The One with the Pet Peeves

I can't believe I have to write something like this in the blog. I love nothing more than just praising and raving about things but for crying out loud, sometimes, when people really get into your nerves, it's time to really say something.

1. Texting while walking or driving 

Look where you're about to walk, for cripe's sake! 

This goes without saying. If you're walking around the mall and you're texting, you're prolly more focused on that SMS you're sending than where you're going. Sometimes, people in the mall are actually rushing to get their grocery shopping done, so please, for the love of God, watch where you're walking.

If you're a driver without a soul and you tend to text while driving, please check your rearview mirror for people like me that just want to overtake you but because it's a narrow street, I can't. For the love of all that's holy, please find a way to communicate with you BF/GF/Dad/Mom/Boss/Friend/Friend with Benefits that doesn't involve you being a complete turd on the road. I hope you never get into a road accident because you just have to SMS someone.

2. Loud, loud, loud and lousy music blaring off your speakers in the middle of the night, aggravated by the fact that you sing along with a mic. 

If you look and sound like this chick, I can and will forgive you but otherwise... 

If you're my neighbor, please have the decency to let me sleep in on weekends. Sometimes, I find myself waking up a neighbor's rendition of "Till My Heartaches End" in their scratchy cigarette-husky voices. And please, if you're a mom and you're celebrating your son/daughter's birthday and thought of "renting" a videoke machine to mark the occasion, find a spot in the street where it's not like someone died in your family and you're hosting a funeral! For the love of all that's holy, keep it down, woman! Keep it down! (Is it obvious that I am talking about one specific person?! Well, I am and if you're reading this, good for you! Go fashion forward this season, Madame, and please, take your friends or kids' friends to Red Box where chicken wings won't get you all oily and sweaty and where we won't hear your rendition of "Papa Don't Preach" whilst you dance thinking you're part of the Glee gang!

3. If you're a cab driver - DO NOT HIT ON ME! 

Cabbies - fast and furious, most of them creeps, some of them nice and it makes me want a car more and more. 

I understand the sad plight of cab drivers all around the Metro. I don't push for a discount, I hardly just ever pay the exact meter and I am super nice. Sometimes, when I actually have food, I share my food with them cos I know how hard it is to be working for so long that you don't have time for a little snack. Because a lot of the time, I'm on the road and a lot of my appointments are very flexible in terms of time, I even allow them to refuel, load water and yes, even make the trip to the john while I'm on the passenger seat. Heck, I even ride on the passenger seat, cos I'm not a snob. I like conversations with cabbies.

Some of the cabbies I've spoken with talk about the weather, politics, sports, showbiz (local), a few are actually amazingly elite (There was the one that would talk about his iPhone, while I only have an E71... One was a former Manila Hotel concierge that was just doing a favor for a friend... One owned the cab he was driving - come on, who uses an Altis as a cab?! There was that one guy that was rushing to go to Starbucks after he dropped me off the office cos he was going to meet a friend. Another one was a Spanish teacher in Telus that only drove cabs so he can mingle with the unwashed masses... ack!). A few are just plain creepy!

I have experienced riding with cabbies that would ask for my name, my number, my age, tell me out of nowhere that I'm beautiful, tell me off-hand that real men please their women and would even go as far as give me the "look" (the look that tells you that they're not imagining you in an apron... or maybe they are, except that you're nekkid underneath). Because I work at night and I get dropped off a call centre, there was even one that said that his former GF was from a call centre and that maybe I can be picked up later. I mean come on, guys, not because a woman rides a cab ALONE means she is alone (this is technically true for me). Saturday afternoon cabbie was extremely creepy. Old man with the goatee and the golf hat decided to chat me up in the middle of the road and told me that I was pretty, and raved on and on about how "smooth" I was and that he guesses that I'm smooth and fair all over, and went on about how he hopes that they guy that waited for the cab with me (James, my mean best friend at work) isn't my BF. I chose to ignore "Manong Driver" the whole time and played with my phone instead. He kept saying that he's old but his knees are still strong (Matanda na ako pero malakas pa tuhod ko... in the vernacular). I'm like, OMG, I have to get off this cab! Thankfully, I was a few blocks away and I decided to just get off the street next to mine, where traffic was abound and people were up and about. Mind you, this was at 5PM in the afternoon!

