Commentary: Can we eliminate these pet peeves?

Even meditating cannot dissuade me from thinking about the variety of things that I find either annoying, disturbing or simply drive me nuts 
By the time your eyes fall upon these words the summer of 2026 will be winding down. Man, did that go by fast. John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Truer words were never spoken.
As I sit in my late uncle’s reclining chair and gaze out over a lovely salt marsh I reflect on how things are going and have gone. I think about how fast things are happening and struggle to find a way to slow things down. For those of you who can relate I might suggest meditation. I had the occasion to hang out with the Nomad Monk who was at the Manchester Community Library a few weeks ago. He led the small group in a meditation session. It was perhaps one of the best things I’ve ever done. Time gets pretty crazy when you meditate.
But even meditating cannot dissuade me from thinking about the variety of things that I find either annoying, disturbing or simply drive me nuts. Some refer to these things as “pet peeves.” I don’t much care what you call them. I’d be more interested in finding ways to alleviate and/or eliminate them. Here’s my list in no particular order. I bet you’ll have a few more to add.
• Pedestrians walking the wrong way on the road. At a very young age I was taught by my mom that whenever I walked on the road I was to always walk FACING traffic. I was to never turn my back on motor vehicles. Today at least 50% of the people I encounter walking on the road are walking with traffic. Who raised these people?
• As if walking with your back to oncoming traffic isn’t bad enough, I really get annoyed when a group of two or more people are walking blindly in the middle of the road. Perhaps the thought process is that if they are going to get run over they don’t want to know in advance.
• Toothpaste: do we really need to be told to squeeze toothpaste starting from the bottom of the tube? Also, have you noticed that the new toothpaste tubes no longer roll up? What’s up with that?
• TV Remote Control: I have a thing about knowing where my remote control for my TV is. I always keep it on a table right next to where I sit to watch TV. I bet you do, too. I hate wasting time hunting for the darned thing. However, whenever the grandkids show up I can spend hours searching for the darned thing. More often than not I end up finding it stuffed way down inside a piece of furniture. When I raise this issue with anyone one of my four grandkids I get that vacant stare that implies they are contemplating the creation of the universe and why can’t they see the dark side of the moon.
• Tariffs: Yeah, so about this obsession the president has with tariffs (along with multiple vanity projects and endless wars). Have you all figured out by now that tariffs are nothing more than the largest sales tax imposed on Americans in our history? Think about it. The president, willy nilly, decides one morning at 2 am that he doesn’t like Canada, because they said something unflattering about him. So, he decides to TAX Canada on all of their goods coming into America. The TAX revenues theoretically go to our treasury. Great. The additional cost is put on our businesses who rightfully, in turn, pass those costs onto…..who? Right. YOU. That would be a freakin’ SALES TAX. Funny how I mistakenly thought that the party in power today was the party of “no new taxes.”
• Endless Wars: After 75 years I sort of thought that we might have learned something/anything from the Vietnam War. Nope. I watched Russia go into Afghanistan and fight for nearly a decade. They pulled out and America went in for two decades. One might think that’d be a good ol’ slap up side the head, but NO. Now the president, on his own, with no valid explanation has taken it upon himself to start a war with Iran. Does he not have a clue of the implications of his actions? It would seem to me as though Stevie Wonder could see that this was A) a bad decision, and B) a war that will now go on for generations.
• Not securely putting the tops on jars. Nothing more annoying than picking up a jar by the lid only to have its contents splatter all over your feet.
Upon further investigation I have just determined that on the new, impossible to roll up from the bottom, tube of Crest toothpaste that they have now eliminated the language describing how you’re supposed to extract the toothpaste by rolling up the tube from the bottom. I guess I shouldn’t be so cynical. We’re making some progress.
Happy end of summer. Fall is coming right up and we’ll be stuck in snow with our “all-season” tires that are really just summer tires with slightly better grip, in no time.
Bob Stannard writes from Manchester.