The twins were supposed to get their 5-year portraits done this afternoon, but Edward got SIX mosquito bites on his forehead a few days ago and they still look bad today so I called and canceled. My late mother-in-law used to tell over and over again (seriously, EVERY VISIT) a story of when Preschooler Paul had a huge forehead scrape/lump but her pinehole husband wouldn’t let her reschedule the portrait, saying in his Superior Pinehole Voice “That’s what he looks like today. That is what he looks like today.” She told this story ADMIRINGLY, often ending with, “And he was right! That WAS what he looked like that day!”
Well, YES, but I am not trying to CAPTURE THE MOMENT here, I am trying to capture a YEAR, and he did NOT have an enormous forehead situation ALL YEAR! If he HAD had it all year, I would GLADLY have it photographed! But I am not trying to document “The Mosquito-Bite Forehead of June 14-17, 2010” in this session. It is “Age Five” I am trying to document. AGE FIVE.
And I wonder why his forehead would be so particularly delicious to mosquitoes? Although actually, he says it’s SPIDER bites, and if he’s right I don’t want to know, I really don’t. I am just going to keep saying MOSQUITO BITES, and I’m not going over to the part of the yard they’ve been playing in. And if you think I’m going to Google “spider bites” to see what they look like, you’ve gone slap out of your mind.
So! Speaking of this morning, our neighbor was mowing the lawn at 7:15. This shouldn’t annoy me, since we’re all up by then and so it doesn’t affect me at all. But our neighbor doesn’t know that, and so it annoys me IN THEORY. Do you have stuff like this, where you’re NOT annoyed and yet you also ARE annoyed because you COULD BE legitimately annoyed, even though as it happens you’re NOT? I seem to always be talking myself through these things. “We can’t even HEAR the loud party from this side of our house AND it’s not waking up any of the kids, so there is NO REASON to be annoyed.” “I don’t even really need to get in touch with him so it’s no big deal that I can’t.”
Yes, I get annoyed when people are inconsiderate even if nobody was put out by it. Like, someone is blocking a sidewalk because they just HAD to pull their car out across it to see if they could turn out onto the street, and even if they are gone by the time I arrive to WALK on the sidewalk, I am annoyed that they blocked it for a few minutes even though I wasn’t there.
YES. Like the time that UPS called me at SIX A.M. so that a recorded voice could inform me that a package would be delivered that day between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. (NOT HELPFUL INFORMATION), and I HAPPENED to be awake because I’d just gotten up to pee, but NORMALLY I don’t get up until eight and they were just LUCKY I was awake at six on that particular day. Because WHO CALLS AT SIX A.M.?
Also, “Superior Pinehole Voice.” Bwahaha.
Oh YES. I’m always getting annoyed In Theory and my husband thinks I’m nuts. He’s all “but it ISN’T effecting you”. No, but it COULD be.
I have that type of theoretical annoyance with my neighbors ALL THE TIME. I can only hear their partys/people hanging out on the back balcony if I’m waaaaaay in the back of our apartment, by the cat litter boxes. Obviously I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out by the litter boxes, but WHAT IF I WANTED TO BE BACK THERE? Then they would annoy me. Thus, I am theoretically annoyed.
I have that type of theoretical annoyance with my neighbors ALL THE TIME. I can only hear their partys/people hanging out on the back balcony if I’m waaaaaay in the back of our apartment, by the cat litter boxes. Obviously I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out by the litter boxes, but WHAT IF I WANTED TO BE BACK THERE? Then they would annoy me. Thus, I am theoretically annoyed.
I am theoretically annoyed by loud motorcycles that drive by past 9:00 PM. It could wake the children! It never has, but it could.
OMG, you are amazing! Too long of a story to explain, but Theoretical Annoyance could not describe the situation more perfectly! Thank you!!
I have a long one but right now I’m just testing your comment form. Again.
Yes. You have just completely annoyed me.
:)
OMG Yes! I used to get theoretically annoyed at my neighbors’ loud-ish parties! But they never woke up the kids and I wasn’t sleeping or studying or anything, so technically I wasn’t annoyed, but I could have been!
For about 5 years in a row, my little brother happened to have a mosquito bite on his forehead in his portrait! It’s funny to look back at them now, as if he had one bite that didn’t heal between the ages of 2 and 7.
