Pet Peeves

Elaina: Tracy, do you have any pet peeves?

Tracy: I do.

I do. The first thing that comes to mind for me, and I’m gonna sound like such a prude. I’m so big on manners. It like really annoys me. One example, I was working from home. I’m back on the train now, which has taken a lot of patience for me. 

I have a real big problem with, if I’m standing on a platform and you running late, you’re not just going to rush up when the train comes, and elbow bumped me and jump in front of me. I have a problem with men who hope in front of women to get on a train. Men who don’t hold the door open. Kids who don’t speak when they enter a room, please and thank you, but my list will go on and on.

Elaina: I was asking Tracy, not Peaches.

Tracy: Peaches, after she went to etiquette class, but it’s like, I’m really big on manners and I raised my kids that way. My kids are really manurable. I’m pretty sure they got other issues, but I do try to teach them, please, thank you, social etiquette. Cause I feel like it’s something that’s lost in society today and people just don’t have it. And it’s just so annoying to me.

Elaina: So have you ever wondered why it was a pet pee for you? I have my own list of pet peeves, but today I was just kinda thinking like, why does that bother me?

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: A lot of us, the pet peeve stems from some type of negative experience that we’ve had in the past that’s now stored in our amygdala. And so, when those situations come up, we’re triggered.

Tracy: Yeah. You know what, with manners thing, I don’t know. I know what one thing that comes to mind when it comes to the men not holding the door open and cause I’ll stand there until the man opens the door. I know it’s silly, but I’ll have a force manners people. But I kind of feel like with women, that whole us being precious and us being adored. I think that’s been lost. So, when it happens, it just kind of annoys me. Like, Ugh, do you not see I’m a woman standing here.

Elaina: It was lost when we decided to burn our damn bras and demand for equality.

Tracy: No, no, no, no. And I think you could still be a feminist, but still want, cause I called myself a feminist and I support feminism to the fullest, but I still want the door held open for me. I still want men to do those things. Things because it’s like, I can bear kids. You can’t. I could do something that you cannot do and I deserve it. It’s a revered or wherever. What is that?

Elaina: Revered.

Tracy: Yeah. Revered for that. Thank you. I had my cocktail tonight. I’m Sorry. I should have waited.

Elaina: I got drunk peaches. Oh gosh, please let us get through this. So are you saying you want the chivalry from the men in your life, like your son, your husband, or you just expect it from every man on the planet?

Tracy: Every man.

Elaina: I just needed clarification.

Tracy: Yes. Every man. I’m sorry. I just feel like that’s the way it should be. I know. If I want to, I change my own tire. I could do a lot of stuff. I was single for like, pretty much all of my adult life, but I just really just love to see that, and I expect it. And when I don’t get it, it’s disappointing and I will side-eye, like, I’ll get on a train of side-eye a guy the whole ride like I can’t believe you just pushed out in front of me.

Elaina: I mean, maybe making physical contact is one thing, but I just, so, let me ask you a question. If you and I, we’re not friends, we don’t know each other. We’re walking into a building together and I’m in front of you. Would you have that same reaction if I let the door close behind me?

Tracy: Yes. Yeah.

Elaina: Okay.

Tracy: Yeah. Even with you being a woman, cause that’s rude. Cause It’s something with the manners, even when I’m rushing, I try to make sure you too far away then I get it, but I think that’s what’s kind of lost in society today. Just they human kindness considering other people. And I think with it seeming to go by the wayside, that it’s pretty much made us to the point where people just think about themselves and that’s not a good place to be. And it’s just annoying.

Elaina: Yeah. So, like you, I have a laundry list of pet peeves. Well, one that I experienced today that really gets under my skin and I drove all the way to work trying to figure out why does that bother me so much? So, think about school drop-offs. So, when you’re dropping your kid off at schools, they have this little circle that you kind of pull around and you let the kids out and you go on about your business.

Tracy: Right.

Elaina: But parents for some reason, feel like their kid like they gonna roll out the red carpet every morning when they drop them off at school and they have to be positioned right at the front door. Most parents don’t want to pull all the way around for whatever reason. Now your kid is getting out on the sidewalk. Why can’t they walk the extra 10 steps? Because the problem is is when you don’t pull all the way around, then you have all the traffic in the street.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: And that stops traffic. It keeps people from getting into the school, people from getting now and people who have nothing to do with the school to go on about the business. So, it just drives me nuts that you couldn’t pull up two car spaces so we can fit two more cars in this area. I started thinking about on my way to work and I said, well, you know, I don’t necessarily think it’s about pulling up.

