A pet peeve is defined as an annoyance, specifically, a particular behavior a person identifies as an irritation. Pet peeves are unique and sometimes quirky. Interestingly, the same irritation that makes your lip curl or eyes narrow in displeasure, might not disturb others at all.
Let’s write an ode to celebrate the little things that drive us batty!
Ode Poetry Prompt:
Choose your favorite pet peeve and write an ode to it. What makes that particular behavior the best of the worst?
(Here’s a long list of pet peeves in case you’ve forgotten what ruffles your feathers.)
We look forward to reading your poems! …oh, and we promise to chew quietly and try not to tap our pens on the table.
Thanks to all our participants in last week’s follow-up to our photo play and poetry prompt. Here’s part of a poem from Rosanne we thought fit nicely here:
Woolen threads
are coarse and scratch the surface
in ways the feet can never hide.
Featured photo by Rem-Zel. Creative Commons License via Flickr. Post by Heather Eure.
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Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!
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L. L. Barkat says
So… like an “Ode to People Who Put Themselves Down”? Something like that? 🙂
Heather Eure says
Similar, but more deflective-er.
Elizabeth marshall says
Or as we hear here 🙂 simular
Maureen Doallas says
That list is too much and, of course, has to star in my poem.
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Things Could Be Worse
No need to avoid the people
on public transportation. They will sit
next to you, read out loud, pick their noses,
make a sucking noise with their straws,
and never cover their mouths while sneezing.
It’s the law of inevitability,
and it’s bound to happen—
to you.
The men on trains who insist on sitting with their legs
spread wide are the same guys who leave
toilet seats up and call you “Babe”.
Don’t think to raise a finger
to the jerks who ignore yield signs.
They also won’t turn right
on red, can be counted on to take up two parking spaces
— everywhere — and always start i n c h i n g forward,
s l o w l y,
untilthelightturnsgreens.
These are the same people who zig-zag
in and out of express lanes
while reading the morning paper.
They tailgate like the gangstas they think they are.
You can complain that people chew with their mouths
open or let ice cream drop out of the bottom
of their sugar cones but look at this way:
You won’t be coming home to dirty dishes
in the sink or a lover who smacks
and pops his chewing gum while carrying on
a one-sided conversation in the third person.
You say you’ve got an office
mate who clips his nails at work,
whistles when he’s happy, and uses the fax
to call your home number. I want you to imagine this:
What if he didn’t use deodorant
and you were on the same business flight to India?
I agree. The bosses who think your job is your life
don’t look at you when you’re talking,
are always late to needless meetings they schedule, and crowd the only bathroom stall
with a mirror so they can see themselves while seated.
Do you think
that below those monogrammed-cuff-linked shirts
they’ve ever worn anything
but wife-beaters?
I know all about getting fruit in my bag on Halloween.
Give the givers a break: My neighbors practice
environmentalism with lawn ornaments but draw
the line at picking up dog poop on the sidewalk.
Can you blame adults who cuss
in front of children? At least they’re not senior citizens
whose every other word is “Hun.”
I hear you
have a lot of pet peeves: hypocrites, cops who burn
their tires while not chasing down criminals,
fake laughter, people who burp in public,
movie talkers, kids on leashes, blondes,
blondes having their blonde moments.
Did I ever tell you I have a thing about toothpaste
in the sink and people who make out
while I’m reading my junk mail?
Now don’t you be going
all negative on me again. I’ve never once left you
locked in a hot car with the windows rolled up,
spit while talking to you, or purposely skipped
pages during your favorite bedtime reading hour.
I concede I have been known to mumble: Yes,
things could be worse.
Heather Eure says
You win the internet, Maureen. Congratulations. This is fantastic. (Bonus points for using the word “gangsta”) Holla!
Richard Maxson says
Maureen, you got every one in here, I think. You left out the moms who shout “stop or we’re leaving” at least 100 times in the market to their kid, but they never just silently pick them up kicking and screaming and leave. What I kept enjoying about this was thinking that everyone who reads it will totally identify with these repeat occurrences. I’ve often thought the people you describe are actually hired to do what they do, where they do it. Thanks you for this.
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Maureen you delight and amaze. This is the bomb. (after “gagsta” I had to) to used incorrectly will show up in my “ode to pet peeville”.
You end with a real zinger 🙂 I am longing for a part two with more, Maureen.
Richard Maxson says
Church Intoning
You would like this task to be easier,
a small pin to hold a screen door closer,
to keep the plunger stem from slipping out.
My search so far: the length and width of stores
like Ace and Perkins Hardware, musty air
of factory oil mixed with days of toil
from hands on number eight machine head screws,
bagging them, each with their distinctive scent
of threads—it’s enough to notice all in all.
Finally I am at Home Depot with Deb,
exasperated at the disorder,
tens in with eights, People don’t care, you know,
she tries to sort them while looking for me.