“Used to get annoyed.” Those people are not my neighbors, any more.
I’ve seen this theoretical annoyance in my single days from male friends when they were accompanying me somewhere and another man would flirt with me. “For all HE knew, we could have been TOGETHER!”
I like you feisty. Your last two posts have killed me. OMG, “The Mosquito-Bite Forehead of June 14-17, 2010″…seriously, tears in my eyes.
I get theoretically annoyed all the time. Back when my husband and I were first married we lived in an apartment that had new apartments being build up all around us. There was loud construction noise all the time and I would always say “What if we had kids trying to nap!?!” and my husband could never understand why it bothered me since we, um, didn’t have kids.
What I get annoyed at for real is that my mother-in-law also tells the same damned stories over and over every time she visits. Then if I don’t respond fast enough she’ll say “Huh? Huh? Did you hear me?” and I’m all “Yes I heard you but I’m trying to come up with some kind of response that will cause you to remember forever and ever that you already told me this story 49 times so that I don’t have to hear The Story Of That One Time You Forgot Your Reusable Grocery Bag At Home ever again for the rest of my life.”
I actually think theoretical annoyance plays a huge role in Actual Annoyance…like how a slightly-annoying sound becomes 100% vastly more annoying once you’ve asked the individual making the sound to please stop or reduce the sound. Or how seeing dog poo on your lawn and thinking “It would just make me SO MAD if one of the kids stepped in this and who ARE these people who think it’s okay to not clean after their dogs” etc. makes you (well, uh, me) much more likely to fly off the handle when a child then DOES step in it.
Ooo, theoretical annoyance, good topic.
I get theoretically annoyed at the ice cream truck that drives through our neighborhood at EIGHT PM every evening, with its loud, irritating music. Ava is asleep at that time, but what if we were a NORMAL family whose kids were settling down for the night! Not only is it LOUD, but I would have to explain WHY we could not have ice cream 5 minutes before bed! Ahh! 8pm is TOO LATE, ice cream man! Summer or no!
People can annoy me just by breathing my freaking air, I do know what you mean. The jerkhole next door mows the lawn EVERY Monday at like 8:00. We have been up for HOURS by that point, but it’s a super loud mower and my daughter always goes crazy, thinking it’s my Dad (he does our lawn). “WHERE PEEPA?” she screams. WHEEEEEERRRRREEEE PEEEEEEEEPA? Ugh.
Yes! Our neighbors have a party with REALLY LOUD music and a bouncy house about once a month. You can only here it of you’re in the bathroom, but still. Really? A bouncy house and thumping rap music for 10+ hours once a month? REALLY?!?
Our upstairs neighbors do a number of ACTUALLY annoying things, but the theoretical one that bugs me the most is when they open our garage door instead of theirs to walk outside. It’s always when we aren’t home, so the door-opening noise doesn’t affect us, and they’re normally outside gardening and whatnot, so the open door itself doesn’t bother me, but there is no reason they should want to open our door; the two are side by side. So it’s the idea that I would never open THEIR garage door instead of ours because I would feel impolite and also, WHY?
Oooh theoretical annoyance, YES. The other day I said something about my “partner” and the person I was talking to (not someone I know well) was like “your lucky boyfriend blah blah.” Yes, I DO happen to have a boyfriend, but I said PARTNER. What if I was a lesbian and you just made an incorrect assumption and insulted me?
Our neighbors have a service and they were mowing the other day at 6:45. Hubby says they’ve done it before and I’ve just slept through it, but MAN did I find that annoying. That is WAY TOO EARLY if you ask me.
Oh my yes. Esp at husband, honestly. I’m not an easily angered person, so often he’ll want to do things and I’ll feel fine about it initially, but then I’ll relay the situation and someone will get mad because it’s something that WOULD annoy them. So then I’m like, “Huh. Should I be mad that he’d even ask to do this since it’s possible that I MIGHT have been annoyed if I were a normal person?”
My neighbors are out LEAFBLOWING on Sundays at 7:15am, and normally I am totally non-confrontational, but I straight up told them I was sleeping and they woke me up. To their credit, they were super apologetic and said they wouldn’t do yard work again before 9am. I think super unacceptable, frankly, but my kids and I are late sleepers.
