Last night at work a woman was watching a training video on a computer near mine. The video was minimized, so it wasn’t taking up the entire screen, if you know what I mean. Yet, she left the cursor on the picture, in the upper left quadrant to be exact. And it was making me crazy.
I tried not to look at it, but couldn’t stop myself. Every 30 seconds or so, I glanced over to see if she’d moved the cursor away from the video. But she never did. It made my entire body go rigid. It was all I could do not to scream ENOUGH!! and physically commandeer her mouse.
Then, during lunch break, that very same woman made a comment about the way some guy was eating his sandwich. It was inside a baggie, and he was slowly feeding it upward and eating from the exposed edge. It was kind of weird, but I hadn’t seized on it. I saw the guy eating his sandwich like a Gogurt, but it didn’t bother me for some reason.
And how is that possible? How did the cursor bug the shit out of me, and the push-up sandwich didn’t? And vice-versa with my co-worker? It’s difficult to understand.
Toney can hear our dog Andy lick his lips from one end of the house to the other, and I don’t even notice it. But when our kids go into their bedrooms and play battle of the bands — one blasting Led Zeppelin, the other the Dead Kennedys — at ear-splitting volume, it’s as if she doesn’t hear it. She zeroes in on the subtle lip-smacking of a dog, but doesn’t notice pure, undiluted cacophony.
And our youngest boy HATES when people repeatedly hit their forks on their dinner plates. It makes him insane (I’m with him), but he and his brother crack their knuckles continuously. “Stop it!” I holler, my eyes bugging out with agitation. One unnecessary sound bothers him, and the other doesn’t even make it onto his radar screen. Why is that?
Back to lip-smacking for a second… If I hear a person doing it, I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin, and leave a husky husk behind. But when Andy does it… I don’t notice it. People should know better, I think, and dogs are dogs. They walk around hoping to get a whiff of stale piss, regularly lick their own asses, and eat garbage with gusto. I tend to expect more from adult humans. Right?
Or is it something else? Do you harbor any such contradictions? If this bugs me, why doesn’t that? That kind of thing? If so, please tell us about it in the comments. And if you can explain some of it, that would be cool too.
I’ll be back tomorrow, my friends.
Have a great day!
Now playing in the bunker
Do your holiday shopping at Amazon: US and Canada
Ho Ho Ho.
Jeff, I share your response to the cursor-on-video problem. I park my cursor OFF the screen if I have a video on the screen. I feel less neurotic knowing you have a similar reaction.
jtb
Wait, you feel LESS neurotic?
Fair point. Using Jeff as a measure of sanity is like using Scranton as “due north”. Under certain circumstances, Scranton IS due north, but those circumstances are rare.
I guess I meant to say, “It feels less lonely in here.” Neurosis runs in my family and that fucker runs fast.
jtb
It bugs me when the volume of a hi-fi or TV is set at an odd number or not a multiple of 5, i.e. 20,22,24,25,26,28,30 are OK, but 21,23,27,29 are not.
It’s the only irrational thing I’m aware of me doing. It really bugs me, I have to change it up or down a notch or I can’t watch or listen properly.
I cannot say that I don’t understand.
21 and 27 are OK for me but 23 and 29 are prime numbers so the give me the heebee jeebees.
Oh that’s just AWESOME. Thanks so very very much for pointing that out.
😉
11 is the prime volume.
I set channel and volume on only numbers in the standard Fibonacci sequence with seed values (0,1).
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, …
And don’t kid yourself. Channel 610 has some hot action after midnight, local time, especially when I set the volume at 377 so the neighborhood can share.
jtb
No even numbers, not divisible by ten! All volume numbers must be odd, preferably prime, or end in zero. What’s wrong with you people?!
Far, far too many things to mention. It’s a wonder I ever go out at all.
The Voice seems to be some kind of singing contest. This two minute video seems like an appropriate response to events to which there is no appropriate response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO64urOFNaY
John
my fiance can’t stand the sound of my dog snoring but it doesn’t bug me at all. and she can’t stand the sound of wind blowing from an open car window and i don’t notice.
i nearly have a heart attack when the kiddo does this retarded “whaaaaaa?” sound that he immitates from nickelodeon. It makes my spine hurt.
she also doesn’t understand that mayo needs to be kept far away from me….
I’ve noticed that female dogs seem to care a lot less about pee-mail than male dogs. Bitches.
Not mine. 8 year old female Maltese. Gentle baby with family, but hates everyone else, growls, shows teeth, and snaps at people she does not like. Despises human females that enter our house, but tolerates male visitors.
She must inspect the entire property line morning and evening for P Mail, and over writes their deposit with carefully placed teaspoon deposits.
Today’s post reminds me of this brilliant NFB short. Enjoy!