If you're a cabbie and you really need money, creeping lady passengers isn't the way to do it. And if you're a cabbie and you're not there for the money but for something else, please, keep your thoughts and your eyes off me! I don't appreciate it!

4. If you're a commuter and you have a soul, please bathe, brush your teeth and be clean before riding a train or jeepney and please make sure that if you're not fresh-smelling anymore, that you have the decency to at least close your mouth or not wave your pits at me or anyone else. It's nauseating. 

Are these for sale, cos sometimes, I think I badly need one. 

I'm not preggers and I'm not going to be in the next 5 years or so (ack, see how well I've planned my life out?!) but for the love of God, whenever I alight from a public commuter train, the only thing I wanna do is hurl. One, there's just way too many passengers. Apart from the immeasurable number of people and the heat and the dirt coming off the A/C unit of the beat-up carriages, the smell of people really troubles me. I tolerate sweat just fine, but come on... if you forgot your Rexona earlier in the day, have the decency to keep your arms on your sides for the benefit of those that breathe the same air as the one stagnantly staying in your area. Also, if you haven't brushed for the day, try to buy some candy. They cost 50 cents a pop, and smelling mixed saliva and red cherry candy may be better than smelling some rotting cabbage off your mouth. I smoke a lot and I am not fresh all the time but I will have the decency to keep my pits to my arms instead of waving it around, and I will also not open my mouth so close to another human being, especially if that human being is not a friend!

5. If you're ordering coffee and there's a queue, please freakin' make up your mind before you're in the freakin' queue!!! Also, if you're a mom, please don't take your son/daughter with you to the smoking area of the coffee shop and give me stares when I light up! If you're an older woman who have had your experience in the world, please don't judge me because I like nicotine with my caffeine. If you see me light up a joint, that's the time you should raise your eyebrows at me, old-timer! 

Getting coffee used to be fun until everyone else wanted in on it. 

I have almost had it with people who can't get enough of themselves, their opinions and their newest designer coffee! Starbucks used to be fun before it became the next MiniStop or 7-11. Imagine being there to start your day and you have to fall in line next to a mom on her cellphone with her 5-year old son latched on to her leg, a guy that's obviously just there to scope out the scene, a couple PDA-ing (Read: Public Display of Affection) and 10,000 other call centre employees. Then check out this other scenario I encountered last time I went to meet up with a friend - an older woman in the counter of Starbucks and using her senior citizen discount card, to the bemusement and puzzlement of the baristas cos they prolly don't know how to deduct a certain percentage off the actual price of the coffee... and I'm the next one. My friend had to circle round the place cos he can't even park his car!

What's worse is when you actually sit in the smoking area of some of the biggest Starbucks around. I experienced a mom staring so angrily at me cos she had her daughter with her in the smoking area. I mean, mom, seriously, there's a reason why it's called a smoking area. I wasn't gonna light up but then her husband alighted from their car and started lighting up too. So, is it a woman thing? Like I'm supposed to understand that the only second-hand smoke you want you daughter to inhale is your husband's? Let me tell you one thing, sister, they're all pretty much cancerous, so if I were in your shoes, I would actually take my daughter and sit inside, where it's cozy and A/C'd and I would kick my imbecile husband for exposing me and my daughter to that cancerous vice! Second of which, I won't even bring my daughter to a Starbucks cos what the heck is she gonna drink? Apple Berry Juice Freeze?! Why give her a 100 peso designer drink when I can take her someplace that has healthy options for her like an actual fruit shake with yoghurt?! Don't even get me started on the desserts there cos it just ain't the family place you think it is.

Also, people, if you smoke and you wanna take grandpoppy and grandmommy or mum and pop with you to Starbucks, seat them where they don't smell cigarette smoke, please?! I mean come on... There's this older woman that kept making unnecessary noises when she was left seated in the balcony of a Timog Starbucks once cos she kept smelling smoke. She would roll her eyes when I light up. I mean come on, Madame... It's a smoking area. If you didn't notice that off the sign, please look around and know that while I may be the only woman lighting up, I'm not the only one lighting up. It's not Victorian England. Yes, I can drive, I can earn as much as a male counterpart, I can shoot a gun with one eye closed and yes, I can smoke cigarettes when I have my coffee. If I choose to die of lung cancer, it's by choice.

No photographers were harmed during the making of this post. 
All photos were obtained legally via Stock Xchnge.