So many carts now in the isle, she must
close the drawer and step back, and no one moves,
not one or the other giving ground—he,
with sheets and pounds of plywood to turn—she,
with a sink to large for the basket, we
could learn to share the isles, I know, to slow
our pace. I will come back another day.
Deb, her duty enduring all this, says
she knows where a pin might be, would I stay,
but the windows gray, a storm is coming,
and I am parked isles away outside. Deb,
I will look for you, I’ll be returning.
May I have the old pin back; it will do,
until a strong wind knocks it out again.
She smiles, Oh, sorry, here. Her hand is small
and smudged. She turns back and opens the drawer
again to sort the hundreds of clear bags,
but someone else, impatient to get home,
I hear say, Miss, can I get some help now?
Maureen Doallas says
Home Depot: such a great setting for a pet peeve ode, Richard. Well-done! Love how you conclude the poem.
Heather Eure says
Yes! Tens in with eights. Home Depot is full of savagery.
This is great, Richard. 🙂
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Richard between your poem and Maureen’s, I am breaking out in hives.
This is maddening and fun. (both and) That will make its/it’s way and so will that into my ode.
This is all fingers on the black board good.
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Ode To The “15 Items of Less” Line and Other Lines
Its entirely possible to hear a Tsunami of them
While standing sheepishly in the line
At Publix
With your 16 items, but whose counting
No really who is
But thankfully, while eavesdropping
One cannot detect the its and it’s
And too’s and to’s
Or the who’s and whose
But those are for another day or at least
Another ode
About peevish grammatical errors
It is what it is
I could care less
Tell me how you really feel
Honey, have a great day
Paper or plastic
Would someone stop asking
Debit or credit
It is all a broken record
Shall we count how many times a week
The guy at Barnes and Noble asks me if I want to save 10 % today
The answer is still no, but how would he know
That is for another ode
I digress
The buggy in the parking lot left
In the perfect parking place
And the car parked in the handicap place
Really?
Not really buying that
Especially when they come out to drive away
Without so much as a limp
Talking loud on their cell phone
Not, mind you, loudly
About uber personal things
I am not even lying
Really, I am being honest now
The one behind you in line…
What are the odds of that being
The guy, the very same one
Or his evil twin
Who whips out the blue and white
Sign to put over his rear view mirror
Before driving off to
Have a nice day
And he is the same guy
You can bet on it
Who will honk at you to pull
Out into traffic
I’m just saying
No doubt he
Also left the toilet paper
Roll
Well you know
And used the handicap stall
At Publix
And left his buggy
In the middle of the parking lot
The one that rolled back
And dinged your car
Have a nice day
Miss
When it rains it pours
Honey
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Title should read ” 15 items or less…” Typo’s drive me batty 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
A fun one, Elizabeth! Watch for the grammar freaks (“15 items or fewer…”), and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Where do we put the checkout person who’s talking on a cellphone and trying to key in at the same time?
Also, I need to clear something up: I really wasn’t intending to try to use all the peeves in that Get Annoyed list (someone said the list was annoying because it wasn’t numbered) but I thank Richard, anyway, because look what it’s fostered: pure fun.
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Ah yes. This is pure fun. And where do we put the coupons on the items which stay on the item, never being redeemed, well you get the point 🙂 and is it ever worth a dollar or two to drive back to the store with the “missed” coupon which remains on the item which you chose for its coupon…. Sigh.
And don’t worry…I will not say you didn’t warn me 🙂
Heather Eure says
Clever, Elizabeth! I adore your use of the southern vernacular. Haven’t heard the word “buggy” for a shopping cart since I left SC. Makes me a little homesick. 🙂
Parker Nash says
Elizbeth, This is very funny and spot on. The express line at Publix might be the most frustrating place on the planet. How come the people with the excess items are also the ones that insist on writing a check? Uh…what part of “express” don’t they get??
Marcy says
“Ole To A Pet Peeve”
Seems my challenge has begun, with Maureen
covering everything under the sun. Yet, I hate to see when old men pick at their noses and then flip it into the air. Where it landed, I don’t want to sit there. Then it’s the gum stuck on my shoe, blue is the color all fresh and new. Maybe it’s the walk to the mailbox and I don’t own a dog but I step in it’s pile leaving the smell for miles. That one that missed the shower for the week, gets on the elevator and I can’t even speak. Now it’s in the doctor’s office with me, talking loudly on it’s cellphone oh, give me a break please! It’s on the plane he’s old and loud, drank too much and won’t shut-up. He got the cute single young woman that sat by his seat. Every time he talks to her he turns and pulls at my long hair. As the plane begins to land, all his little bottles roll under my seat. Finally I turn and say, stop pulling my hair old man, never was I so glad to give him the evil eye. Then it’s the old man in the run down car doing 30 miles an hour in a 45 run. I pass him and stop at the light, he has the nerve to blow his horn at me. You don’t do that little man as I stepped down from my cab, grabbed a steel baseball bat and walked to his car. Looked down in his window and said, “You don’t blow your horn at me, got that little man?” Climb in my cab, light turns green move over to the right lane but he never passed me. Right now it’s the phone calls from the telemarketers that’s getting to me. They wake me up, keep me up, hang up on me. Yes, I’m on the list not to call me, my number is private and I’m as mad as can be. So I’ve started getting back at them too. When they call on my ID I answer Doctor Dowantoknow, how can I help you? All of a sudden they hang-up, I haven’t a clue.