Oh, gosh yes!
My neighbor frequently mows his lawn early-early on Sunday mornings and, while we’re early risers and have plenty to do on the weekends, and it really doesn’t bother us much to have to close the window while the guy OBSESSIVELY mows his lawn two or three times, but still (especially when he was using that old mower that sounded like a WWI fighter plane about to go down), but you know, no big deal. Even though, really, does the guy KNOW what time it is? It COULD be really annoying, if I were a less kind and patient person.
So yeah.
Oh, the guys that live in the apt downstairs – the noise at all hours, the endless carpentry projects – they haven’t woken my toddler up yet, but they COULD! And why must they keep the water running all hours, causing me to have to pee 80 times a day (we can hear it running in our walls) and causing a high pitched whine all damned day that I hardly notice anymore, except when the baby monitor is on (naptime) and I have to hear it amplified like a damned police siren. And don’t even get me started on how two 25 year olds feel the need to park in the one handicap spot we have in our enormous parking lot just because it’s one space closer to the door (never mind the guy with the wheelchair or the older guy with the cane that both live in our building). Jerks!
I just wanted to say I think the word “pinehole” is hilarious! :)
Around here everyone mows early because it is 189 degrees by ten o’clock, but still, yes, it is annoying to hear a lawn mower that early. My neighbor has a dog that barks All. Night. Long. and it actually annoys me, not theoretically. I can just turn on a fan and I can’t hear the dog, but still. ANNNOYING.
oh man i am LOVING these Theoretical Annoyance tales!! i’ve also had guys who are not dating me be upset if another guy talks to me (because THEY didn’t know we weren’t dating!!) and like missris, i’ve been theoretically annoyed for my potentially lesbian self when people assume i’m straight. even though i am.
Must be going around..my neighbor was mowing the lawn at 9:30 last night…right outside Pie’s window. I was greatly annoyed.
Our neighbors installed these beacons—ok, they are lamp posts at the end of their driveway. They miss shining in our window by a hair. I’m annoyed because I’m sure they never gave us any thought and they totally COULD be shining in to our house…even though they’re not.
No one should mow at 7:15am. The only allowable excuse is that it’s going to be 105 degrees by 10am and you simply must mow or you’re going to get a citation for high grass.
My husband never seems to be able to answer his cell phone when I call. It’s never an emergency. BUT IT COULD BE.
Oh! And also! We used to live on a street with two churches, neither of which had much parking. Obviously parking on our street was extremely tight on Sundays and one time someone parallel parked right across our driveway. Completely covering it! Blocking my car in 100%! I didn’t have any plans to drive anywhere, but I was so theoretically annoyed that I actually left an angry note on their car. I had to hide when mass let out so they wouldn’t know I was home.
I could have had to leave! They didn’t know!
YES! My (very nice) neighbours bought an AC unit that bothered me in theory so bad that I was thinking seriously about selling our house and moving… all throughout the month *before* it was installed. Once it was installed it wasn’t nearly as annoying as it was before when I actually lost sleep over it.
I spend (waste?) a lot of time on theoretical annoyance. A lot. Like, I get worked up, and deliver long diatribes to my poor husband about how RUDE and INCONSIDERATE these people are and can’t they SEE that there are SOCIAL NORMS THEY ARE VIOLATING?
I am a big rule-follower, you’ll be stunned to learn.
I was actually annoyed by my neighbours lawnmower Sunday morning. We know these people very well, he knows where my children’s bedrooms are (between our houses), he knew we had been to the drive-in theater the night before (LATE night), he could have used a couple of brain cells and figured out the kids weren’t awake yet because their blinds were still closed. Yet what did I wake up to at 9am, the lawnmower being fired up between our houses.
He may be upset with me now, since his eyes were assaulted having to look at me with bed head and in my PJ’s, but that’s what happens when you pull a move like that and your grumpy neighbour has to come outside to tell you to turn off the mower.
I think this annoyed me more because I grew up in a small town were their was a noise by-law in effect until Noon on Sundays. I liked that by-law, no one needs to fire up noisey equipment of any sort so early on a Sunday morning.