Tag Archives: rants

rants

“Seriously!?” she said.

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Yesterday was a run errands kind of day. One of those errands included picking up a little more fall decor. (I like to add a little bit each year.) I opted to go to Target since its, well, okay, one of my most favorite stores.

It was early afternoon, so it wasn’t very busy. I got better than normal parking, and I headed towards the store. I could hear a car coming up behind me down the aisle I was parked, and I figured they’d pass on by and head their way. They… didn’t. Made me a little uncomfortable how they stuck behind me the whole way, but I kept my stride and kept walking. I really wanted them to just move on, so I took a little zig-zag over to cross the “roadway” in the actual crosswalk in front of the store. That’s when I heard it:

“SERIOUSLY!?” a woman shouted. And as I got across the road just sped off behind me, clearly upset I’d taken an extra four or five steps to cross in the crosswalk.

I am the least confrontational person you’ll meet. Unless I am in a position of leadership. Then I have NO PROBLEM chewing you out for not pulling your weight or for being out of line in any way. I take leadership positions seriously. But in day-to-day life? Eh. I do my road rage ranting behind closed windows. I rant in my journal or to my husband or my mom. (Or both if I am really ticked off.) But past that? Nope. I had confrontations.

But boy can I stew on something that bothers me! For hours. Days. Heck, I am still stewing over stuff that happened in elementary school! I can stew, man.

So needless to say, my entire time in Target, I stewed over this woman. Doing that “wish I’d haves” and the “what the hells?”

At first, I wished I’d stopped and spun around and shouted back a well timed, “REALLY!?” at her. I mean, she had ample time to go around me. So in that respect, her “problem” truly was her own.

Then I wished I’d have slowed my pace dramatically. I’m 6′ tall. I can walk slow, but even then my stride is the equivalent of about two strides to anyone else. I wished I’d have shortened my stride just to mess with her. But, really, I was glad I kept my head high and pretended I didn’t hear her.

Ultimately, I decided that if my four or five extra steps really caused her that much stress, she has bigger issues that I could ever consider. If she was running late, she might as well give it up now. My walking added all of five seconds to her wait. And if she really felt the need to be confrontational on this issue? Then who knows how she’d be in a major confrontation, and I wanted NO part of that.

So I let it go and went about my day. I was in a good mood, and I wasn’t going to let her get me down.

Seriously.

general-post, random musings, rants, writing

Write right

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When I was in college, studying Journalism, I had a professor who demanded perfect grammar (AP style, if I remember correctly) in any correspondence you had with him. If you had a misspelled word or improper verb tense use, he’d simply email it back to you without a response and leave you to find the error before he’d answer your question. This could go on for multiple emails until you figured out your mistake!

I remember grumbling about that. What was the big deal, anyway?

Almost 10 years out of college, and I find myself becoming more and more like my professor every day.

Now, backtrack even further in life. I was perhaps 10 or 12 when a co-worker of my Mom’s presented me with this:

AB, CDEDBD Ducks?

MR Not Ducks

OSAR

CDEDBD Wings?

YIB! MR Ducks!

I was frustrated and annoyed by the puzzle in front of me. Oh, haha. See the itty bitty ducks. I get it.  Through the years, I’d get a kick out of word puzzles. I like to challenge my brain, and work at deciphering what is being “said.”

I do NOT like doing that kind of work to read a text or a tweet, and therein lies where I am more like my professor every day.

Last week, I received notification of a new Twitter follower. A reporter here in Nashville had started to follow my Twitter feed. I clicked to look at their feed, and I promptly broke out in hives. Figuratively speaking at least. I did weep some.

Every tweet was filled with things like, “Thank U.” or, “U R why we do our job.” “Going 2 B on at 6. Will U watch?”  (OKay, I am making up these tweets, but you get the idea.)  Needless to say, I did NOT follow back. I was tempted to direct message and tell this person they were an idiot. But I didn’t.

I have, though, been known to just flat out not respond to text messages filled with “R U” and “C U” or “U 2” stuff. If it takes me five minutes to decipher a text, you’ve officially annoyed me and I’m going to ignore you.

Perhaps I should just start sending texts back to the sender until they figure out that taking the time to add a couple extra letters (or use predictive text!) will actually get me to respond to their question. Hmmm…

I happen to love the written word. The fact that I have a degree in a field that requires writing skills is something I am proud of having. I am protective of that written word. Today, though, respect for the written word is low. Our new ways of writing have bastardized it so badly that I am amazed by the lack of communication skills I see on social media sites. (And, yes, I am guilty of judging a person’s intelligence based on how they write. I admit it.)

someecards.com - Thanks to the teachers who instilled in me such a love of English that I'm perpetually mortified when reading the Internet.
So what can I do about it? Just keep refusing to fall into the trap, I guess, and hope that others who are determined to keep up the proper way of writing will outshine those who don’t.

Disclaimer: I understand Twitter has a character limit that forces such short hand in some cases. It’s when there are plenty of characters left and the “shorthand” is used that I get ticked.