What I think about that, it looks at me like, one, you can’t follow the rules, and so you’re teaching your kid that rules within society and your job those are, they’re flexible, like you don’t have to abide by them. So, I think you set in a bad example because you’re not following the rules. And I think it also comes back to either, for me, I haven’t decided, is it a respect thing or isn’t an entitlement thing? To me, I feel like you think that you’re entitled, that you’re so special that you don’t have to abide by the rules that the rest of us are abiding by.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: And it drives me nuts. Because I am a person that believes in structure and processes, man does follow the structure and do what we’re supposed to do so we can all get on about our business.

Tracy: I agree with you on that one.

Elaina: And yes, some people listening may be thinking, that’s so petty, but everybody has a pet peeve.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: Everybody has something that no matter who does it gets on their nerves. So one of my other pet peeves, well, there’s two more. So, when it comes to my house, why have a laundry basket if your laundry gone end up on the floor? Laundry basket is empty. I don’t understand why the clothes land next to the laundry basket on the floor.

Why did I spend the $5 on the basket if you were just gonna leave it on the floor like I feel like I should just get $5 back because like somebody run me my money. And the other thing is like when you leave a table, clean the table off and push the chair back. So that could be my OCD kicking in, but it’s like, I don’t understand why when you get up from a table, you can’t push your chair in.

Tracy: Yeah. You like structure. I’m like that too. I like structure. I like to follow the rules and I like other people to follow the rules cause it’s chaotic when it doesn’t happen. I get it. You’re not crazy.

Elaina: I think my therapist may disagree with you even though she won’t say that word. My mom was very diligent about keeping a clean house. Like I remember when Kaiya’s, his father and I were together, and we lived in an apartment. He used to get mad because our landlord was a family friend, and I would just leave the rent check for him on the kitchen counter and he would just come by, pick it up and on about his business.

But the night before he was coming to pick up check girl, I was in there going through that house with all kinds of bleach and every other household cleaning because I’m like, this is our landlord. We want him to know that we’re taking care of his property. So, I made sure I cleaned up. Whereas he interprets that as you like him. I mean he was fine, but that was not the point. I still wanted my landlord to pick up a check.

You walk in smelling bleach brah, cause we taking care of this. I was just curious to know the things that get under our skin, even if you think about people, the nails across like a chalkboard or the scraping sounds like those aren’t really bother me as much. Kaiya, if we’re watching TV and we’re watching something and there’s somebody breaking a bone or something, cracking like that she can’t stand to hear that, but she will crack her neck in a heartbeat.

Tracy: That scares me more than anything. Just hearing that.

Elaina: The pet peeves that we have. Why do we have them? And so, it makes me go back to what experience that I have that triggered that for me. The whole feet being like, I hate feet. I don’t want to see your feet. I don’t want you to, don’t touch me with your feet. I don’t want to see them. Don’t touch me with them.

I was trying to reflect back to say where did that come from and the only thing I can think of whenever I think about feet, I went to school with somebody and when we had gym class, his feet smelled through his shoes and it wasn’t his shoes because no matter what pair of shoes he had on, his feet smelled, and I think that whenever I think of feet. I think of that. It’s almost like the syrup and spider thing like it’s just another trigger to me.

Tracy: Those feet brought back memories.

Elaina: Keep your feet away from me.

Tracy: Oh my God.

Elaina: What other pet peeves you have?

Tracy: So, the other thing that gets under my skin, and I kind of, I’ve examined this to see where this comes from. I hate for a person to text me and then continue texting me or call me. It contains a call me cause I kinda feel like if I’m not texting you back if I’m not calling you back, there’s a reason why and I’m going to call you back. It got to the point where I have one friend, were pretty much, I have her stuff muted, so I will look at it when I’m ready to, cause she’ll send me one line text and these one lines text, it’ll end up like 20, 30 text messages because there’s so many and it’s annoying when you’re sitting at work or whatever you’re doing, to have all these things keep popping up.

I was thinking about why does it bother me so much? Some people are like, oh, I’ll just ignore it. It’s not a big deal, but it would really my skin crawl and I think, I feel like when a person does that, they’re trying to control me and I’m trying to control my time. Then when I finally talked to them, it’s nothing I can understand if it’s like somebody is dying or something like that, but it’s gossip nine times out of 10 but it’s, I feel like they’re trying to control me and control my time and say, what you’re doing is not as important as me. That it’s selfish because I try to, if I text someone, I’ll text them.

