Back to School: Six quickies

Sharpen your pencils. Get your sweaters out of mothballs. Deal with long pants. And get ready to hate with the rest of the class. The first day of autumn finds us assembling a few quick hits from the mailbag.

“I hate when people begin their emails with ‘I hope this finds you well.’ No, they don’t. It sets a tone that’s so clearly dishonest, I don’t believe anything that follows.” Whoa. Take it easy. Yes, this reprehensible, cover-all, insincere phrase is fast gaining ground on “Have a nice day” as the most meaningless aside in the English language. But to discount everything that follows? Well, who are we to judge? Have a nice day.

“I hate when your credit-card carriers send you checks to use that are already printed with your name and address on them. You have to rip them up into pieces that are so small that no one could tape them together, Xerox them and use them.” Yes, we agree. And the accompanying letter is usually so noxious as to suggest that these are a way for you to consolidate your debt and come out ahead. When actually these deceptive things wind up carrying hefty service charges for each use and “consolidate” your debt into a pile that carries an APR somewhere in the vicinity of 20%.

“I hate when you go on vacation and you’ve arranged for the post office to hold your mail…and then on your first day away, some Yellow Pages book is thrown on your front porch to remain there for your entire trip, announcing to everyone who passes by that no one is home.” Yep, we agree. And, aside from activating watchful neighbors, there’s not much you can do about this.

“I hate when people have car alarms that beep three times each time the owner opens the car. And three times again when the owner leaves the car. Since when is this OK? It’s noisy and intrusive and it’s become commonplace.” Yes, we hate this, too. Noise like this has somehow become acceptable, even during the hours when people are trying to sleep. We also hate when people’s car alarms go off for long stretches of time and the owners are nowhere to be found to silence them. Another irritant that has somehow weasled its way into the realm of acceptability. Here are some inventive ways that people have started to fight back with glue, urine, dog feces and eggs.

“I hate when a woman is ahead of you in the line at the grocery store’s deli department and orders a quarter-pound of something. When she’s presented with it, she then orders a quarter-pound of something else. And on and on and on.” Yes, agreed. Though it’s not always a woman. But most of the time it is. We imagine a family of young small brats, each with his own finicky sandwich preferences that prevent the woman of the house from buying one lunch meat in bulk. And these eating disordered young-un's are humored in their defiance, making us even more fearful about the growing selfishness of the upcoming generation. You have been warned.

“I hate when dog owners don’t silence their pets’ at-home barking, especially when it goes on for more than 15 minutes.” We here at H4H are dog lovers. That said, yes, we agree and do blame the owners, not the dogs. We have a neighbor whose German Shepherd barked out an open window for two hours and 45 minutes one night. Another who lets her sheepdog out on her deck when she does errands and the dog barks the entire time she’s away. (See “car alarms” complaint, above. We're thinking that perhaps some strategically placed automobile feces might do the trick.)

Insincere well-wishing, pre-addressed unwanted checks,
yellow-pages clutter, car alarms, bad deli behavior,
insensate dog owners.
Officially registered at Hate for Hire, September 21, 2010.

Role model repents!

Faithful readers will recall Kingsley, the sassy teenager whose "Things I Hate" video catapulted him into the enviable position as the original role model honored here on H4H.

Sadly, we have had to update our initial April posting about him.

Here's a link to the update.

A moment of silence, please...

We mark with great sadness the passing today of a good friend. The least of her countless fine qualities was providing the inspiration for this site many years ago. Smile, Jane, there are pets in heaven.

Role model 3 (on the right)

This delightful misguided-hate image was sent to us from a frequent visitor to the H4H site.
Thanks.

Hating Self-Righteous Signage

It's a bumper sticker. No, it's a T-shirt. No, it's a way of life. Well, maybe the first two, but rarely the third. How easy and how lazy it is to plaster a slogan on your bumper or your chest. So easy in fact that those who do so can then comfortably take the moral low road and stop right there. Why bother to embody the philosophy as long as your car or your made-in-Sri Lanka cotton tee does?

Our petitioner this time: "Know what I hate? Those stupid bumper stickers with all the religious iconography that some moron thinks is so clever." Oh, but let's not stop there. How about "Celebrate Diversity," the bumper sticker that means absolutely nothing beyond "I'm a better person than you are, so there"?


