Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Pet Peeves and General Rantings of a Lunatic Mind

Who doesn’t have a pet peeve? I have one friend who cringes whenever someone crunches and chews on ice. I have another friend who always crunches and chews his ice. I try not to seat them together at a dinner party.

As a woman, I hate to walk into a bathroom where the toilet seat is up. My best guy friend hates it when I leave his bathroom without putting the toilet seat back up. He tells me that if I am to expect him to lower the seat at my place, I should be kind enough to raise it at his. I suppose he has a point.

I plan to expound on two of my peeves in this post: church signs and forwarded emails.

Catchy church signs annoy the mess out of me. Why? Because they are so stinkin’ cheesy!! Come on! Why would anyone want to join a church that advertises the following:

Trade God your pieces for His peace
Make your eternal reservations now… smoking or non-smoking
We’re too blessed to be depressed
God grades on the cross, not the curve
This church is prayer-conditioned
Warning: exposure to the Son may prevent burning
For all you do, His blood’s for you
Read the Bible, it will scare the hell out of you.

Forget about the fact that this is drivel for the most part, let’s see how many people groups can be alienated with just these very FEW sayings. There are thousands more… but it would take too long to continue the rant. Those suffering from mental illness are hit with the “depressed” statement. The smokers are certainly damned. Skin cancer patients will line up at the door of the church with the health warning and beer drinkers will certainly feel comfortable.

The ONLY things that should be advertised on a church sign are meeting times, event announcements and scripture passages. Really. That’s all. Any clever play on words will offend some and irritate most. Leave. It. Alone.

Forwarded emails give me almost the same amount of indigestion. If an email is going to be forwarded to 50 of your closest cybernet friends, the least you can do is delete all those address/forwards that appear at the top of the page. If I have to scroll fifteen feet down to get to the meat of the email, chances are the delete button will be hit before I go a quarter of an inch.

Some forwarded emails get deleted without even opening them. They typically come from those nearest and dearest to your heart bearing the subject line
FW:: FW::FW::FW::FW::FW::Send this to 15 people and you will win a million dollars from The House of Fred.
No. I will not forward it to even one person. As a matter of fact, I don’t know who the House of Fred is, and I do not intend to find out who the House of Fred is, whether I stand a chance at a million dollars or not. If Fred were that impressive, he would call me directly and give me the good news.

Then there are those forwarded emails that bear the worst art that has been created on the planet. Maybe it is the angel guarding the two small children crossing the bridge. I can get this picture at any Mapco or Cracker Barrel in the country… so I suppose I need to be grateful for those people who feel the need to send me my very own copy. Or, the art will bear close resemblance to the aforementioned cheesy advertising. It is typically going to be a Photoshopped version of some masterpiece with a warrior angel rising from the ashes of New York’s twin towers. Art is in the mind of the beholder, and all I can say is that there are some warped people in the world. Please stop sending me emails of bad art. Please. I will give to your children’s college funds if you can stop the insanity.

Of course, I will get the money by sending out emails.

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