Perhaps I should include the link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtSj5_jELuQ
Whether you are at the Singaporean Sweat Shop outlet or the post office, you’ve surely encounter, the line. The line is like a big burning blimp on my radar of stuff that bothers me.
Social and cultural norms break the fuck down in a line. That’s why I usually opt out of the line. If I can’t come back later, I’ll sit in my truck until the line is whittled down to an acceptable length. If I can afford it, I just leave.
People think you’re part of a damn community in a line.
“Hey buddy, you from Michigan?”
No, asshole, I’m not. Why are you talking to me? We haven’t gone to war together, we didn’t just defuse a bomb, you didn’t just talk me through an aircraft water landing. Stand there and look slightly off to the left like all the other losers here.
And if it isn’t the talkers, then it’s the crowders. It doesn’t matter how far you try to stick your dick up my butt, the single cashier isn’t going to weigh that old ladies apples, or scan the guy coopins any faster. Back the hell off.
—–
People who brush their teeth at work always take me by surprise. I wish I knew their schedule. I would go in there and start puking in the sink next to them.
Set up to their left. Shove my finger down my throat. Wiggle it around a bit. And vomit for the entire toothbrushing event. Fucking sickos man.
I don’t even breath in the bathroom at work, much less scrub my gapping maw with what appears to be a fringed baseball bat. With their foamy, mucasy, gross tooth paste beard and minty freshness mixing with the smell of the shit hand print on the stall door behind them; it’s enough to make a man stab somebody.
There’s booger and blood and strange hair covering that Army bathroom like hairpiece on a Star Fleet Captain. It’s like a surgery room from the 1500’s in there and these jerks have to brush their teeth to be clean? You can get the taste of dick out of your mouth on your own time.
I would rather tie each of my teeth to a different race car and be dragged around the track by my face and bounce off asphalt until each tooth was yanked from my mangled jaw than brush my teeth at work.
Chew some gum or something, idiot.
—–
And while I’m on teeth. People who bite down and scrape their teeth along their fork as they shovel in frozen waffles and beets are just asking for trouble.
Why are you biting the fork? You can’t knock your braised butterwurst off of it with your lips. What sort of food renetion procedure are you going through that your tongue and lips aren’t suitable to shuttle your grub to your throat. Is the task so great that you need the sturdy security afforded only by bone and enamel?
Can’t you hear it? Can’t you feel the tines vibrate in your skull rattling your peanut sized brain around that giant liquid filled skull? It bugs me to the point of physical agony to hear that sound.
You beat me to the fork scraping thing.
Also, the upside-down fork thing. I expect it from a European, but it’s just freakin’ retarded when a ‘Merican does it. Especially those judges on the food competition shows. And my wife. Sometimes the dog.
HOLY SHITTTTTTTTTTT. I cannot stop laughing. My face is friggin’ purple from trying to hold it in.
Nicely done. Twisted enough to be a genuine expression of disgust. Unless it’s my scent, it’s foul. And if I step out and return shortly, it’s foul by default.
Mouth breathers are my favorite folks to despise.
Frozen waffles and beets? And here I thought I was the only one who enjoyed THAT particular festive holiday meal combo!
When I was a kis and a teacher would erase the blackboard but leave bits of chalkings behind, that would drive me up the wall. I can still see it in my mind – partial division signs, a 1/2 rubbed out “Q”, a dissected sentence – and I can feel the urge to punch a midget.
I also cannot stand anyone eating a banana or tuna fish sandwich and makes that smack-y sound that only a banana or tuna fish and a slighty moistened pie hole can make. I can blast a jack hammer a foot away from me, but if you’re making that smacky sound, I will hear it.
“Five years ago, I was in the back yard entertaining a friend with my hands…” Only ole “Xylophone Eddy” can get away with that one!
I’m sitting here in pre-op, waiting to go in for my second leg surgery in less than a week, and reading icecycle66’s items and trying really hard not to pee on this ridiculously uncomfortable gurney.
What really irks me? I’d hafta say it’s that weird, sweetish, metallic smell that they tell you is just oxygen, but you know it’s laced with some kind of anaesthesia because your teeth are tasting like knife blades.
“they tell you is just oxygen, but you know it’s laced with some kind of anaesthesia because your teeth are tasting like knife blades.”
Can i use that in a song?
(I’m going to anyway.)
Ooh, cool, go for it! Just make sure I get to hear it!
Good luck MommyWoman! If need be, tell them to open the valve on that “oxygen”
Keepers, I got out of the OR at around 2030 yesterday…I getting 4 mgs of morphine every two hours which ain’t doing SHIT for my compounded agony! (I know, such language, Woman!)
You all are lovely and thanks for the well wishes!
