What are your "pet hates'

[ednbarby]

I don't know what they call it.  My specialist merely said I had 'advanced sinus disease' and I do sniff from time to time.  Some days are better than others.  It's not fun.  My entire sense of smell has been dulled, I have to do special things in order to get a decent night's sleep when half my sinuses are constantly clogged or draining or opening and closing.  The snorking you typically have throughout the night certainly isn't anything your partner might find romantic.

I'm not talking about people with this issue.  I'm talking about people who are also coughing up a lung because they keep snuffing the stuff down in there sucht that that's the only recourse.  And I'm not talking about a gentle sniff every now and again.  Ed says he's actually seen guys cover one nostril and snort the stuff up, then cover the other and do the same.  Then cough violently a few seconds later.  And he'll say "Are you all right?" and they'll say, "Just got a bad cold" or something like that.  I have two coworkers who do it.  And it isn't constant - it's only when they have a cold.

Believe me, I know from sinusitis.  I've had two ENT specialists tell me I "need" sinus reconstructive surgery to keep from getting the sinus infections I get two or three times a year.  And I know from allergies, too.  I spend half the year living on Benedryl because of the various things that bloom down here and send my immune system into a tizzy.

It's one thing to not be able to help it.  It's another to have a cold and just not want to be bothered to keep some tissue with you to blow into from time to time.

[ednbarby]

Katherine, I feel your pain.  I have one of those challenging children myself.  I dread the times I have to take him into the grocery store with me, because I know he won't want to sit still in the special truck-cart they have for toddlers and he won't want to stay with me if I let him walk alongside me down the aisles.  I had to take him yesterday and was pleasantly surprised when he did both things in succession.  He sat still in truck for the first half of the trip, then asked nicely if he could get out, then actually stayed with me and didn't touch or ask for anything the whole rest of the time.  He must have been sick. 

All that said, I think there's a difference between someone like you or I who is really trying to keep their kids under control and someone who just doesn't give a shit.  Now maybe the latter has reached the end of her tether like we have on some days and just doesn't have the energy to do battle with the kids anymore.  Whenever I see that kind of thing, I give them the benefit of the doubt.  I like to hope I did that before I had my son, too, but I can't be sure I did.  I do know I never dreamed of actually saying something to those parents like people have said to me.  It still never ceases to amaze me the things people will say.  One day I was rolling Will into the Publix in one of the truck-carts, he was behaving very nicely, and some old coot says very loudly to another old coot, "Hrrrmph.  The things they have for kids these days.  They're all so spoiled."  I said, "Just be glad they do, or he'd be running around like a Banshee right now."  She goes, "And whose fault is that?"  I about choked her.  "Young Mother Strangles Elderly Woman To Death in Publix Produce Aisle - Details at 11:00."

[serious crayons]

Good comeback to the busybody's first snide comment, Barb! As for her second, about whose fault it was, if I weren't agnostic I would have been tempted to reply, "I don't know -- God's, I guess." Or maybe I'd go with the overly agreeable response: "It would be my fault because, you're right, I am a terrible mother." Or maybe, "Well, I haven't had a chance to teach him proper supermarket behavior yet because I've been busy teaching him something I consider even more important: not to make rude remarks to strangers in public."

[ednbarby]

Or maybe, "Well, I haven't had a chance to teach him proper supermarket behavior yet because I've been busy teaching him something I consider even more important: not to make rude remarks to strangers in public."

 

[opinionista]

Well, I will say that there is no way in hell my kids would sit in a windowsill for hours, or even minutes, at a time. I could punish them, bribe them, threaten them ... they just wouldn't. I suppose if they knew they would literally get beaten if they moved from the windowsill, the might. But I think there are a lot of kids who would stay at the windowsill without having been beaten into submission -- they're just different kinds of kids.

David, you had different parents and different issues. I don't mean to minimize yours at all.

But I think less of the differences between kids has to do with the parents' choice of discipline or the era in which they grew up -- there are just different kinds of kids!

I'm not a mother so please forgive me if I say something that doesn't make sense. I have a younger sister, she's 20 years my junior, and she was quite unruly when she was a toddler. I used to baby sit her almost everyday for three whole years, and she was the kind of kids who would not behave at the supermarket. If I told her she was not allowed to do something, she would scream and demand an explanation as to why she couldn't do it, and if she didn't agree (most of the time she didn't and on purpose), she would go ahead and do it. Even her mother (we don't have the same mother) didn't know what to do, let alone my father. Then one day I came up with a solution that worked. I figured she was unruly because she was bored, so I gave her stuff to do. If I had to go to the supermarket, I asked her to help me select the fruits, for example or to pick up corn flakes boxes or cans of food that weren't to heavy or to high for her to grab. At home I'd come up with something to keep her busy. She'd still get challenging sometimes but it was a lot easier to handle when I started giving her duties. I don't know if this would work for you, for me it did with my sister. I told her mother about it, and she started doing the same and things got better for her too.

[serious crayons]

Well, my kids are now 10 and 12, so things have gotten MUCH better. Oh, they still don't behave in the supermarket. But now I can leave them at home when I go! 

[Kelda]

HR people. I hate them. *personal rant for the day*

why do they say they will get back to you but then never do. oh and then theres the 'we'll not keep you hanging over the weekend but then they DO and then they blame someone else for keeping you waiitng for job interview outcomes! gha!!!!!!!!

Rant over.

[delalluvia]

Snorkling? Oh honey that sounds awful!

Have you tried taking some Tavist-D? It will make you drowsy, but at least you will be able to breathe.

They may even make a daytime formula. I'm not sure.

It's way beyond Tavist-D I'm afraid.  I've developed polyps which are physically blocking many of my sinus cavities and the only recourse is surgery, after which they cannot guarantee polyps won't develop again, "Especially for those who have seasonal allergies", my doctor said.

Holds hand up. 

[delalluvia]

I'm not talking about people with this issue.  I'm talking about people who are also coughing up a lung because they keep snuffing the stuff down in there sucht that that's the only recourse.  And I'm not talking about a gentle sniff every now and again.  Ed says he's actually seen guys cover one nostril and snort the stuff up, then cover the other and do the same.  Then cough violently a few seconds later.  And he'll say "Are you all right?" and they'll say, "Just got a bad cold" or something like that.  I have two coworkers who do it.  And it isn't constant - it's only when they have a cold.

Believe me, I know from sinusitis.  I've had two ENT specialists tell me I "need" sinus reconstructive surgery to keep from getting the sinus infections I get two or three times a year.  And I know from allergies, too.  I spend half the year living on Benedryl because of the various things that bloom down here and send my immune system into a tizzy.

It's one thing to not be able to help it.  It's another to have a cold and just not want to be bothered to keep some tissue with you to blow into from time to time.

Eech. OK.  Never had heard those kind of coughers/sniffers.  Just those who've been smoking or snorting too much or people like me with chronic sinus issues.

[David In Indy]

If I told her she was not allowed to do something, she would scream and demand an explanation as to why she couldn't do it, and if she didn't agree (most of the time she didn't and on purpose), she would go ahead and do it.

"Because I said so".

That was what my mother said to me whenever I questioned her.

It worked every time too!