If it’s more than one text. It’s not like I’m saying, answer me, answer me, answer me. I’ll send the text and then once they get back to me, they’ll get back to me. Or if I call them, leave them a message or send them a text, Hey, call me whenever you get a chance. So, they know that it’s important, but I’m done. At that point. I just like to be treated the way that I treat other people. And when that doesn’t happen, it’s annoying. But I have a thing about being controlled and to me, that’s a form of control. I’m really got a real, it’s a real thing about being controlled. So different forms of control or people try to have control over me, kind of set me off and as just one of them.

Elaina: Another perspective. When you were saying that I didn’t think about control, I know that’s what it represents for you and you know better because you’ve probably had past experiences where you had that same feeling. So it’s stemming from somewhere.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: I looked at it as, even though it’s not important to you, maybe she just missed you, wanted your attention.

Tracy: I’m not that good.

Elaina: Probably just missing her Peaches, like pay attention to me, no? Okay. Well, I tried sweetie, if you’re listening, I tried.

Tracy: But I do take it like you said, it stems from somewhere, but I was in a domestic violence relationship, and it wasn’t to the point where it was a lot of physical violence, but it was a lot of emotional violence. And one of the ways that that came across, he tried to control everything. So, I think it kind of triggers that whenever I feel like somebody is trying to exert some kind of control over me. I rebel. I do the total opposite.

Elaina: You’re amygdala is bringing that emotion back up.

Tracy: Yep. Yep. It could be something simple. Like I said, other people look at it with this, ignore it, but to me, you know, it’s like. Yeah. It’s like the nails on the talk board for me.

Elaina: And when you have a pet peeve, I think the issue, is figuring out why does that bother you? What was the prior experience that implanted that, that now when it happens in different situations, no matter who does it, it drives you nuts. It’s just really interesting to me because a lot of us just know that some things annoy us, but we don’t take that time to think deeper about it.

Tracy: Yeah. Absolutely.

Elaina: I think one of my biggest pet peeves that I actually act upon is incompetence is the word that I’m looking for, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when you are not doing your job at the standard, that’s acceptable and it doesn’t. It’s not necessarily someone that I work with. It’s in any situation. If I’m a customer, I expect a certain level of service. So if I go to a restaurant, yes, there are standards in place. I know what your standards are because I managed restaurants.

So when it comes to food handling and safety, when it comes to bartending, I know what you’re supposed to be doing when it comes to customer service, I know what you’re supposed to be doing, and when you don’t deliver it at a decent standard. I’m annoyed. So, give you an example. Amazon now, I’ve been an Amazon prime member forever.

Now I’m paying you extra money so I can get this two-day shipping. Now I understand once it leaves whatever warehouse or from whichever vendor, there’s not a lot of control that they have. The problem that I have with Amazon is if I call you. Because whatever delivery companies showed up says that my item is marked delivered and they took a picture of it and it’s not my house.

Tracy: Hmm. Oh my God, that’s happened to me.

Elaina: Don’t tell me I need to wait 24 hours before I can complain about it. I’m not going to be going around slow driving through neighborhoods like I am an African American woman. That’s not going to happen, brah. I’m not doing that. Can’t be doing that in the suburbs. But the problem is when I call Amazon, they have their scripts, for every company out there, stop making these people use these stupid scripts. I don’t want to hear the same thing every time I contact you.

Tracy: I hate it.

Elaina: That’s like empathy statements. I’m sorry to hear that. Like, stop. No, you’re not. You don’t care. Just, I’d

Tracy: Here’s your five dollars.

Elaina: I’d rather you not be empathetic than to use the script.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: The problem that I have is when I contact you, it’s not to complain that my item isn’t here. It is for you to reach out to whatever delivery company it is to discuss with them the fact that not only did they deliver to the wrong address but have the audacity to take a picture of the wrong house. I need them to get that feedback so they can fix it.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: I know what happens if I don’t do well at work.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: I’m not getting paid. I just want everybody to be held to the same type of accountability no matter what job you have, if you ain’t doing your job right, you shouldn’t get paid.

