ACKK!!! It's Almost THAT Time Again

I work at a major university and we have come upon the time when I will be complaining to anyone and everyone about my pet peeve. You want to know what that pet peeve is? Well, read on...

Why is that students choose to form a large talking circle in the most crowded areas of campus? I'm talking about by the cashiers at the Food Court, or the already crowded aisles of the Bookstore, or the main entrance of the Student Centre. They don't have "hey, how are you doing?" in passing kind of conversations, they go into great detail about their classes, or their overdue papers or how much beer they consumed the night before etc. etc. etc. Why is it that these seemingly bright people (after all, they ARE university students) don't see the hundreds of people who are trying to get around their sacred talking circle? They continue to stand there, talking and talking and talking.

The icing on the proverbial cake though, the real core of my pet peeve is students who do this while wearing a backpack. Now some of you may not be familiar with the backpacks that students currently carry. They don't just have a notebook, textbook and a pen or two - they come to school prepared for combat. The contents of these backpacks could sustain a small army for a few days. So when you happen upon them and politely say "Excuse me, please" the two centimetres that they move forward just doesn't cut it. That pack on their back, the size of an extra person, is still in the way.

Now before you all think I am some unfeeling, grumpy old lady, I don't begrudge the sacred talking circles. I'm sure they're a great way to socialize, but please people, MOVE 'EM OUT OF THE WAY!!!

Fruit Flies Be Damned

Have you ever thought about fruit flies? I mean REALLY thought about them. What useful purpose do those little suckers serve? Other than indicating to you that your fruit is about to become unfit for human consumption, what good are they? Surely you're smart enough to tell from that blackening banana peel or that bruised, smushy skin, that it might not be a good idea to eat that piece of fruit.

Fruit flies are annoying, that's for sure and you can never catch the damn things. They're so small, they just dart out of the way when you try to smash them between your hands. If you're doing this in public of course, it means that you have just clapped your hands together, usually very loudly and with great gusto, for nothing. You don't even have that squished body which would allow you to lift up your hand, point to it and claim victory. Nope, you're left looking either like you're shooing away imaginary people or clapping for some imaginary singer/poet/artist. Either way, you look like you're certifiable.

Today, I've been haunted by fruit flies. As I locked my front door this morning, I had a fruit fly hovering around my head. When I got out of my car in the parking lot at work, I was greeted by a fruit fly. When I was on my lunch, minding my own business, sitting reading my book, this damned fruit fly kept annoying me. I took the elevator back to my workplace and what was waiting for me as soon as those elevator doors opened? You got it, a fruit fly!

Of course, I wasn't able to kill any of them either. They have all survived to live on and multiply. I can envision swarms of fruit flies following me wherever I go. Some people I know are plagued by bird problems, for me, it's fruit flies. I guess we all have our crosses to bear.

Fruit flies be damned!!!

My First Time

I’m new to this blog thing. I admit that although adventurous by nature (at least that’s the rationalization I comfort myself with when I break the rules), I sometimes buck against the latest trends and techno stuff and don’t want to consider myself to be a member of the lemming-like population espousing support for this stuff. Having said that, I find myself rather hooked on this blog stuff. A friend sent me the link to a former co-worker’s blog, and that one contained the link to another former co-workers blog. That did it, I’m hooked now.

I sat for hours and hours reading stories, laughing out loud at the computer screen, my kids thinking for sure that their mother, who I’m sure always teetered on the edge of sanity in their teenage minds, had finally fallen over that edge. “Mom, what are you laughing at?” one would enquire. I would answer that I was reading some pretty funny stuff written by a former co-worker. My response was met with a “let’s just humour her and maybe she’ll get off the computer so I can use it” look from both of my boys.

My boys. I guess they will always be my “boys” even though they are both now temperamental teens, an alliterative phrase I’m sure all parents of kids 12 and older are familiar with. Of course that would require one of them to actually look up from the game that he’s playing on the _________ (insert Game Cube, PS2, Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance…or whatever other system he has that I have dutifully forgotten the name of) and the other to unglue the phone from his ear as he talks for hours on end to the girlfriend he said goodbye to in person just 5 minutes before calling her! Mr. Game player aficionado is also Mr. Computer hooker upper extraordinaire too. He started his summer off by networking my laptop and the PC so that BOTH boys could be internet ready at the same time. So much for me thinking I would finally be relieved of the eternal “are you done yet on the computer, mom?” question. It’s now me who is asking if I could possibly, maybe, perhaps be able to check my mail? Please, pretty please…I won’t take too long, I promise! Ah well, such is life.

(And you all thought you were going to read about my first time...ha ha ha!)