Selah // Something Witty

Oh, but honey don't taste like summer no more.

Date: 10.02.18 -- Day 88 ("30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  -- Day 2)
Music: "Honey" / Johnny Balik

Prompt -- We all have ‘pet-peeves’. Write about some of yours!

I have what my mother's old priest would call a judgmental spirit. There are things that I do, and probably will, nitpick forever. Little things to that seem to bother me for no apparent reason other than they do. Most of them are irrational; most likely a consequence of having eight siblings. Alas, for the sake of time, I'm going to pick the first three that pop in my skull.

The Earworm Phenomenon:

You know that song you seemingly get stuck in your head out of nowhere? The one that you hate with the fire of a thousand suns, but it's everywhere you go so you know every lyric of said song against your will? Yep, that's The Earworm Phenomenon that can take my day from an 8 to a 3 in no time flat. There's actually an official name for this -- Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI). I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten a song stuck my head, a song so vile that I would voluntary give my soul to never hear it again, and not have it run through my mind for hours. It takes over my whole being. It is the bane of my existence.

The Oxford Comma Denial:

I live for commas. I put useless commas in everything. Besides the em-dash and the semi-colon, commas are my favorite punctuation marks. The Oxford Comma is especially dear to my heart. So imagine my shock in AP English when my teacher went on a fifteen-minute rant against them. They are useless, she said. They're lazy writing, she said. I couldn't take it. I still can't. There were debates in class. I'm pretty sure she still hates me because I derailed her study plans. But she will have to rip the Oxford Comma out of my cold, dead hands before I give up the fight for them. It keeps us from cannibalism, my friends. Oxford Commas are the real deal. And if anyone wants to fight me on this, I'm your huckleberry.

The Wasted Potential Filmography:

Movie trailers are the best and the worst things about movies. The best because they can get you hyped for months before it hits the theaters. The worst because you can see all that potential in that two and a half minute clip, and when the film ultimately fails to live up to said potential, it only leaves you in despair. So much wasted possibility. So many places it could have gone. And then. And then. Nothing. It's hollow or contrived or just so mired in itself that there is no semblance of plot anywhere to be found. Maybe it's the price of being a writer or the the fact that movie tickets are so pricey, but damn it all films should be better than this. To sum up my irrational rage for Wasted Potential, I quote from a show that ended up doing a separate pet-peeve of mine, Character Inconsistency, from one of my favorite characters, Toby Ziegler on "The West Wing" -- "Don't come in here with half a thing and not be able to--you know, after you've walked me to the brink and say, 'We've got to do this, it's important, though I have no earthly idea how.' Like one of those guys who buys a big new thing but doesn't really know how to get the most out of it!"

And for honorable mentions -- Neighbors. As I write this there are three separate arguments happening in my apartment complex. I can hear every one of them through my earphones. Also the stomping of feet, the clang of the washing machine upstairs, and various squeaks from shuffling feet. It's like a surround sound beehive. The little ones who have been having tons of fun this summer screaming (I totally get it; it's summer and they're eight, so I don't want to harsh anyone's vibe) have killed my instinctive response to go running towards screaming children in case of an emergency. I now just assume that a game of tag has gotten out of hand. May this never become a thing that I regret later. I do not think I was programmed for neighbors.