Maureen Doallas says
Marcy, very creative. Great list of pet peeves.
I’d have to include in any new poem on pet peeves the visitors who come into your hospital room (assuming it’s a two-bed room) while you’re having a migraine and who turn on all the lights and rachet up the television’s sound.
And who is going to be the first to include the woman drenched in perfume who gets on the elevator and you just cannot breathe? Or the person who takes the last cup of coffee and does not make a new pot?
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Wow!! Just reading these makes my blood boil 🙂
We do need a poem with those poor left out peeved.
Maureen, will you do the honors. Here are a few more
* the litterbugs
* the boaters who cause a wake in the no wake zone
* the loud library “guests”
* the double dipper
*.the salad bar sneezer
🙂
Heather Eure says
Stepping in gum. Maddening. Yep. Enjoyed this, Marcy!
Marcy says
A thousand “Yes’s” Maureen to the one I was going to mention but forgot. The drenched woman in perfume, who can breathe, old women and school teachers are the worst. My poor son could not sit though class. The large male teacher who would fall asleep in class then fart before waking himself up. I’m really getting a laugh out of this one. Thanks for all the comments.
Parker Nash says
Hi all, I’m a new here…really enjoying exploring the site. A pet peeve of mine are people that just have to correct your grammar.
THE GRAMMAR LESSON
An English teacher walking home
From class one autumn night
Is accosted by a snarling wolf
That gives her quite a fright
“By your size and your formation,
You’re like nothing that I know”
“Werewolf growled the monster…
“T’is the full moon makes me so”
“A talking wolf, she cried in shock,
“That’s really quite precocious,
But Sir Wolf, I’m sad to say
Your grammar’s quite atrocious
Oh, your muscles are of sinew
And your coat shines like a mink’s
Your eyes reflect the starlight,
But your conjugation stinks!
Take no offense you wretched beast,
But I must beg your pardon
How can you say you were a wolf
When you still clearly are one?
If you choose to butcher people,
Well, it’s all the same to me,
But I just can’t let you butcher
The simple verb to be
Now if you’ll pay attention,
I’ll explain the best I can.
That when speaking in the present tense
You say a wolf I am
And if the past tense should apply,
As I’m sure sometimes it does,
You still don’t say I were a wolf
You say a wolf I was
And when looking to the future
As the full moon sets you free
Well then, my friend, it’s fair to say
A lovely wolf I’ll be
For something more exotic
Toss a participle in
The imperfect: having been a wolf…
Or the perfect: wolf I’ve been
That’s quite enough for this time
I feel you’ve done your best
Now you go home and practice,
‘Cause next time there’ll be a test!”
The creature bared its ivory fangs
And crouched down on its paws
It growled deep within its throat
And spread its awful jaws
“Wait! I am, I am a teacher”
She cried to the charging cur
He gobbled her, then licked his chops,
And said “You mean you were!”
Maureen Doallas says
Welcome, Parker.
I don’t think we’ve experienced grammar werewolves here before. Fun piece, especially the conclusion.
Heather Eure says
Parker, welcome! Pull up a chair and make yourself at home. So glad you shared this! We needed a werewolf poem. I *may* have told a Tweetspeaker that the other day.
Enjoyed reading it. So fun. I do hope you’ll share more of your poems here. 🙂
Parker Nash says
Oops…focused on the pet peeve…missed the ode part. Feel free to remove….I’ll pay more attention in the future
L. L. Barkat says
Nah, we won’t remove. Welcome to Tweetspeak! 🙂 (last line totally made me smile)
Maureen Doallas says
Thank you, thank you to the litter
-bugs who leave us space to clean.
But if it’s true they trash the boaters,
the big and small who capsize floaters,
I say, then, call in our drones
from the flooded no-wake zones.
And thank you, thank you
to the double-dippers
who take more than their fair share;
they’re like the bullies in the sand box
who never survive a dare.
And thank you, too, to the woman who smells
more than that little dab’ll do her.
Her trail is long that we’d follow if we could
but most of us would just prefer
she keep to her ‘hood.