4 milligrams? You would be better off drinking a shot of Peach Schnapps.
I have 30 milligram bombs left over from a foot surgery.
Your doctor is a light weight pussy prescription writer and you need to have a stern discussion with him (her).
He is a terrific surgeon (as well as a distant cousin) so I try to be nice so I can keep my extremities attached to the proper places, heh. But you’re very, very right about the candyassed doses of morphine…wanna send me a couple of your ‘Bombs’? I’m about ready to chew off my leg myself because, for the first time, I’m in excruciating pain here! A couple of shot of that Kraken Black Spiced Rum might just help out, too. >(^-^)<
I’m with Toney on the dog lip-smacking. It is a blood-boiling, bile-inducing sound that would wake me up out of a coma. I have been known to yank my husband’s pillow out from under his head and fling it across the room at my poor old dog just to end the sheer horror! It isn’t a matter of the dog not knowing any better, in my opinion, it is a habit… possibly a way the dog “self soothes” like a baby might suck its thumb. They mindlessly lick the air until some harmless, yet shocking object smacks them in the side of the head. Then. It stops. Blissful silence, puppy drops head to floor and goes back to sleep.
Agreed on the sound of forks and spoons on teeth… it has driven me borderline homicidal. I CANNOT function once that begins.
Another one that induces a murderous rage is the sound of my husband’s jaw popping constantly throughout a meal. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Every single move of his jaw. Pop. It turns an otherwise lovely family meal in to a cold war the likes of which this world has never seen. I feel bad for him, he can’t help it. It’s a meal-ender.
Unnecessary noise from humans is what makes me nuts. Don’t sigh, thump, hum, click, clack, or grunt around me. Stop tapping the fucking desk and kicking the chair over and over, what are you a fucking meth addict?
Table manners are a big deal. Other than that I let it roll.
Now we don our gay apparel.
My husband does this thing where he “grooms” the fingernails on one hand using the fingernails from the other hand. It makes this noise, click click click. It makes me want to cripple him with a fire poker. We own nail clippers, asshole. Use them.
It’s called Misophonia, people.
Actually, it would be called misophonia. No capital — although it does sound like some country in central Africa.
It WOULD be called misophonia if that’s all we were talking about. Half of Jeff’s examples — 2 out of 4 — had nothing to do with sound. I guess this calls for another Google search.
jtb
I thought misophonia was a syndrome where you sound like Japanese soup.
.
I hate crowds but I guess the people that make them up don’t seem to mind them.
Don’t care for old people house smell but apparently it doesn’t bother them or it wouldn’t smell like that in the first place
Don’t care for people who don’t like dogs but then again…dogs don’t like them either.
***I know you hate advice on your family but tell your sons if they keep up that knuckle cracking they’ll a) grow hair on the palm of their hands. b) go blind. c) marry a midget.
Not too many things bother me. Those that do bother me a lot. Like, this damned cat who keeps jumping up on the desk between me and the computer screen. He also shed hair into my drink and knocks shit over.
I assume we’re not talking about larger things, like the massive douchebaggery I see every day from my fellow motorists. Or the towering incompetence of the executives at my job.
.
God Save The Queen!!!! Someone other than me cannot tolerate a dog licking and lip-smacking too! Pug’s will fart, burp, cough, hack, grunt, snore, pant, bark, and honk like a goose. Fine. It’s all part of their charm. Wait…that’s men, too….. ANYWAY.. My little puggy, Bruno, will lay across the room and lick his paws, or his little lipstick case and sounds like he’s slurping soup like a diner bum. He also cannot hear very well. So yelling or stomping my foot doesn’t phase him. I have to throw something in his direction or physically get up and stop the madness myself. God forbid our retarded American Bulldog is “in season”. Bruno sneaks out into the hallway, where she sleeps, to slurp bulldog cooter. I can hear it in the other room. The hair stands up on the back of my neck. It’s maddening. My boyfriend, on the other hand, doesn’t get my fixation. He simply doesn’t hear it. Even when Bruno lays by him, he just lets it continue. That’s when I throw my shoe…bif my bf to smack the dog. It’s a whole chain of events.
Dripping water … at one point in my life I lived in a house with a leaky roof and we were constantly tracking drips and catching them in pots, buckets, tupperware what ever it took. Then we got a new roof and sanity was temporarily restored.
Now I am like the Bionic Woman when it comes to drips. I can hear them over the TV, Computers, fans anything. It’s like water torture.
I can’t think of anything that doesn’t bug me that tortures other people
Why is it that when a strange friendly dog licks my hand, I find it charming, but when a strange friendly hobo licks my hand, I tend to be a little stand-offish?
