What's Your Peeve Level?

Don't give me that "holier-than-thou" look when I ask what the current top five on your pet peeves list are. We all have things that eat away at us like a squirrel gnawing on an old pecan.

• The "dude" in the 10-item-or-less express line at the grocery store with his monthly shopping (over 10, over 15 — do I hear over 20 items?!?!).

• The lady that grabs the one item in a store of 12,000+ items that doesn't have a price tag, and of course the person who works in that department just started their 30-minute lunch break. After no one can be found to tell them the price, the cashier comes up with a price off the top of her head of $15.99, and the customer says, "I'll think about it..."

• Convenience store clerks that ask a 50-year-old lady for her ID to buy a pack of cigarettes (how cute, how adorable, how special!!), and meanwhile the line is eight people deep while the lady digs in her purse and pulls out the pictures of her nine grandkids to get to her license and prove she's over 21.

• Try this one — you pick up the dry cleaning, and your clothing has a very visible spot on it that wasn't there when you brought it in. Then they try to convince you it was there. It's almost duke-it time, and they aren't smart enough to see that you're a "life-long" customer (if they'd just take care of you!).

• Next on the list — clerks who have people sign up for credit cards and preferred customer cards while check-out lines back up. Not to mention any names, but (Kohl's, Best Buy, Steinmart and CVS) are the worst offenders.

• A real biggie — people who go through a large intersection on a green light, but stop immediately on the other side of the intersection to turn LEFT into a business on the corner. Breakdown!!! Instead of planning ahead (30 seconds max) by working their way over to the left-turn lane, turning left at the intersection, then turning RIGHT into the business on the corner, they block the inside lane of traffic while waiting for the cars in the opposing two lanes to clear out so they can turn. Instead of being selfish, blocking the intersection and messing up the traffic flow, be a good citizen and do the LEFT, then RIGHT thing!

• For all of you coupon users, what's the deal with restaurants having "buy one, get one for half-price" coupons? Whatever happened to "buy one meal, get one free"?

• That leads us to waiters or waitresses that take your order and gets every order wrong, or (as my friend Doris will attest to) that they just flat-out didn't turn your order in to the kitchen. Talk about a long wait!!! But at least they gave me a free breadstick. A FREE BREADSTICK — isn't that special???

Remember, if you know someone buying or selling, tell them to give me a call. 

PS: All comments are appreciated, even if they're negative. I take criticism well, but not long!