Keriosity

While flipping through a car products catalog today, I came across this item:

Ok - you know what? This is something that bothers me every time I see it, but this time, I really have to say something about it. This post is dedicated to parents who don’t understand the line between “proud” and “weird”.

Why on earth would you want your child’s face on your car seat? First of all, why would you put your kid’s face on something that you squish with your back all day? Second, you can’t see it while you are using the seat. The only people who see this seat cover are people walking by your car when you are not in it, so clearly, you own such a product to advertise your kid to the world.

Everyone knows that your kid is the cutest kid anyone has ever seen, the smartest kid to have been born - God’s pudgy little gift to all.

But really, most of us are just really not that into your kid.

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Recently, I was having dinner with friends and friends of those friends. When the waiter came by with the dessert menu, one of the women at the table refused the menu and said “No thank you - I’m not really a dessert person.” This is not the first time I’ve heard someone say this and I always get really annoyed by it. It made me think of all the other types of people who bug the crap out of me, and here is the list I came up with: (more…)

So there’s a new project I’m working on and to do research, I’ve been signing up for some of the more popular cat and dog websites. It has been…weird.

I am not one of those pet owners who thinks of my pets as my children. I am not their “mom”. I am their friend. This distinction doesn’t come from a need to define how much I love my pets. Calling myself their “mom” doesn’t mean I love them more than if they are my “friends”. It stems more from the nausea I feel when other people refer to me to as anyone’s ”mom”. I have issues, I know. As if you couldn’t already tell.

Anyway…

One such site is a like a myspace for pets. It’s cute. If you’re into that sort of thing. Which normally I am not. At first, I perused the site and sort of made a few judgments about the tone. It seems that most people on the site actually think that their pets can talk and are interested in making online dog and cat friends. “My mom likes to take me for walks in the park. Let’s be pals.” “Sometimes my belly hurts and my dad rubs it for me. Wanna play?” That sort of tone. I can’t feel bad about mentioning this because I know that 90% of you are making the same judgments I did. The “get-a-life” judgment.

But then I started to realize that actually I am the big loser because within the first hour of creating online profiles for my pets, Gummy and Milhous had more friends than I have on MY myspace, which I’ve had for about a year. Gummy was immediately invited to join the group for cats who are named after candy and Milhous had about 30 girl dogs ask him out.

Every 5 minutes when my email gets checked, more of the emails are for my pets than are for me. I’m beginning to get a complex.

As if maintaining a myspace isn’t time consuming enough, now I have to manage the online social lives of my pets. This research is really important, so I actually have to sign them up for as many groups as I can and make sure they become popular. What I will NOT do is talk for them. And I refuse to talk to the other pets. “Tell your mom to take you to the vet.” I would rather hold a snake that’s just been set on fire.

We all have our pet peeves – I have 97 pet peeves. “People talking for their pets” is #35.

What makes this issue even more annoying is that in the health forums (which is where I spend my time) every thread headline is something like “I almost died!” or “I have fleas!” or “My butt hurts!” or “What sex am I?” or “Help! My mom wants to cut off my testicles!” I think they think it’s cute – it’s not cute. It’s weird. I think that if pets could somehow talk and use a computer, their headlines would be “How can I get the humans to feed me steak?” and “Why must they torture me with that damn red dot?!”

And another creepy factor in all of this are the owners who make profiles for their deceased pets and then post on the forums as if those pets could speak from beyond the grave. “When I was still alive, I had pancreatitis once. I was in the hospital for a week!” I am not making this up.

I’m going to create some groups on these sites. “Pets who meow and bark like normal animals” and “You people are driving me crazy.” (There is a group for black cats only, which Daisy was invited to join. I was SOOOO tempted to start one for white cats and call it “White Pawer!” but I don’t think that’d go over well. I can’t afford to make enemies on these sites.)

These types of owners also tend to make up words and acronyms. Here are some of the more creative made-up words I’ve come across:

- Concatulations!

- Mawmie (as in, “My mawmie gives me greenies!”)

- OMD/OMC (Oh My Dog/Oh My Cat…OMG these people are strange.)

- BOL/MOL (bark/meow out loud)

- WTD? (What The Dog?! I haven’t seen any WTCs, but maybe that acronym brings up an upsetting topic.)

- ROFDMAO! (Rolling On Floor, Dragging My Ass Off! Ok actually, my friend made up that one and it made me spit pizza.)

With the exception of this weird pet-talking thing, they are actually pretty neat sites – tons of pet information and support of other pet owners. I just have to mention that because I’m pretty picky about pet sites and they do a good job with theirs.