When I was a kid and my parents took my brother and me to some ramshackle cottage “up north”, he and I would share a room. He would spend the night trying to find ways to irritate me, and I would call out to my parents. “Mom, Jim is pinching me!” “Jim, stop pinching your sister.”
Then, in a stroke of brilliance, he hit on the perfect annoyance – he would lick his lips, then open and close them, making a tiny little smacking noise.
“Mom, Jim is bugging me!” “What’s he doing?” *pip pip pip pip* “WHAT IS HE DOING?” *sob*
I made the mistake of telling my husband this story, and sometimes, late at night, when I’ve almost dozed off…*pip pip pip pip*
I did something last week that I bet each and everyone of you hate. I’ll just share it here….
I had to make a trip to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up Dr. Peppers and toilet tissue…nothing much, just a quick stop. While in the check-out line with my two purchases, a tiny, silent fart slipped out. I wasn’t too concerned because of late, my farts have had little or no smell, possibly because of my bland diet. Well, such was not the case this afternoon. When the smell wafted upward into my nose, I almost blacked out; the stench was overwhelming; I mean it literally smelled like I had shit my pants! And it was one of those smells that was so powerful that it’s a miracle it wasn’t actually visible to the naked eye. And it lingered and lingered; didn’t disipate at all. It was so bad that the customers in line behind me stepped back and a few even began scampering to other registers to pay for their purchases. The poor cashier even signaled at least one clerk from another register to come over; I’m assuming to be witness to what he was unable to believe or describe. I, on the other hand, played it well. I never flinched nor did my expression change (other than my eyes watering from the gaseous emission from my rectum) as I struggled to get my debit card out of my wallet to pay for my purchases. I don’t remember if the clerk said the usual “thank you and have a nice day” or not as I was in pretty much a dead run to get outta there.
I imagine that the next time I go to this same store, the cashiers will all be wearing hazmat suits. If not, they should be.
I sit a few feet away from my boss, who likes to fix herself a hot drink & then does this:
1. Noisily blows air across the top of the liquid
2. Takes a slurrrrrp, the length of which depends on the temperature of what she’s drinking
3. Makes a liquidy, pre-vomit-like swallowing sound, allowing me to hear the beverage as it makes its way down her esophagus
4. Sometimes emits a slight grunt or sigh
5. Later belches into her mouth and occasionally mutters “excuse me” like she didn’t mean to do it
6. Repeats until the cup is empty
I can feel my blood pressure going up every time…
Please know that I will stand at your defense if this goes to trial.
Oh, ooh, oooh! Every damned time my Sweetie Face is about to get on the phone, he starts in with these brain numbingly annoying little coughs combined with futile and apparently useless throat clearings! Now THAT drives me f*ckin’ bat-shit crazy! He’s a wonderful guy, hot as hell, and just fun to look at, his voice even drives me nuts (in that very, very good way!), but that spasmodic cough makes me want to throttle him until his lips turn blue. Damnit!
I’ll be writing my first check out as an executive producer today.
That’s pretty scary.
Getting money to make a movie is hard, and it hurts to have to give it away.
So, what’s your flick about? My first job was being a TV/Film engineer…
Yep, I’m nosy!
I thought there was a deal to not discuss Poker Face publicly until primary “shooting” was complete except to say that the plot begins with a malfunctioning kitchen appliance.
jtb
The end outcome is a campy zombie movie in Tombstone Arizona.
First we are putting what little cash we have into a strong Kickstarter and IndieGoGo campaign to beg for more even more cash.
Totally unrelated but I’m a 41 year old guy currently standing at a 20 something hipster douchebags club listening to a half shitty band playing at about 50 decibles louder than necessary and my only respite is reading The West Virginia Surf Report. Am I too old for this or wise enough with age to know what sucks and what doesn’t. Hmmm…
You made the right choice.
When my husband eats yogurt, he bites down on it hard like he’s trying to gnaw through a friggin piece of beef jerky. All I can hear is the sound of his teeth hitting together over and over and over. It’s yogurt for God’s sake! Just spoon the gelatinous blob into your mouth, swallow and repeat!! Holy hell.
Sweet Mary mother of Christ….
There is a kid from Romania on my team at work that is a bit of a “health nut.” He eats the loudest fucking healthy foods he can find, and can’t seem to grasp the concept of how loud he eats them. Apples, carrots, and the worst is celery. He eats that shit by the BUNCH. The whole thing. No ranch, no peanut butter, nothing.
He also drinks tea like that’s what he’s getting paid to do, and he slurps that shit really loudly. I could go postal.
Should I fly to Los Angeles
Find my asshole brother
No need, he flew to Ohio. The man makes more noise at a kitchen table than the Bumpuses hound dogs. He chews with his mouth shut but it sounds like he’s chewing with it open. I try not to eat anywhere near him.