through my order he says, “Am I doing a good job? I’d hate for you to have to crap your pants.” Awesome. Kudos to that kid for the feisty banter. Side-note: he did indeed have more than the required 3 brain cells to bag groceries, because I didn’t have to shake my fist at the building.

Your side item of hate is that along with improperly bagging my groceries, I can’t stand paying for poor service. I married this guy who seems to believe “kill ‘em with kindness” and takes it too far. He will indeed tip bad waitresses, he’s the last to speak up because he’d rather pay people and just be done with it. Not I, because I’m so tough. I do not believe in tipping a waitress who brings me the wrong food, then brings me the right food but not prepared right, THEN brings it to me correct but cold. Why am I sending my order back 3 times? I’m the only one in the restaurant!

I was dubbed “The Tip Nazi” by my best friend after a horrible night at Max & Erma’s. It went something like this:
Me: “So what should I leave her? Like a penny?”
Her: “You are the tip nazi!”
It’s true. I am the tip nazi. Tips are earned, and should not be expected. All I ask is that you bring me the proper meal and keep my drink filled. This isn’t a difficult task. It’s not even that much more difficult than bagging groceries, you just have to concentrate on more than one person at a time. My problem arises because I’m the Queen of getting bad service. Karma perhaps? If you’re in a restaurant with me and you hear food hit the floor, it’s mine. If you see a manager at a table, that’s me too. If you hear someone saying, “I need to see a manager because I’m not paying for this. All we ordered was soup and salad and it took you and HOUR to get that. You don’t have to cook it, just dish it out. And it took an HOUR.” That’s me too.

I feel that I am allowed to be so particular because I spent seven years of my life working in a big box retail establishment. I bagged groceries, and I bagged well. I know this because my mom would let me bag her groceries and she is not above telling her own child that they don’t do a good job at a menial task. Then I stocked shelves and I always tried to look for things in the back for people. Granted, I was rude to some people but only after they stuck a coupon in my face and demanded that I find them said item. Or, when they insisted that they bought a box of vitamins at my store even though the package they had was written entirely in Japanese, except for the side where it said “Made in Japan.” OR that guy who yelled in my face, subsequently spitting on me, about dental floss for about 3 minutes and finally goes, “Do you even work here?!” (I was wearing a uniform and a name tag) and I said, “Nope” and walked away.

In general I noticed if I made an attempt to be helpful people were ok with that, I just ask that people make an attempt. Waiting an hour for soup and household poisons in with my grapes is just lazy.

Dear Hollywood,

Washington D.C. called and they want their politics back.

Sincerely,

The Rest of America!

I can’t stand movies full of someones political views, be it republican, democratic, or fascist. It’s amazing really, for as much TV as I watch I never seem to know what movie I am seeing. I usually have no clue what it’s going to be about and then I get really upset when I get anal raped for a movie ticket only so someone can tell me how much they hate George Bush. What? I paid 10 bucks so you could tell me that? This is what blogs are for, so exercise your right to vote and if you lose, be an adult and suck it up. I just want to be entertained for 2 hours!

My husband actually tried to argue our friend Thomas and myself (2 against 1 there pal) that the movie, “Children of Men”, was NOT full of political slants. It had 2 or 3 separate scenes where Anti-Bush propaganda was taped to the walls. We’re talking about a movie that takes place in 2027 and there was Anti-Bush news clippings taped to the wall as if he would still be president in 20 years. The bulk of the movie was so blatantly left-sided and somehow Aaron missed this.

I actually might have enjoyed, “An Inconvenient Truth”, a little more if not for the Al Gore flashbacks to losing the race to the White House. Oh Al, no one cares, plant a tree and dry it up. Hasn’t it been almost 8 years? Hasn’t another democrat already lost again? Sorry, I’ll stop being a hypocrit and be a little less right-sided. I wish Al would follow my lead and turn some lights off in his mansion.

I fully expect fictional movies like, “Farenheit 911″, to be full of political slants. It’s like “reality television”. Edited for my pleasure! I want everyone to stop trying so hard for an Oscar and just amuse me. That’s what you’re for Hollywood, amusement. I don’t want to watch “Lord of War” to be educated on gun control, I JUST WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE!

Here’s a hate we can all enjoy, WALLPAPER! The worst part about moving into a pre-owned home is that someone else thought that paisley print wallpaper was really cute. They also thought that green stripes or American flags looked awesome as well. News flash, it’s not. It’s ugly and it gives me vertigo.