Tracy: Yeah. Now I see why you’ve banned a certain restaurant chain when we were trying to go out to eat, but I feel you on the customer service that brought up another pet peeve like I really do dislike. Bad customer service and Amazon is on my list too. I’ve had the conversation with them plenty of times and I’m on the same boat as you. I just want you to fix it.

Elaina: Have you ever worked at a company and had a job where you and a counterpart, y’all making the same money and they doing half a work or not doing quality work, but y’all getting paid the same.

Tracy: Yeah, I’ve had it where accidentally everyone, this was like early in my career by mistake, the manager, we both reported to accidentally leak everyone’s salary and I found out they were making more money than me and that pissed me off. Are you kidding me? Of course, it was a man, but it really pissed me off.

Elaina: Everybody’s learning so much about you. Do you hate men Tracy? I’m just playing.

Tracy: I don’t, I love men.

Elaina: Everybody that’s listening like, she’s one of those. We are not man-bashing

Tracy: Well not tonight.

Elaina: Wait. Although my mom would tell you, she was like, they share one brain, so the one does something stupid. that means someone else is doing something smart. I was like, you are so wrong.

Tracy: I’ve never heard that before.

Elaina: That’s so wrong. For the men out there, that are very intelligent and doing what you are supposed to be doing or how you’re supposed to do it, and you’re very good at your job. I heart you, you good? We good.

Tracy: Especially Idris.

Elaina: Especially your Idris. And if you single and got all your teeth, call me.

Tracy: You’re so silly. I know that’s your boo. I had to make sure your boo knew we weren’t talking about him.

Elaina: Here’s the funny thing, the reason why I was talking about him so much the other day is cause when Kaiya and I were at an appointment and I was sitting in the waiting area and there was another woman in there, and it was so funny to me, like she just randomly, this magazine, I think it was the people magazine or one of those magazines where he’s on the cover of it.

Now, it’s been in this office for weeks, so I don’t know how old it is. He’s staring at me with those eyes every time I go into the office and I am just basking in it. But in this instance, this woman, she was just like, Oh my God, he’s so sexy. And I just kind of looked like, who is she talking about? She said she’s looking down at the magazine. She’s like, look at his eyes. He’s beautiful. He’s just so sexy, she was like, I probably shouldn’t be saying that. I was like, no, you’re good. Keep talking. Great content.

Tracy: I think what’s so sexy about him, well for me, I just love to hear him speak when he has a British accent. I like melt. Oh my God, there’s something about a British accent.

Elaina: Yeah, she brought up his accent. She brought that up, but she kept going. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. I was like do y’all need some privacy cause I can go wait outside. I don’t need to be in the waiting room. I can go.

Tracy: That’s hilarious.

Elaina: Oh look, I got a conference call. I’ll be back. But no, it was just funny. She was funny though. I was like, oh she, she really do like him. I just sit there and admire in silence, like hope nobody notices I’ve been staring at this magazine across the table for the last 20 minutes, but yes, he, I, yeah, Idris, could get it. I ain’t going to lie. He is definitely not on the pet peeve list, but I’m sure he has something that he would do. Like if he, takes his socks off and leave them by the laundry basket and it’s over with. It’s all the window at that point, but I know he wouldn’t do that.

Tracy: I’ll say, I know you’re not giving him up that easy. You may be mad for a couple of minutes.  Be like. okay. boo. It’s okay boo.

Elaina: Just don’t do it again. Hey, at least if I did that at least I’m doing that for Idris. Some of y’all doing that for Tom, still living at his mama basement and okay, no, Tom, we get his feelings hurt. Like you are not Idris. Don’t play with me.

Tracy: Your bread is not done. My grandmother used to say that. It’s kinda like took the elevator is not going to the top floor. She’s like, your bread isn’t done. So that’s my, that’s my saying. I got plenty of the old Southern sayings, it comes out randomly.

Elaina: Oh my God, your bread is not done.

Tracy: I forgot we were recording and it came out.

Elaina: Alright. Everybody makes sure your bread is done. Alright, well I think we are going to end there. This is apparently, I need to go finish baking my bread. Alright, everybody, we are going to end there. I don’t know what we wanted you to learn today, but if you didn’t learn anything, hopefully, you had a good laugh and we took some of the stress off of your day because yeah, to laugh at us, I’m okay if you laugh at me in this context, but if we on the street, don’t laugh at me. Laugh with me even though my bread is not done. Tracy, anything else?

Tracy: No, bye guys. Until next time.

Elaina: Alright. Take care, everybody.