Every once in a while, out of the blue, one of my senses goes on overdrive.  I don’t know if it’s PMS, or if it’s just life weighing on me, or if I’m just “in a mood,” but today my sense of hearing is out of control.  I don’t mean I have super hearing, or that I can detect radio frequencies.  No.  For whatever reason, certain sounds are pissing me off to no end, and it got me to thinking about the sounds that just piss me off in general.  It should come as no surprise to you that most (if not all) of these sounds are generated by other people.  You don’t have to agree.  It’s not going to change the fact that these things annoy me, and since this is my blog, you’re stuck hearing about it today.

1.  Constant, repetitious, overly-dramatic sighing, grunting, and groaning in a shared space:  SHUT…. UP…. Seriously.  I don’t care if that is your way of relieving stress, or calming down.  I don’t need to hear it, and every 6-8 minutes is well beyond the bounds of acceptable.  Go outside and do it, or internalize your frustration like the rest of us, okay?  Every time I hear it, especially today, I have to stop myself from reaching over and smacking your head off of your monitor.  Everyone gets frustrated but they don’t passively aggressively ram it down the throats of people around them.  Knock…it…off.

2.  Pouring Noises:  This might seem odd, but the sound of someone tipping a bottle of liquid over a glass and letting it GLUG-GLUG-GLUG out into the glass without taking the extra fraction of hand effort to allow it to pour out smoothly makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.  HOW HARD IS IT TO POUR POLITELY?!

Other food related noises that give me violent urges: 

• Chewing (a.k.a. smacking loudly) with your mouth open.
• Scraping a fork across your teeth
• Scraping the plate with your knife and/or fork
• Slurping soup
• Opening candy wrappers in a movie theater during the movie (Helloooo… that’s what the 20 minutes of previews are for!!)
• Sucking the last bit of liquid from a cup with a straw

3.  “Quietly” biting into apples or chips in a silent room:   (Though food related, this deserves it’s own number) It’s not possible.  EVERYONE knows you’re trying to eat an apple or a handful of chips.  The fact that you sll…llooo…ooow…www…ww…ll…llyy…yyy crunch into the apple or chips only makes me angrier.  Just get it over with!!  We all know you’re eating!  For the love of god! And the fact that you are trying to hide it means you are aware of how utterly annoying it is! AGH!

4.  Heavy, laboured breathing:  I’m sorry, but if you’re sitting next to me and I can hear the air wheezing in and then wheezing back out of you, we’re going to have problems.  I know some people can’t help it.  I know some people aren’t aware of it.  Just be warned that if I ever turn to you and yell, “OH MY GOD STOP BREATHING… Just stop!  STOP BREATHING.” it’s because I sat there and tried to ignore it for a long, long time. 

5.  Heavy walking:  Again, I don’t know how people can’t tell they’re pounding around, making WAY too much noise when they walk, but it drives me batty.  There is no justifiable reason for a person to sound like an elephant when walking.  None.  I don’t care how heavy you are.  NONE.  Unless you are a cow, you shouldn’t sound like one.

6.  Speakerphones:  Is it that much of a strain for you to pick up the handset and dial?  Really?  Are you that lazy, that you can’t be bothered to actually hold the receiver while waiting to hear if the person on the other end picks up?  An entire room full of people doing this is enough to make someone cut phone lines.  On the same note, there is no reason for someone to be walking down the street and yelling into their phone while it’s on speakerphone.  None at all.  I can think of possibly two or three instances where using the speakerphone function on your cell phone is acceptable in public.  All of them involve an emergency or the phone being broken.   

7.  Pets getting into plastic bags:  The sound of a cat licking a plastic bag makes my skin crawl and makes me want to pull the hair out of my head.  Dogs sniffing plastic bags make me cringe just the same.  In fact, the rustling of plastic bags in any way makes me jump off of a chair faster than you can blink to snatch the bag away or shred it.