When Aaron and I lived in our first house there was wallpaper everywhere. There was flowered wallpaper in BOTH bathrooms (which where both pink by the way), a flowered border in the PINK dining room, some green striped wallpaper in the kitchen, something paisley or flowered in the entry and something horrible in the office. It was like amoebas everywhere, green and purple amoebas. The lady who lived there before us was so proud of her custom wallpaper and curtains in the dining room. They matched, same ugly floral pattern. Well, the border bit the dust and those curtains ended up as drop cloths when I painted over that horrible Pepto-Bismol nightmare. Take that wallpaper!

In our current home the kitchen previously had an American flag border. Yeah, that was removed before we ever moved in here. However, all of the other hideous borders remain, like Winnie the Pooh in my office, or the dolphins in the bathroom, and my personal favorite, the moose and bear border in the dining room. What?! Moose and bears? Oh yeah, and did I mention there’s dream catchers on it as well. I’m pretty positive this lady was addicted to borders and found this one in the 99 cent bin.

Maybe I’m confused, or maybe it’s because I haven’t yet reached the geriatric realm, but why on earth would I glue paper to my walls? Or maybe it’s because I got in so much trouble when I put Family Circus stickers all over my door when I was 4….(they’re still there by the way)

There is one state that I think we should kick out of the union. Mainly because I don’t feel as though it contributes to the greater good of society, but also because it’s home to the WORST drivers I’ve ever encountered. California? No, INDIANA!

I’ve hated Indiana drivers for as long as I’ve lived in Ohio (which is 25 years for those of you who are counting). They’re erratic and inattentive (these probably go hand in hand). I spent a long 6 weeks living in Indiana and I spent a lot of time yelling and shaking my fist angrily. How hard is it to maintain your lane? We’re not even talking about cell phone drivers, this is just how they roll.

Really, what does Indiana have to offer? Aurora? A town that sounds as if it were named after an STD? Indianapolis, where I saw 6 people crammed into a Corolla, flying down the highway (by the way, the 6^th person was sitting on the laps of the 4 people crammed into the backseat). Indy, by the way, is the worst city I’ve ever driven through, especially during rush hour. Or how about the endless fields of corn? That’s why we have Iowa, sorry Indiana, we don’t need your help.

For a state who boasts itself as “The Crossroads of America�?, I think they should take a look around and consider changing to: “Indiana, holding back humanity one cornstalk at a time�?.

Remember when I promised to post once a day? Then remember when I said I’m not above lying? Yeah, put that together. I’m not even apologizing. This hate is brought to you in part by utter ridiculous (along with the letter P!). I apparently have not only a very sensitive sense of smell but also very sensitive ears because I hate the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Aaron can attest to this, or anyone else who’s ever seen the tumbleweed of dog hair blow by them in my house.

My mom swears that when I was a baby she would vacuum under my crib while I slept. I believe this led to two things (or maybe three): my innate ability to sleep through anything (which includes but is not limited to sleeping through someone donkey kicking my door and robbing my house), my HATE for vacuum cleaner noise and possibly my waking up grumpy. Because I don’t believe that I just slept through all of this unnecessary ruckus going on in my bedroom. And honestly mom, was there no other time to vacuum?

Regardless of where this hate started the sound of a vacuum cleaner makes me want to collapse in the floor and cover my ears. And the autistic tendencies continue….

This one REALLY irks me. I could just kick a goat, but I’ll probably just be kicking the person doing this one. I can’t stand those people who just stop in doorways. I do not understand this phenomenon at all. It’s as if someone pulled the plug on these boobs and they lose the ability to function in the middle of the doorway! It kind of reminds me of that old show “Small Wonders” with the robot girl…only ten times more irritating. Usually it’s someone on their cell phone, which prompts me to yell something along the lines of “get out of the way!” or “how hard is it to walk AND talk?”. Sometimes I don’t say anything, I choose to body check them instead. I’m a person of little mass so I use this tactic sparingly, only for those I know can’t beat me up. I’m so tough until I think someone might jack my jaw. It’s all fun in games until I get knocked out.

Along the same lines of people who stop in doorways is the people who push and shove their way through not very crowded places for no good reason. If you bump into my with your shopping cart in the U-Scan at Meijer there’s a 99.9% chance that I will not only slow down my transaction, but I will look at you and say “and yes, I am taking my sweet time, wanna bump me again?” Or, a trick I learned from my dad, if your kid is pushing into me (or my friends) repeatedly in a store (or the U.S. Mint in D.C.) be warned, I’m the Queen of the nonchalant trip. If your kid falls and busts his face on the floor, I don’t care, teach that brat not to push. And for the love of all that’s good, keep him out of the doorway!

oh yeah, they’re calling for some sort of sleet & ice and possibly 4-8 or 6-10 (depends on the weather station) inches of snow tomorrow. You can imagine my excitement I’m sure.