The Little Flowers of Perpetual Annoyance

"Why, that was almost vicious, Lali." She said with some surprise. I was surprised that she was, she knew how I functioned, after all.

Well, I am a mild person, but that doesn't mean I don't have pet peeves and things that irk me. Dozens of things irritate me, but I generally don't vent about them, not until I started blogging anyway. In this case, it was about language. A perfectly well educated young lady who ought to have known better, and her speech went somewhat like this: well, I was like… and he went… so I was like, dude, but he was like…

People use profanities as punctuation. I am used to it and have learned, if not to grin and bear it, at least to wince inwardly and ignore it. Swearing is a personal choice, and if people can't offend, make their point or insult creatively using words instead of swearwords, it only reflects on their linguistic capacity, after all. Being reluctant or unable to say 'I said' maybe fashionable, but it smacks of poor education or some speech impediment to me.

People carrying umbrellas irritate me. No, I don't object to their trying to protect themselves from the elements, but I do object to people being mostly shorter than me, and toting their brollies at the precise height that will threaten a poke in my eye. I wish I was taller or they were, or I was shorter, whichever, so I could be out of range. The ducking and weaving I have to do to avoid potential jabs from these umbrella wielders annoys me.

Women with flowing tresses annoy me. It is not envy, okay? I wear my hair short for my reasons and if they have the time and inclination to look after long hair, they are welcome to their manes, and it is their prerogative. What I object to is having their hair fly into my face as I stand in a queue behind them, or on the streets. I am not their boyfriend to swoon as the strands brush against me. I don't want sahara of their mehki hui zulfein and it usually smells of sweat anyhow. Why can't they keep their hair drawn into a neat ponytail?

I get annoyed when thoughtless youngsters walk three or four abreast ahead of me. They are having marvellous conversations, they are trading jokes and punch lines, hooting, giggling and having the time of their lives going to college. They are also holding me up as I try to do my shopping and walk down the same road to my Madrasi shop and such. Trying to pass them muttering "excuse me" gets me variously, responses that range from "oh, you are excused," "ooh, soooo sorry " and this in the vernacular, so I only get the gist of it, "did your grandfather buy this road, then?" I can retort "did yours?" but it is pointless.

I can't decide what irritates me more, their ambling when I am in a hurry, or how badly taught they are in minimal courtesies of the road.

Girls teetering on ill-fitting high heels, toes or heels sticking out make me gnash my teeth. They don't come up to my eye-level even with in that insanely high footwear. Why can't they buy properly sized shoes? Who are they trying to convince they are tall? They walk with mincing steps, with toes clenching to stay aloft, balancing precariously. And when you add painted-on jeans that make free striding impossible it just gets worse.

Toes sticking out of trendy footwear and having trouble coping with the insane high heels that may be perfect for the catwalk but totally unsuited to negotiate Calcutta streets-- it is so ugly it is pathetic. Who wants to have a permanent backache induced by being thrown out of balance by those heels and hitching one's pelvis forwards? Don't they look at themselves in a mirror before they leave home? Haven't they ever seen themselves walking, say in a mall mirror? Why don't they curl up in embarrassment? Oh, it is because I do, on their behalf.

And I don't know which irritates me more, chipped nail polish or toenails grown to talon lengths. It is silly to grow one's toenails to long lengths and shape them to tapering points, you'd only jab yourself sooner or later, and meanwhile you are an eyesore to every aesthete out there. If you want to sport painted toenails the least you can do is to make sure it doesn't grow out with the nails and get chipped along the way. Don't get me started on cracked heels and dirty feet in trendy footwear sported by well-dressed pretty young things. How long does it take to use a pumice stone in your bath, for pity's sake?

Mangling of verbs while chatting irritates me: sented, lefted, and worse. It is only cute if you are a baby learning to talk. Shortening words to component consonants irritates me. There might be shortage of resources in the world, but surely typing the vowels doesn't take long, and doesn't speed up the global warming all that much, does it? It is worse when the reverse happens, too. You have time to type 'I heart something' but you don't have the sense to type love in place of heart? Why stint on vowels and act twee, primitive-and-outmoded-concept-on-a-crutch?

When I write a perfectly courteous mail and get a supercilious or a condescending reply, it rankles. When I make a nutritious meal and my men choose to order delivery, it rankles, too. But that's a post for another day. Let's stick to the linguistic stupidities educated young people who really ought to know better prefer to embrace. I was like. Indeed. He went. Really, where did he go? So me said. Hm, didn't they teach grammar in your school, ducky?

So, as I was talking to the young lady, what I longed to say was different from what I said. Which rock did you bury your grammar skills under, and can you retrieve them before your brain atrophies and you forget, was what I wanted to say. What I said was mild, that it was good to see her coping so well with ataxic aphasia, which can really play havoc with some people.

Luckily, she had a sense of humour too. So after she got it, and got over the surprise of my being nasty, she laughed and stopped saying 'I was like' when she meant 'I said.' For my part, I refrained from pointing out that it should have been 'I had said.'

Cheers!