Above, a gallery of easy-way-out slogans for the publicly moral. Below, a more honest if less appealing spokesperson.


Self-Righteous Signage.
Officially registered at Hate for Hire, July 24, 2010

Hating Julia Roberts

At long last, the much-anticipated and richly deserved H4H nod to the talent-free Julia Roberts. She’s been on our back burner for some time now, but the upcoming summer release of the film version of Eat Pray Love has kicked her candidacy into high gear.

For those two of you unfamiliar with EPL (aka “Trust-funder whines her way around the world”), it’s a “woman’s book” with high annoyance potential for readers of both sexes. Spooning out pre-digested philosophical “insights,” it has, needless to say, become something of a sensation among a certain needy, self-help-hungry demographic. And though our hearts sank when we heard that Roberts would star in the movie, we weren’t surprised.

Our patient petitioner notes: “Who likes this jerk anyway? She overacts in every movie she’s ever been in. And she always seems quite pleased with herself.”

May we add that she’s a potty-mouth egomaniac, as well? (We began to suspect this when she tried to shush the Oscars’ orchestra as they appropriately tried to stifle her lengthy acceptance speech for Erin Brockovich with, “Hey, this is MY moment.”) One listen to the first 45 seconds of Roberts’ foul “tribute” to Tom Hanks (he’s another one) should pretty much let you in on both the level of her vocabulary and her ability to put together sentences when no script is provided.



Not that a script is much help for this one. In our exhaustive research, we submitted ourselves to watching the venal Eat Pray Love trailer. And people, all we can say is that her “I want to go someplace where I can...marvel at something” (:41) is already the leading contender for all-time vapid delivery of a film line, edging out Tom Cruise’s “You complete me,” the unchallenged title holder up until now.


We’re not big fans of organized religion here at H4H, but even we were irritated when we heard that Roberts’ filming her Eat Pray Love “spiritual enlightenment” segment in India blocked a congregation of Hindus from entering their temple during religious holidays. Didn’t they get the memo that they’d be interfering with HER “moment”?

Julia Roberts, we hate you.

Julia Roberts
Officially registered at Hate for Hire, June 27, 2010.

Hating obnoxious morons: three examples of rude behavior

Just who do you think you are anyway? That’s what our petitioners would like to ask the selfish, obnoxious blockheads who’ve prompted our entry this time. All three examples are symptomatic of the evaporation of good manners in an ever-increasing “me first” world that’s only getting worse.


Cell phone yakkers.
Are people getting stupider? Or is it that nowadays we can actually hear what they’re thinking (whether we like it or not) as they yammer on and on, on public buses, in supermarkets, even just walking through an otherwise quiet park? “And then I go…and then he goes…” Shut UP, will you?

Our petitioner moans, “I once had to listen to a girl tell her friend all about her sex-filled weekend, how drunk she got, and how happy her bf was that she wasn’t pregnant.” Just one example of many. We hate these rude people.

Mercifully, as cell phone rudeness continues on the upswing, there are equally increasing examples of cell phone rage. One report: Two men in a cafe were beaten and their phones destroyed by two others after the pair ignored repeated requests to curb their loud and continuous yakking on their phones. Yesssssss!

Yogurt-container scrapers.

Noise bothers us, too. And each of us has his or her own peeves. Music in the workplace? No, gracias. Windchimes when we’re trying to sleep? See our March 28 posting. Here’s a complaint with a decidedly “niche” slant.

Our petitioner writes: “You know what I hate? The sound of people scraping yogurt containers with a spoon.” OK, we’re on it, mister. Now we hate it, too.

Obsessive photo-maniacs.
A petitioner from overseas writes: “I hate camera-toting people who insist on shooting everything in sight in a museum or at a popular sightseeing venue. It's one thing to take a snapshot of yourself or friends in front of the Louvre. That's perfectly valid, even desirable. But hordes of museum-goers cannot resist the temptation to shoot anything and everything on exhibit -- instead of looking at the objects through their own eyes.

“I mean, who needs to take a photo of the Mona Lisa? What is going through these people's minds as they race through galleries snapping hundreds of pictures of EVERYTHING -- yet failing to pause and appreciate ANYTHING?” What, indeed? We hate them!

Obnoxious morons:
three examples of rude behavior
Officially registered at Hate for Hire, June 20, 2010.