A special note of thanks for the salad bar
sneezer. But better him, you say,
than the old bald geezer
who ogles much too long
the place where eyes do not belong.
And the loud library guests, let us thank
them as well. Beware the finger
to your lips, though,
they’re apt to make life h…..
A thumbs up to the kickers and screamers;
it’s their mommas for the hundredth time
we’d like to clobber with our sneakers.
Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you
to the people with pet peeves.
Not a one of us is without them
and every one of us strives to please.
Heather Eure says
Maureen, you rock. You also used ‘hood in your ode! I’m just going to declare us best friends right now. You will receive your half of the “BFF’s 4EVA” heart pendant in the mail soon.
Maureen Doallas says
Oh my goodness, Heather.
Reading that line again, I think it probably sounds better as ‘she keep to her own ‘hood.’
Parker Nash says
Maureen, That was great….made me smile…several times,actually…except for the ones that struck too close to home..:)
Richard Maxson says
Ode To Hyperbole
The fingernails of sensation hang on
to the crashes
and the great robberies—
dealer’s choice stacked
from Jimmy Choos.
I turn my head
from their gruesome scenes—
the newsprint hawkers
calling from curbside
boxes full of photos and font,
blaring elephantine
along the scuffed curbsides.
The beggar on the corner
says the world is real
and ends with the October moon.
People rush by in Burberry,
hair and fragrances flowing,
their steps complex, cacophonous
against the expansion-jointed promenade.
Somewhere down the street, in a few clicks,
money disappears, the nails are painted—
My Chihuahua Bites—
digits separated with felt cushions;
the sharks circle in the roundabouts.
What sells is killer, we know it well.
Keys in one hand, hand in pocket,
tip the ticket taker trotting to your car.
What is black and white and red all over,
read all about it for the last ten years!
Down the paper pages of Rodeo,
deep in their folds
a beggar rises,
who knows Shakespeare
and wears his cuffs
with links thirty-four inches
from the shoulder; the cars slow,
before they quietly disappear
in the fractured palm shadows.
Heather Eure says
Very striking, Richard. I like it.
Feeling a wee bit guilty for squealing about the color “My Chihuahua Bites” when I read this. 😉
Marcy says
Maureen, loved the last one too. My keyboard keeps getting stuck each letter is a struggle so to all of you this last ole to the keyboard will have to do.
Maureen Doallas says
Marcy, We’ll add stuck keys to our next ode rounds.
mark says
Bad poets – live and in person
They’re my pet peeve
So subjective – no one but them gets it
They inspire me to leave.
Blogging that is futile
Really, it’s so brutal
Why do so many pretend?
I’m really not negative
Just putting in perspective
Only stroking each other is bizarre.
Isn’t that what petting zoos are for?
Feigning popularity – now that’s a pet
Peeve for me – so why am I writing anyway?
May be that it might please me
But historically it peeves me
I’m writing just because it’s Saturday.
Thanks for the opportunity
I hope that you’re not peeved at me
But you’re the one who asked me anyway.
Please have yourselves a nice, poetic day.
Marcy says
Ode to the Poets who try
We join right along trying our best
just to fit in and learn from the best.
Kindness abounds when we finally get it right,
Brings on a smile, it feels really nice.
No book on Amazon to order with our name
spelled correct.
No one asking us to write them a poem yet. However, we are kind hearted people just doing our best, in our minds we know we
are not first class.
Writing is fun, it makes me happy when days
are hard and pain is bad.
If writing can do that for a soul like me,
then I won’t give up you see.
These people here are like family to me.
To write that poem, the one that gets published for all to read.
Now that’s something to bring me to my knees.
I’ll just keep trying everyday to better
myself in what I say.
Freedom of words comes with a price,
There will always be someone who isn’t nice.
When your told your years are few to come,
It changes a person and to whom they become.
Each day is a blessing be it sun or rain,
Writing with a group so special means
everything.
No, I’m not blind, my poems don’t always come out fine.
It seems I love the skin I’m in, though the parts on my arms like to flap in the wind.
At least I laugh and smile through the pain.
Your insides you can’t see.
One thing is for sure, I’m not leaving this
world without a room full of laughter, a
glass of wine in my hand.
Surrounded by friends who know who I am.
Music in the background playing Peter, Paul
and Mary.
Lift up a glass and toast the one who tried
with all her merry.
Heather Eure says
Cheers, Marcy.
L. L. Barkat says
“No, I’m not blind, my poems don’t always come out fine.”
Ah, neither do mine, Marcy. I think there’s something to be said for writing for oneself and sharing among friends just for the joy of it. (I do that, too, and I don’t try to get those poems published. It all comes to purposes, doesn’t it? 🙂 )
Marcy says
Heather and L. you make smile, wow, would someone grab a Kleenex box for me. It’s all about acceptance, kindness, and God bringing me to my knees.