I am a student of human behavior
The funny, the sad, the annoying, and worse;
When faced with “those people”, this view is my savior–
I take it all in, and I write it in verse
The clipping of toenails, the cracking of knuckles,
The scratch of a knife or a fork on a plate
While some pull their hair out, for me it’s just chuckles
I find things amusing that others may hate
The grocery-store fast lane, with one extra item
The dog that’s been barking from midnight to three
Examples come quicker than one man can write ’em
They bother some folks, but they don’t bother me!
The internet comments I’ve often predicted:
“This story was simply a waste of my time!”
So, too, was the comment they rudely inflicted
On us, which I notice and add to my rhyme
NPR has a piece up on a new book by a couple of NPR-affiliated authors–Annoying: The science of what bugs us. As is completely predictable, the comments there are great fun.
I was giving final exams, and thus trapped like a rat in a cage for about 4 hours this morning; the above verses are the product. It’s not (as yet, anyway) a complete work, but I have grading to do, so I will leave it to my readers to vent their annoyances or celebrate their lack thereof.
Back to work. How annoying!
typo in last line of penultimate stanza:should be "they bother some folks"not "the bother some…"
Thanks, FunnyDiva! Fixed.
heehee how annoying that typo ;-)
heehee indeed. I have students who find being corrected on typos so annoying that they won't let anyone read their drafts. Me, I love it when I am wrong about something (cos it happens so rarely, after all), and never find helpful comments like FD's annoying. Hell, I don't even tell backseat drivers to shut up–they might see something I miss. I'd much rather have both of us see the oncoming truck, than neither.
"The grocery-store fast lane"Oh man, that's one of my top ten. And speaking of ten, c'mon, can't people count to 10? I mean, really! I'll give you that a 6-pack is one item but 4 cans of tuna are 4 items. Oooh, and the barking dog. If I get caught shooting the damn dog, I'm going to blame it on sleep-deprivation induced insanity. No jury will convict.But way up high on the list are people who spit gum on the sidewalk. They have to know that stepping in gum is a nasty mess. They certainly know that a sidewalk is where people walk. So what nasty little thought crosses their mind when they spit their gooey gum right where others are going to be walking? Some kind of little thrill? "Ha, ha. Somebody is going to step on this and have a bad day." Getting a kick out of messing up someones shoe… straight up sociopathic. I'm thinking death penalty here.As you can see Cuttlefish, I'm not as laid-back as you. Wound a little tight I am, but it's all because of the gum-spitting, grocery fast lane abusing, knucklecrackers. If it weren't for them I'd be OK.
There's five minutes of my life that I'll never get back.Sweet!