Don't ya hate it when ...

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I have been tagged by Holly over at A Spiritual Dog Blog. She got tagged for a random 7 things meme, and she changed it up and made it 7 things that really bug you. Or tick you off. Or make you go postal. However you say it, we all have things that drive us crazy so this one should be easy, right?

So let’s go.

1) In traffic people who do not do the courtesy wave when you let them in when you obviously didn’t have to. They just drive on without acknowledging your act of kindness as if it was their right to slide in right in front of you simply by virtue of the fact that they are on the road. Makes me crazy!!!!

2) It really annoys me when (okay this sounds silly even to me) I am listening to the traffic on the radio or TV and they say there is an accident or a crash and then insist on calling it a “gapers block”. I don’t know about anybody else, but I slow down passing an accident because I am not sure what is going on, if someone might step out into traffic or if there might be debris in the road. It’s a safety issue to me, I am not simply rubber-necking and I would really appreciate it if you would stop saying that is what I am doing!

3) Loud people are so annoying when their volume directly affects the people around them. There is no reason I need to hear every detail of a personal conversation of a co-workers simply because they just don’t care how loud they are.

4) I hate it when I am driving my car at say – 5 miles over the speed limit and some moron wants me to go faster. Message to morons – if you get right on my butt to make me get out of your way – I get this irrational compulsion to go slower. Much slower. Just sayin’.

5) It annoys me to no end when I have to open an email attachment and another and another until you finally have 17 windows open to get the lame joke inside because the previous 17 people who forwarded it don’t know how to just forward the joke. My limit is 2 windows – after that I delete.

6) People on power trips irritate the snot out of me. If they have any control over me for some reason and they need to micro-manage everything I do just because they can – that will drive me right over the edge.

7) I will not, I repeat, will not forward an email no matter how cute the pictures, no matter how funny the joke, if at the end it tells me I have to send it to 15 people in the next 14 minutes or 13 really bad things will happen to me. I don’t respond well to threats.

Oh I could go on and on, maybe categorize my annoyances into things like email, telephones, driving, work, friends, family, etc. Yeah, this may have to be an ongoing thing. Wait – let me add a number 8.
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8) Family members who feel because they are family they can say anything to you. “Oh Honey, are you working on the weight?” ARGH-H-H-h!!!
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Now I get to tell you about something I like! Awards! Awards are so much fun and coincidentally I was given the same award by 2 very different people, Dixie from Deep Fried-Southern Style who basically said she didn’t know what the award was but she was passing it on, said in the colorful way that only Dixie can get away with!

The other wonderful award giver was Holly at A Spiritual Dog Blog, a sweet sweet lady who is the only blogger I know who can post videos of herself in her underwear and get away with it!! Read this if you want to see all the thought Holly put into giving out this award.

Be The Blog

I will most likely pass this on myself, but just not right now. I would like to say thanks to the 2 ladies who gave this to me as they are great ladies and great to read! Thank you!!!

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The verdict is in.

I called Dani before I left for work this morning to wish her luck with her court appearance for her Halloween trespassing ticket. She was nervous which I suppose any kid would be, but I told her it really wasn’t that big a deal and not to expect some big courtroom scenario like a trial or something. Tried to make her feel a bit more relaxed before going in there.

My daughter called me when she got out of court, feeling properly chastised and with a renewed sense of respect for the rules.

A $250.00 fine will teach just about any college student with only vacation employment that it’s not a good idea to buck the establishment when they have the power to reach into your pockets. She also got 6 months court supervision, which will be removed from her record (but not the Internet) as long as she stays out of trouble during that time.

I told her she should have told the judge she has a 4.0 grade point average (I’m not bragging, really) but I doubt it would have helped. She said the judge was very nice and seemed somewhat amused by the young people he had lined up, but it sounded like he had a standard way of dealing with this particular issue. Dani, as well as the other 16 kids who were lined up, all got the same fines. The county sure made some money on Halloween, didn’t it?

On the way out one of the girls who was there for the same offense saw an interesting spiral staircase in the courthouse and wanted to explore. Dani quickly said something to the effect of – “Oh no – we’re not going up there! We’re not going anyplace we don’t have permission to be!”

Good girl! Lesson learned.

It happens all the time now.

When I was a kid my mom once refused to pay the dentist until he corrected my name on the bill. It was BetteJo, not Bette. I learned very early to not only correct people who left off the Jo, but to hate the name Bette if it was directed at me. If someone else was named Bette or Betty – it was like it had no relationship to my name, it was entirely different somehow.

Growing up when I did, in the midst of Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Hee Haw, you can imagine how often I heard comments about being from the south, ya’ll. It didn’t bother me and I never even took it as teasing. My name was different and you had better believe that when I walked down the hall at school and heard someone call out “BetteJo!” I felt quite safe in turning and saying “what?” – that they were talking to me.

So it was with great amusement about 6 or 7 years ago when, at the doctor’s office, I was called Ba-tay-ho. Um, yeah. I looked around and realized that the nurse was calling me. What? I was laughing when I corrected the nurse, she was quite embarrassed but I couldn’t stop laughing about it. I must have told everybody I knew because it just seemed so – well – funny to me. The worst anyone had ever done was leave off the Jo, which I found annoying but this was great! Too funny!

Now however, if I am at a doctor’s office, or any place where they don’t know me and have to call me by name, I see it coming. The person looks at the chart or paper or whatever has my name printed on it, screws up their face in confusion, and starts going through alternate languages in their head. Frequently I see an “ah ha!” moment and they look up and say “Ba-tay-ho?” Looking around the room.

Okay, I write it as one word. I put the Bette and the Jo together with a capital J. That developed as a way to stop people from dropping the Jo. Put them together as one word would mean people would recognize it as one name, right? Well it did work for a number or years. And sometimes when I have to print my name on something I do it with all caps – BETTEJO. Still, the assumption was always that it was one of those doggone southern names where they stick a Jo or Bob or Jim something on the end of every name.

At some point it all shifted. At some point the assumption shifted and now? Now I have become Hispanic apparently. The 2^nd “E” has become an “A” and the “J”? The “J” has become an “H”. Ba-tay-ho. One of my co-workers calls me this on a daily basis and it still makes me laugh. But at what point did the shift come? At what point did the assumption shift from – oh she’s from a different part of the country to, she’s from a different country altogether? Hm-m-m.

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So, yeah.

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After all that food yesterday, I think I was still full this morning.
What other reason could there be for forgetting to bring my lunch to work today?


Uh yeah. I'm a moron.
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Happy day to you!

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