Feeling Peevish

 I'm the soul of accommodation, but I do have some peeves.  I will tell you a few of mine (if you will keep yours to yourself.)  (I kid.)

A peeve is not a principle or a matter of morality.  It's a dislike, usually against one's better judgment.  For example, while in principle I will defend to the death your right to pronounce mischievous "miss-CHEE-vee-yuss" instead of "MISS-chih-vuss", that will not prevent me from docking you several points inside my head when you do.*  The word peeve was invented to permit us the space, if you will, to vent our most petty disgusts† and prejudices with an unspoken wall surrounding them, admitting no judgment, admonition or disagreement from the peanut gallery.  It's just a peeve!  Lighten up!   Of course some of us take them more seriously than we perhaps should and use the term to mean personal edict.  These people should be destroyed.  Or at least introduced to Valium.  Peeves should not dictate how we live our lives or what kind of society we want to live in.  Slavery, imperialism, murder, thievery, rape, exploitation of others, the destruction of the environment, cruelty to animals-- these are wrong and should be legislated against because they are criminal ways to behave, not because they rub me the wrong way.

The correct way to have a peeve is to feel a tiny bit ashamed about it. I can't conceal my annoyance at insipid YouTube comments -- why does the comment section of every video that has the faintest whiff of diversion from the  dominant culture and gender degenerate into acrimonious battles drawn along gender, ethnic or national lines? Why does every video from 20 or more years ago invite commentary pissing on the artists of today?  Why do people who enjoy a song feel compelled to take a dump in the comments on every musician they dislike?  The correct answer to these questions is because I'm not the boss of them.

That said, there are a few irritations that I've put off enumerating long enough :

• Talkative barbers.  Just shut up and get cutting.  I'm not paying you for information.
• Incorrectly opened and closed packaging.  Whatever's inside can wait until you read the directions about how to properly get to it.  You're not going to starve. On the other hand you probably deserve the stale crackers you'll get the next time you feel like a snack.
• Family sitcoms.  Is this why you went to film school?  To repeat the same asinine plot week after week, show after show until you get to syndication?  Kids don't talk like that.  Nobody talks like that. 
• Happy talking newscasters.  Who asked for this? If I want to feel happy about the news I'll shoot heroin at 11:00.
• Speaking of news, nothing is more distracting than anchors and reporters who end every verb with -ing.  "Plane crashing in Andes.  Survivors waiting for rescue, eating non-survivors."  Is conjugation not journalistic?
• Multiple endings in movies. You've got my twenty bucks, now please let me leave the movie theater.
• Sports humor.  I know the mere sight of a quarterback in an insurance commercial is supposed to make me laugh, but I don't know who you are.  And the gimmick itself is flawed: I'm sorry I just don't find thick-necked millionaires funny.
• The close cousin of sports humor, corporate humor.  Wisecracking spokespeople, cutesy menus,  "clever" slogans.  As funny as a hernia.

This doesn't mean anything.

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* And if you think you have "another thing coming", you have another think coming.  The "thing" that you need another of is a "think" not a "thing"-- which is to say you're not done thinking, in spite of what you thought.   "Another thing coming" misses the mark of what you're trying to express by a mile. Got that?  Now cut it out!  (And it's not "lip singing"; it's "lip synching"!  Synchronizing your lips to a recorded song.)  (Not that there's anything wrong with how you speak your own language!!)

† Spanish has a word-- grima -- that describes the common unpleasant response to high pitched irregular scratchy sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.  English does as well, but although the response is widespread, the word -- misophonia -- is not.