Well, Gummy just got 2 emails that I must attend to. MTYL…

In no particular order:

1. Yellowjackets!!!! (that one is in order)
2. Parents who think everyone loves their children and aren’t annoyed by them
3. Recycled airplane air because it means we all feel like we’re sitting next to The Farter
4. Stickiness
5. Cigarette butts being thrown out of car windows
6. Cigarette butts being thrown anywhere except in a garbage or ash tray
7. Uncomfortable shoes
8. Groups of 4 or more women
9. Pet owners who do not keep their dogs on leashes
10. Silverfish
11. Love Stories
12. Slow walkers
13. Close talkers
14. The lingering hand-shake
15. California drivers (this encompasses rubbernecking, not using turn signals, stopping in the middle of the street because they forgot they had to be in another lane, riding the brake, speeding up when I’ve signaled that I’m changing lanes, taking up more than 1 lane, broken brake-lights, the pointed finger out the window in lieu of a turn signal, honking at me to flirt with me, not knowing how to merge, and spilling items onto the freeway from their trucks.)
16. The phrases “I’m all”, “he’s all”, “she’s all”
17. Cell phones
18. Starbucks cups as an accessory
19. Overuse of the word “surreal”
20. That licking sound dogs make
21. Women who won’t date men who are “too short”
22. Men who won’t date women who are “too pudgy”
23. That at the airport, the line for Starbucks is longer than the security line
24. Repetitive noises
25. The smell of mildew
26. The first day after getting my hair colored when my hairline is still stained with color
27. 98% of anything having to do with children
28. Pregnant women who think that we think their naked belly is beautiful
29. The word “snickerdoodle”
30. The word “spleen”
31. Cooking shows
32. Medical surgery shows
33. Reality tv shows
34. Messy car interiors
35. People who talk for their pets
36. Menus and flyers shoved into the slats of my fence
37. Dry rot
38. The word “dry rot”
39. Mud
40. Humidity
41. Subway track sludge
42. Shopping
43. Hot chocolate mix that forms into small powdery clumps rather than dissolving
44. Scary movie commercials
45. Ovaltine radio commercials
46. Any stranger who has ever sat next to me on a plane
47. The word “trunk” when it refers to a torso
48. Slobber
49. People who use the word “I” or “me” in every single sentence
50. Running
51. Spiders
52. Personal trainers
53. Jennifer Love Hewitt
54. Beavis and Butthead
55. The sound of a baby crying
56. Being tickled
57. Magicians, clowns, or team mascots
58. Pet owners with no medical background who feel they can give veterinary advice to other pet owners
59. Talking to someone who has food stuck in their teeth, a crumb on their chin, eyelash on their cheek, chapped lips – anything that distracts me but that I can’t bring to their attention
60. Pushy sales people
61. In-flight announcements
62. People who are oblivious to their position relative to what’s going on around them – ie. Standing in the middle of a crowded walkway, abruptly stopping in the middle of a moving crowd, stopping at the top of subway steps to figure out which way to go. What is wrong with people – MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!
63. Smudging a nail 20 minutes after getting a manicure
64. Pauly Shore
65. How my ears ache after coming in from the cold
66. Stubbing my toe or other exercises in clumsiness
67. Bratty dogs
68. That the cat always chooses the newest thing in the house to vomit a hairball on
69. People calling me “Milhous’ mom”
70. Artificial peach smell
71. The mispronunciation of the word “breakfast”. It is NOT “brefext”
72. The mispronunciation of the word “espresso”. It is NOT “expresso”
73. The mispronunciation of the word “especially”. It is NOT “expecially”
74. Static electricity from packing peanuts
75. How dental x-rays dig into your gums
76. Campbell Brown’s inconsistent lisp
77. Breaking a yoke while making eggs over-easy
78. Eating the last thin mint (well that doesn’t drive me nuts as much as it makes me sad.)
79. Mystery dog poop on my sidewalk
80. The word “socket” when it’s used to describe where a tooth used to be
81. Poking myself in the eye (this happens a lot)
82. Having the hiccups (this happens a LOT)
83. The smell of cigarette smoke
84. That I constantly use it’s instead of its
85. The song “Mr. Sandman”
86. Earwigs
87. How I get a runny nose 5 minutes into a massage when my face is in that cradle and there is nothing I can do about it
88. Katie Couric conducting an interview
89. Bird poop on my newly washed car
90. That starchy smell from self-tanners
91. That the cat thinks we share meals
92. Papercuts
93. When a bee buzzes around my car while I’m driving, especially if I’m in a convertible
94. Workmen leaving fingerprints on or in my house
95. Sitting near someone who keeps sniffing or coughing or making other bodily noises
96. That Emil twists caps on bottles tighter than the manufacturer does
97. Those junk emails that start out with biblical quotes but are really just ads for Viagra - neither of which I’m interested in